Vice Versa
Vice Versa is a fanzine published anonymously by Eydthe Eyde in the 1940s in Los Angeles, California. U.S.A.
Vice Versa is credited as being the first publication to appear devoted to lesbians. It was created by Eydthe Eyde, who typed each issue while at work as a secretary at RKO studios using a carbon paper to make 4 copies, and then repeated the process to create 10 copies of each issue. Although not usually referred to as a "zine", Eyde was involved in the science fiction community of the day, so there is reason to believe she was following in this tradition. The cover consisted of only the tile, typed directly in center of an other wise blank sheet of paper.
The first issue of Vice Versa, appearing in 1947, were mailed to friends of Eyde. When she learned it was illegal to mail any material about gays or lesbians, she delivered to the zine by hand to readers.
Vice Versa consisted of book and movie reviews, science fiction stories by Eyde and contributions by Forrest J. Ackermann, editor of Voice of the Imagi-Nation.
There were no names included in the publication at the time. Later, Eyde began writing for the lesbian periodical The Ladder and used the name Lisa Ben, an anagram of "lesbian" and this name was ascribed to Vice Versa. Much later, in the early 2000s, Eyde was accorded many honors as one of the pioneers of gay and lesbian journalism, as it was at this time that knowledge of her editorship and Ackerman's involvement was made public.
In March 2011 there was a copy of one of the 10 first issues for sale on eBay from the personal collection of Forrest Ackerman. There were no bids placed, and the zine was withdrawn from sale.
