Jack Chapman Miske
(August 17, 1920 – December 6, 2003)
J. Chapman Miske was "The first fan to make Cleveland famous," according to Harry Warner. He found sf with the April 1931 Wonder. He was a member of the SFL and New Fandom. He was an actifan from 1937, when he requested a copy of Fantascience Digest from Robert A. Madle, until 1943 when he was inducted into the military. He also wrote weird fiction. Miske served as an officer of FAPA for most of his tenure in fandom.
Miske had a reputation for getting into feuds on par with Donald Wollheim's, due, in part to his pseudonymous column "Stardust" in Warner's Spaceways, written under the penname Star-Treader. However, when he appeared at Chicon in 1940, the reality was much more subdued.
He received a letter from Earl Singleton dated February 10, 1941, which caused him to doubt the pseuicide.
Miske co-edited some issues of the fanzine Scienti-Snaps with Walter E. Marconette beginning in August 1939 through its final issue in 1941, when the name was changed to Bizarre. He also published Chaos.
Miske seems to have gafiated in 1943, although he attended the Clevention, the 1955 Worldcon, without making much of a fuss and simply sat back and watched other fans without resuming his own fannish activity following the con.
Following World War II, Miske worked as editor and eventually editor-in-chief of Foundry Magazine.
| From Fancyclopedia 1, ca. 1944 |
| Star-Treader – Pename of a columnist in Spaceways (and later Fanfare), about whose identity there was much speculation and about whose remarks there was much comment. It turned out to be J. Chapman Miske. |
- Photo on page 194 of Harry Warner's All Our Yesterdays.
- Obit in Locus, May 2004.
- Early short biography in Who's Who in Fandom 1940, page 10.
- Bizarre
- Chaos
- Scienti-Snaps (with Walter E. Marconette) [1939–41]
| Person | 1920—2003 |
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