Taral Wayne

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(October 12, 1951 – July 31, 2024)

Taral Wayne (né Wayne MacDonald), a lifelong resident of the Toronto area, was one of Canada's best known fanartists, and was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Fan Artist eleven times. Taral was named Fan GoH by the 2009 Worldcon, Anticipation, which built a replica of his living room in its concourse.

His fan name, "Taral," originated from a fictional synthetic language, Siroihin, that he described in one of his early fanzines. His alter ego, Saara Mar, also came from Taral’s fictional world.

Wayne began his involvement in science fiction fandom in 1971, when he joined the local Ontario Science Fiction Club (OSFiC) for which he was an officer multiple times. He was part of the New Derelicts. He co-founded Ditto with Catherine Crockett and helped run Ditto 1. He was one of the organizers of Chromecon and ran the first four Torques. He chaired Fan Fair III in 1975.

Over the years, he contributed art and writing to a wide variety of fanzines and semiprozines, as well as publishing his own. Other apas he was a member of include AZAPA, FAPA, OASIS, Rowrbrazzle and Vootie. Murray Moore edited a fanthology of his writing for Ditto 15 titled Old Toys: A Tarable Collection.

He co-edited the newszine DNQ with Victoria Vayne in 1978–84. He was an unsuccessful TAFF candidate in 1983 and DUFF in 1989.

In the late 1980s, he made the jump to professional illustration, by necessity working mainly outside the science fiction genre.

During the 1990s, Taral focused more on comic book work. His major achievement was the Furry comic title Tales of Beatrix (Mu Press & Vision Comics). Taral also created many back covers for Gremlin Trouble, a comic published by AB Pixilations. He was a founder of Furry Fandom.

He was known for being strongly opinionated and often curmudgeonly. Patrick Nielsen Hayden, another onetime Derelict, described Taral in a Facebook comment as “grumpy and an oddball and brilliant.”

In his later years, Taral suffered from myasthenia gravis. He was found dead in his apartment by his friend, Toronto fan Steven Baldassarra.

Fanzines and Apazines:

Awards, Honors and GoHships:


Person 1951—2024
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