Nils Helmer Frome
Nils Helmer Frome (1918 -1962) was a zinester and artist from Fraser Mills, British Columbia, Canada.
Nils Helmer Frome was born in Sweden in 1918 and came to Canada with his family in 1924. He worked in the cook house at the Bloedel lumber camp. He later returned to Sweden for major surgery and ended up in Wales, where he died destitute at the age of 43.
Nils Helmer Frome is likely the first Canadian zinester. Frome was the publisher of Supramundane Stories, a Science Fiction fanzine which is believed to be the first Science Fiction zine to appear in Canada, and perhaps the first zine to be published in Canada. The first issue was published by Frome in January 1937 and made using a multigraph machine sold to him by C. Hamilton Bloomer, editor of Tesseract. The second issue appeared in March 1938. It contained two pieces by H. P. Lovecraft; "Nyarlathotep" and "Notes On Writing Weird Fiction". Other contributors included J. Harvey Haggard, Duane Rimel and Clarke Ashton Smith. Only two issues were ever published. After this Frome produced one issue of Fantasy Pictorial in 1938, a fanzine devoted to his illustrations. Although he published no new fanzines after this, Frome remained active in Science Fiction fandom clubs and circles and continued contributing to fanzines.
Nils Frome was a contributor to the 1940's SF fanzine Canadian Fandom. He also contributed to Light, another early Science Fiction fanzine edited by Leslie Croutch of Ontario, Canada, where his artwork appears on two covers. As well, he contributed to Helios and The Golden Atom, including an article entitled "But Stars Still Shine!".
Frome regularly wrote to H.P. Lovecraft, and their correspondence has been collected and published in the books Uncollected Letters by Necronomicon Press in 1986 and in Howard Philips Lovecraft and Nils Helmer Frome: A Recollection of One of Canada's Earliest Science Fiction Fans, edited by Sam Moskovitz and published by Moshassuck Press, Moshassuck Monogram Series Number 5, in 1989.
