X DOCUMENT

from Fancyclopedia 2

In September 1945 Wollheim and Michel planned to cut Doc Lowndes, Jim Blish, Judy Zissman, and Virginia Kidd out of the Futurians, as they had, 'tis said, done to Cy Kornbluth, Harry Dockweiler, and Dick Wilson on various previous occasions. This time, tho, Judy and Larry Shaw collected the other Futurians -- the ostracizees plus damon knight and Chet Cohen -- and threw Wollheim and Michel out of the Futurian Society, instead. This action was made known in the X document, a four-page one-shot whose intended title was "X Prime". (The Futurians had once had an organ titled "X"; for this, cover-artist Larry Shaw got confused between X' and X₁, and used the latter, which most fans read as "#1" instead of "Sub One".) It went to the membership of FAPA and VAPA, and a few days later the summonses started to arrive; Wollheim sued for "defamation of character, mental injury, threat to livelihood" and asked damages of $25,000 -- thus beginning a tradition. After a get-together by the judge and lawyers for both sides, the case was thrown out, but it quite wrecked the old Futurians. After the noise and tension died, various of the seven sued members began to get under each others' skins in different ways, and by tacit agreement the Futurian Society of New York was left to die in peace.