Denis Gifford
(December 26, 1927 – May 18, 2000)
Denis Gifford was a UK fan and pro from London active from the 1940s. He is best known as a writer, artist, historian, critic and collector in the field of film and especially comics. He's undoubtedly a significant figure although his work there is largely outside the scope of Fancyclopedia.
He had been a schoolfriend of both Bryan Berry and Bob Monkhouse and began publishing comics in 1942 at the age of 14.
He attended the London SF Con of 1952 and the Coroncon of 1953. Walt Willis met him at the former:
We turn our attention to one Dennis [sic] Gifford whose ceaseless effort to sell his production Space Patrol Handbook was quite a feature of the Convention. He even persuaded the redoubtable Ted Tubb, prince of auctioneers, to accept a copy as part payment for a magazine he had bid for. But this night, flushed apparently with the success of having sold two copies in as many hours, he rashly tries Bill and me. We have him go through the whole thing on the grounds that we don't want to buy a pig in a poke, and after some twenty minutes of wisecracks about the contents gravely explain that we don’t need to buy one now cos we've read it. However we do, because Gifford turns out to be a Pogo fan from way back and we Pogo fans must stick together – especially when there's a chance of borrowing some old issues of Pogo and Albert[1].
Perhaps Eric Bentcliffe bought one of those two copies. He reported on the work in question:
Just completed by Dennis [sic] Gifford is a SPACE-PATROL HANDBOOK, and among items included in this are an Interplanetary Passport, glossary of a Venusian, Martian, Plutonian, etc., Spaceship Recognition, and quite a number of other items. Further information may be obtained from Dennis at 16, Sydenham Pk. in London S. E. 26[2]
Straight Up #3 (May 1952) reported that Gifford:
will be writing a regular film column. Denis[3] know more about films than anyone else I have come into contact with in this country so you may look forward to the latest in this ever expanding field.
In his column in #4 he spoke of the 'brilliant display of mediocrity the LonConCom presented to us' in the films shown at the London SF Con.
____
- ↑ 'The Harp in England', Quandry #22 (July 1952).
- ↑ Current Science Fiction #35 (May 1952)
- ↑ Fred Robinson knew how to spell his name.
| Person | 1927—2000 |
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