by Dick Lupoff; "The First (arf, arf) Superhero of Them All (Popeye)" by Bill Blackbeard; "OK, Axis, Here We Come!" by Don Thompson; "One on All and All on One" by Tom Fagan; "A Swell Bunch of Guys" by Jim Harmon; "The Four-Panelled, Sock-Bang-Powie Saturday Afternoon Screen" by Chris Steinbrunner; "Captain Billy's Whiz Gang!" by Roy Thomas; "The Second Banana Superheroes" by Ron Goulart; and "Comic of the Absurd" by Harlan Ellison. These articles were later collected in the hardcover book All in Color for a Dime (Arlington House, 1970), reprinted in paperback by Ace Books in 1971 and Krause Publications in 1997. Other articles and art from Xero were reprinted in The Best of Xero, published by San Francisco's Tachyon Publications in 2004. John Hertz reviewed The Best of Xero in Emerald City: Davidson, Carter, and Stiles all contributed to Xero; Stiles, who in 2004 was on the Best Fanartist ballot, then drew with a stylus on mimeograph stencils, the technology of the day. Pat & Dick Lupoff typed stencils in their Manhattan apartment, printed them on a machine in Noreen & Larry Shaw’s basement, collated by hand, and lugged the results to SF cons or stuffed them in mailboxes. The machine had not been given by Damon Knight, A. J. Budrys explained in a letter after a while, but lent. Eventually drawings could be scanned by electro-stencil, a higher tech. Colored ink joined colored paper, sometimes wildly colored. Xero could be spectacular. Knight later founded the Science Fiction Writers of America; he and Budrys were each later Writer Guest of Honor at a Worldcon. James Blish won two Retrospective Hugos in 2004; in Xero he reviewed Budrys’ Rogue Moon (not reprinted by Tachyon), and Kingsley Amis’ New Maps of Hell. You’ll also see Anthony Boucher, Harlan Ellison, Ethel Lindsay, Fred Pohl, Rick Sneary, Bob Tucker as "Hoy Ping Pong", Harry Warner—fans and pros mixing it up. Roger Ebert, later a movie critic, contributed poetry, often free-style, or formal and funny in his fanziner’s version of Browning’s "Last Duchess": This crud I print for you disgusts me; the thud Is of your fanzine dully falling. Awards Xero won the Hugo Award for Best Fanzine in 1963. References External links Artwork from Xero Horton, Rich. "The Best of Xero: a review by Rich Horton" Hertz, John. "Distilled Spirit of a Classic Fanzine" Defunct literary magazines published in the United States