Le Zombie

{{Use mdy dates|date=March 2025}} '''''Le Zombie''''' was an intermittent ("Published every time a zombie awakens") science fiction fanzine, of which 72 issues were published by science fiction fan and author Bob Tucker from December 1938 to August 2001. The first issue was a single, crudely mimeographed sheet; the last printed issue was published in December 1975 by planography. After a 25-year hiatus, Tucker resumed publishing in 2000; these last 5 issues (also referred to as ''eZombie'', but preserving the same numbering sequence) were electronically published as a webzine.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.midamericon.org/tucker/lez68.htm |title=e~Zombie #68 |publisher=Midamericon.org |date= |accessdate=2017-03-24}}</ref> The title refers to the "Tucker death hoaxes" which played such a distinctive role in fan history.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.smithway.org/fstuff/theory/phil6.html |title=the philosophical theory of fan history|accessdate=2008-12-16 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20090108033936/http://www.smithway.org/fstuff/theory/phil6.html |archivedate=2009-01-08 }}</ref>

Many phrases and fan writing techniques have their origins in the pages of ''Le Zombie'', including the term space opera,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Prucher |first1=Jeffrey |title=Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction |last2=Wolfe |first2=Gene |date=2007 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=9780195305678 |location=New York |page=[https://archive.org/details/bravenewwordsoxf00pruc/page/208 208]}}</ref> and the use of the slash to indicate a thought was struck through.<ref name="Warner">{{cite book|last1=Warner|first1=Harry|authorlink=Harry Warner|last2=Siclari|first2=Joe|title=All Our Yesterdays: An Informal History of Science Fiction fandom in the 1940s|date=2004|publisher=NESFA Press|location=Framingham, Massachusetts|isbn=1886778132}}</ref>{{rp|41–42}} Beginning in mid-1942, ''Le Zombie'', along with Harry Warner's ''Spaceways'', began sponsoring the "Fanzine Service" as a way of distributing fanzines to people who were serving in the World War II.<ref name="Warner"/>{{rp|156}}

In his obituary of Tucker, John Clute wrote: "It is only in recent years that academic critics have begun to come to terms with the huge amount of intellectual activity - along with pre-blog gossip - that filled [science fiction] fanzines, perhaps the most brilliant of them being Bob Tucker's ''Le Zombie''."<ref>{{cite web|author=John Clute |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/wilson-tucker-419643.html |title=Wilson Tucker |work=The Independent |date=2006-10-11 |accessdate=2017-03-24}}</ref>

==References== {{reflist}}

==External links== *[http://www.midamericon.org/tucker/currentlez.htm ''Le Zombie'' and eZombie online] *[https://web.archive.org/web/20091009222559/http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/spec-coll/about/itemofthemonth/2008-05-lezombie.html University of Iowa Libraries - Special collection of the Month, May 2008]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Zombie}} Category:Bloomington, Illinois Category:Defunct science fiction magazines published in the United States Category:Magazines disestablished in 2001 Category:Magazines established in 1938 Category:Magazines published in Illinois Category:Science fiction fanzines published in the United States