Fortean Times is a British monthly magazine devoted to the anomalous phenomena popularised by Charles Fort. Previously published by John Brown Publishing (from 1991 to 2001), I Feel Good Publishing (from 2001 to 2005), Dennis Publishing (from 2005 to 2021), and Exponent (2021), as of December 2021 it is published by Diamond Publishing, part of Metropolis International.
In December 2018, its print circulation was just over 14,800 copies per month. The magazine's tagline is "The World of Strange Phenomena".
History
Origin The roots of the magazine that was to become Fortean Times can be traced back to Bob Rickard's discovering the works of Charles Fort through the secondhand method of reading science-fiction stories: "John Campbell, the editor of Astounding Science Fiction (as Analog was then titled), for example," writes Rickard, "encouraged many authors to expand Fort's data and comments into imaginative stories."
In the mid-1960s, while Rickard was studying product design at Birmingham Art College, he met several like-minded science-fiction fans, particularly crediting fellow student Peter Weston's fan-produced Speculation magazine as helping him to "[learn] the art of putting together a fanzine", some years before he created his own. Attending a science-fiction convention in 1968, Rickard obtained Ace paperback copies of all four of Fort's books from a stall run by Derek Stokes (later to run Dark They Were and Golden Eyed, and take a role in the day-to-day running of The Fortean Times).
After reading an advertisement in the underground magazine Oz (in 1969) for the International Fortean Organization (INFO), an American group "founded in 1966... by Paul and Ronald Willis," who had acquired material from the original Fortean Society (started in 1931, but in limbo since the 1959 death of its founder Tiffany Thayer), Rickard began to correspond with the brothers, particularly Paul. Rickard was instrumental in encouraging the Willises to publish their own Fortean journal – the INFO Journal: Science and the Unknown began intermittent publication in spring, 1967 – and sent them many British newspaper clippings, although few came to print.
Rickard later discovered that the production was fraught behind-the-scenes, as Ronald Willis had been seriously ill, Paul thus finding it difficult to "keep up with things" on his own. Ultimately, the Willises were instrumental in inspiring Rickard to create his own periodical. Ron Willis succumbed to a brain tumour in March 1975. Bearing a date of November 1973, the first issue of Rickard's self-produced and self-published The News was available directly from him.
The News (1973–1976) The magazine which was to continue Fort's work documenting the unexplained was founded by Robert J. M. "Bob" Rickard in 1973 as his self-published, bimonthly, mail-order "hobbyish newsletter" miscellany The News — "A Miscellany of Fortean Curiosities". The title is said to be "a contraction taken from Samuel Butler's The News from Nowhere", (although Rickard may be conflating/confusing Butler's Erewhon and William Morris' News from Nowhere). The News had fairly regular bimonthly publication for 15 issues between November 1973 and April 1976. Debuting at 35p (£1.80/$4.50 for a year of six issuesEarly advertisements promised a monthly, 12-issue subscription for the same price, but monetary and time constraints caused Rickard to move to a bimonthly schedule, and use any 'extra' monies to merely produce a greater number of pages) for 20 pages, The News was produced on Rickard's typewriter, with headings created with Letraset, during (as Rickard says in #2) the late-1970s blackouts. The first issue featured a cover (which would become briefly the unofficial logo of The News) drawn by Rickard from a Selfridges advertisement originally created by Bernard Partridge. From the second issue, pictures and photographs from various newspapers were interpolated within the text. The price was raised slightly for #6 — which also had its page count upped to 24 pages — due in large part to rising postal and paper costs.
Helping behind the scenes was Steve Moore, a kindred spirit whom Rickard met at a comics convention when the latter was a subeditor at IPC. The two found they had much in common, including a love of Chinese mysticism, and Moore helped inspire Rickard to publish The News. The early issues featured some articles by different individuals, but were "largely the work of Bob Rickard, who typed them himself with some help from Steve Moore."
Key News-people Moore and Paul Screeton (then editor of The Ley Hunter), both urged on the "first few uncertain issues" and Moore frequently joined Rickard to "stuff envelopes and hand-write a few hundred addresses" to disseminate the early issues. Rickard also highlights amongst the key early Fortean Times advocates and supporters: Ion Alexis Will, who discovered The News in 1974 and became a "constant [source] of valuable clippings, books, postcards, and entertaining letters"; Janet and Colin Bord, later authors of Mysterious Britain (Janet also wrote for Flying Saucer Review and Lionel Beer's Spacelink, while Colin's Fortean article in Gandalf's Garden was particularly cited by Rickard as bringing him/them to his attention); Phil Ledger, a "peripatetic marine biologist", and The News' "first enthusiastic fan"; Ken Campbell, Fortean theatre director and playwright; John Michell; graphic designer Richard Adams and Dick Gwynn, who both helped with the evolving layout and typesetting of later issues; Chris Squire, who helped organise the first subscription database; Canadian "Mr. X"; Mike Dash; and cartoonist Hunt Emerson. Emerson was introduced to Rickard in late 1974, when after seven issues, he "wanted to improve the graphics", which Emerson certainly did, providing around 30 headings for use in issues #8 onwards. (Emerson's still-on-going monthly "Phenomenomix" strip in FT had its prototype in #11's three-page "Fortean Funnies").
