Despatch

Despatch
Issue 17 Fall 1973
Cover art by Ellen Winder

Despatch was a media science fiction fanzine published by Ruth Berman.

Despatch was the official organ of the Mark Lenard International Fan Club, a club that was based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. Published from October 1968 until the early 1980s, 44 issues were released. Mark Lenard was an actor who appeared as the Vulcan character "Sarek", father of "Dr. Spock", on the original television series run of Star Trek, and as various other characters in the later Star Trek films. During the run of the fanzine, the title alternated between Despatch and The Despatch. It was one of the earliest fanzines devoted to Star Trek to feature fan-fiction. There was also cross-over fiction that featured the other television series that Mark Lenard appeared in, including Hawaii Five-O, Here Come The Brides, and Planet of the Apes. Also included were letters of comment, articles, art work, essays, songs, photos of Mark Lenard, poetry, crossword puzzles, cartoons, con reports, and reviews.

Contributors of art work included Alicia Austin (Kevas and Trillium), Terry Austin, George Barr, Gail Barton (Eridani Triad), Tim Courtney, Jane Dalley, Daphne Hamilton, Marg Harris, Marilyn Hawkes, C. Lee Healy, Greg Jein, Tim Kirk, Chris Lofthus, J. Murdock Mathew, MER, Joyce Muskat, Mary Ellen Rabogliatti, Vicki Skidmore, Dawna Snyder, Cara Sherman Tereno (Romulan Wine), Anthony Tollin, Donna Wilson, and Ellen Winder, among others.

Contributors of cartoons included Paula Nass, among others.

Contributors of articles included Ruth Berman, Maureen Bourne (Kevas and Trillium), Lee Burwasser, Paula Crist, Dorothy Jones Heydt, Devra Michele Langsam (Spockanalia), Carol Lee, Shirley Maiewski, Sheryl McNevin, Ev Turner, Rosemary Ullyot (Kevas and Trillium), and Maureen Wilson, among others.

Poetry and limericks were contributed by Jane Aumerle, Ruth Berman, Jane Dalley, Shirley Meech (Plak-Tow), Nan Miller, and Mary Ellen Rabogliatti, among others.

Filk songs were contributed by Marion Lois Turner.

Fiction was contributed by Doris Beetem (Eridani Triad), Ruth Berman, Judith Brownlee (Eridani Triad), Rusty Hancock, Pat Kienly, Jean Lorrah (Pandora), Nancy Ann Miller, Susan Price, D. Carol Roberts (Impulse), Eileen Roy, and Norma M. Smith, among others.

Other writing was contributed by Astrid Anderson, Kay Anderson (ST-Phile), Ruth Berman, Jane Dalley, Denise Grushon, Daphne Ann Hamilton, Dorothy Jones Heydt, Barbara Lawrence Maiewski, among others.

Despatch featured reprints from the fanzines Babelian Council, Eridani Triad, Pastaklan Vesla, Plak-Tow, Spockanalia, ST-Phile, and T-Negative.

In the late 1950s, Ruth Berman co-published All Mimsy with Eleanor Arnason and Ron Whyte. In the early 1960s, she published NeoLithic and Dinky Bird, and then later in the decade, Despatch and Inside Star Trek, two of the few fanzines to appear during the original run of the television series, which was followed by T-Negative. In the 1970s, she also published The Star Trek Songbook. In the 1960s and 1970s, Ruth Berman was also publishing the Sherlock Holmes anthology, SH - sf Fanthology.