Turner, Harry
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Artist, Editor, Fan.
(1920-2009) UK fan, artist, industrial chemist and advertising manager, eventually working in the last capacity for the Manchester Guardian and Evening News. He was first active in Fandom from the late 1930s to the end of the 1950s, drawing covers for the Fanzine incarnation of New Worlds in 1939 and publishing various fanzines including Zenith (six issues plus a letters supplement, 1941-1953) and, with Eric Needham, Now & Then (nine issues 1954-1957) [see Checklist below]; he also produced the souvenir programme book for Supermancon, the 1954 Eastercon. Turner returned to Fandom in the 1970s with artwork for Lisa Conesa's Zimri, and much later contributed memories of early UK fandom to Rob Hansen's Then (1988-1993 4vols; much exp vt Then: Science Fiction Fandom in the UK: 1930-1980 2016); he continued to create fanzine art in the twenty-first century.
Besides his work for fanzines, Turner designed covers for a number of Small Presses, in particular Steve Sneyd's Hilltop Press. His first professionally published art book, somewhat tangential to sf, was Triad Optical Illusions and How To Design Them (graph 1978 chap; cut vt The Triad Optical Illusions Coloring Book 2006 chap), exploring the possibilities of mosaic patterns based on an "impossible triangle" building-block; he created many intriguing fanzine illustrations using variations on this theme. [DRL]
Harry Turner
born Manchester, England: 8 August 1920
died 11 January 2009
works
- Triad Optical Illusions and How To Design Them (New York: Dover Publications, 1978) [chap: graph: pb/Harry Turner]
- The Triad Optical Illusions Coloring Book (New York: Dover Publications, 2006) [chap: graph: cut vt of the above, omitting almost all text explanation: pb/Harry Turner]
- The Second Triad Coloring Book (Romiley, Greater Manchester, England: Farrago Books, 2013) [chap: graph: pb/Harry Turner]
works as editor
- Now & Then Revisited (Romiley, Greater Manchester, England: Farrago Books, 2013) [assembling all issues of Now & Then with additional material: compiled by Philip Turner: pb/Harry Turner]
links
previous versions of this entry