Sid Altus

(October 1, 1949 –)

Detroit native and fan Sid Altus became active in the 1970s. In those days, he was an avid collector of sf art and videotapes, a poker player, a habituate of such conventions as Midwestcon and ConFusion and a pal of Lou Tabakow, Bill Cavin and other CFG members.

In the 1970s and ’80s, he hosted a series of weekend-long house parties called Sidcon, drawing a number of traveling jiants, and showing movies on his big-screen projection TV (at a time when those were rare). Among other films, he showed Rocky Horror Picture Show well before it had developed a following. Sid also arranged for a number of Detroit fen to attend an advance screening of Star Wars.

Sid was a member of the Detroit in '82 Worldcon bid.

He and Alex Berman co-founded a small press, Phantasia Press, which published high-end limited editions of hardcover sf aimed at the collectors' market. Phantasia books would typically appear as first editions, just before the work was published in a much larger edition brought out out by a larger publisher. Most of the original art from their cover paintings wound up on Sid's walls.

In mundania, Sid was co-owner and manager of a pair of army-navy surplus stores. Among his employees was a teenaged Leah Zeldes.

In the 1980s, he married a mundane, was fafiated and forced to sell off much of his art collection. After his divorce, Sid became a revenant to a limited extent, but ill health kept him from returning to traveling fandom. He is doing well after a kidney transplant but still not able to attend cons.

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Person

1949—

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