Notable News content Other early contributors included writer and researcher Nigel Watson (chairman of the Scunthorpe UFO Research Society), who wrote "Mysterious Moon" for The News #2. Watson later wrote a regular column of UFO commentary entitled Enigma Variations (from #29), and articles on the subject of UFO-related murders and stories of sexual assault by aliens. Phil Grant wrote about Ley lines for #3, and Mary Caine, who revised an earlier article (from Gandalf's Garden) on The Glastonbury Zodiac for issue #4, which also had the debut of the "Reviews" section, beginning with comments on a book by John Michell, the Sphere reprint of Charles Fort's New Lands and John Sladek's The New Apocrypha. Issues #2 and #3 noted, The News was published "with an arrangement with INFO", this was revised from #4 to it being "affiliated to the International Fortean Organization". From #5, Mark A. Hall produced a section entitled "Fortean USA", continuing on from his earlier, discontinued, newsletter From My Files; issue #5 also had William Porter's article on Llandrillo printed, after being delayed from #4 for space constraints. Janet Bord contributed "Some Fortean Ramblings" alongside William R. Corliss's "The Evolution of the Fortean Sourcebooks" for #7, and issue #8 was the first issue of volume 2, after Rickard decided to end volume 1 with #7 (not #6 as fully bimonthly titles do), since that issue was dated November '74, thereby attempting to keep each volume aligned with a year.
Issue #8 (or, volume 2, issue #1) got the special "Christmas present" of headings by Hunt Emerson, after Rickard was introduced to Emerson by Carol and Nick Moore, as Hunt was working on Large Cow Comix. Described by Rickard as "as much a disciple of George [Herriman]... and my [Rickard's] favourite artists from Mad (Bill Elder and Wally Wood)" as Rickard was of Charles Fort, the two got on well, with Emerson producing not only a series of headings, but also later strips and covers for issues to the present. The death of INFO co-founder Ron Willis was announced in #9, which described itself as providing "bimonthly notes on Fortean phenomena", and an index to the first year's issues (#1–7) became available. Colin Bord penned "Amazing Menagerie" for issue #10, while Paul Devereux and Andrew York compiled an exhaustive study of Leicestershire in "Portrait of a Fault Area", serialised in #11–12. Issue #11 featured Rickard and Emerson's first "Fortean Funnies" cartoon, while #12 had a price rise to 50p/$1.25, a logo change (from Selfridges' herald-on-horseback to the more descriptive Fort's face-encircled) and a tweaking of its tagline to "bimonthly news & notes on Fortean phenomena." Issue #14 first mentioned Rickard and Michell's then-in-production book Phenomena!, which would be more actively trailed from #18. Issue #15 — now with 28 pages — announced that Rickard had decided to bow to popular opinion and retitle his miscellany with a more descriptive title. Thus, with a subtitle of "Portents & Prodigies", Fortean Times was born.
Fortean Times (since 1976) After 15 issues of The News, issue #16 (1976) had the magazine renamed Fortean Times, which "new title emerged from correspondence between Bob Rickard and Paul Willis" — the two having talked of creating a Fortean version of The Times newspaper, "full of weird and wonderful news and read by millions worldwide". Its cover bore the descriptive text "Strange phenomena — curiosities — prodigies — portents — mysteries," while the inside cover kept the "Fort face" logo from later issues of The News, but bore the revised legend "A Contemporary Record of Strange Phenomena". Included within was an offer for a "4-colour silk-screened poster" created by Hunt Emerson for this landmark issue. From the start, this new format compounded earlier financial difficulties for Rickard, following on from #14's plea: "we need more subscribers or we die!". (Fortean Times issues #16–18 — as The News #1–15 before them — were solely edited, published, and in large part written and typed by Rickard himself. Even by passing on rising postal and paper costs to the readership, which Rickard constantly reiterates that he is loath to do, the early Fortean Times was constantly facing an uphill financial battle.) Early editorials of the new FT, therefore (in fact beginning with The News #15) featured a notification of donations received, naming and thanking the hardcore readership (which included many current and future contributors) for monies received, which aided the move towards higher production values. With donations helping to offset costs, the price was held at 50p until issue #20, whereupon the magazine dropped to a quarterly schedule from Spring 1977 (issue #21) — but raised the page count (and price) to continue producing the same amount of material for the same yearly fee (40 pg, 75p ea. or £3/year).