Jophan

Jophan is an archetype of a particular kind of fan (after but not more than an allusion to Bob Tucker's "Joe Fan"). Jophan is the main character in Walt Willis' and Bob Shaw's famous faanfiction allegory The Enchanted Duplicator, which in turn is a kind of Pilgrim's Progress of fanzine fandom (although its good advice is applicable to other areas of the microcosm as well). Tucker’s “Joe Fan” was your “average” active fan, whereas Jophan was the archetypical prototype of an extraordinary fanzine fan.

Contributors: Dr. Gafia

from Fancyclopedia 2 ca. 1959

or Joe Fann (Tucker) Originated as a sort of pename in LeZombie; credited with various gaglines and criticisms which Tucker thought up and wished some reader had remarked. Then Perdue began sending Tucker postcards from all over the country, signed by Joe Fann, and Joe was finally adopted by fans in general as the fans' idea of the typical fan. He is a young fellow, not long out of adolescence, who faunches to set the world on fire but isn't sure how to go about it. He hasn't had much experience with the opposite sex, but shows a great eagerness to learn. He gets grand ideas about putting out forty-'leven different super-duper fanzines, of which one or two may materialize in unprepossessing formats. He reads all the proz thru his thick-lensed glasses, even when there are a dozen a month, and writes detailed letters to the editors (especially picking out flaws in science) and goes into ecstasy when one of them is published. He thinks fans are the swellest people on earth, and would murder his grandmother for money to go to a convention; but since he hasn't a grandmother will ride the rods if necessary. He puts stf into everything he says and does — his work, school papers, den, 'n' everything. He's a good deal of a fuggheaded dope. Fortunately the picture is not true to life, is it? Jophan, the hero of Walt Willis' The Enchanted Duplicator, is quite a different character despite the derivation of his name from the above, and in his pilgrimage from the Land of Mundane to Trufandom manages to avoid, or be rescued from, the grisly neofannish characteristics outlined above. But then Jophan had the Spirit of Trufandom to guide him.