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| RIP: Jim Stringham | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Jul 26 2014, 06:46 PM (173 Views) | |
| riddlerider | Jul 26 2014, 06:46 PM Post #1 |
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Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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A few hours ago I learned that Jim Stringham, serial fan extraordinaire, passed away on July 13th at the age of 78. This is a major blow to serial fandom. For those of you who don't know, Jim was the primary contributor of visual material to Bob Malcolmson's classic serial fanzine, Those Enduring Matinee Idols. The vast majority of stills reproduced in that publication -- I'd say 90 per cent or more -- came from Jim. He had the greatest collection of serial memorabilia ever amassed by one person: stills, posters, pressbooks, lobby cards, complete scripts, etc. And he was always buying stuff. Like many of us, he had multiple interests in American pop culture: comics, pulps, Old Time Radio, and so on. Although I hadn't seen or talked to Jim for some time before his death, we spent a good 20 years trading and selling to each other. He was extraordinarily generous when it came to sharing his collection with writers and historians. While I was researching Distressed Damsels and Masked Marauders he supplied me with reams of paper copied from records on deposit at the Library of Congress, including chapter synopses (filed for copyright purposes) from most of the Pathé serials. He also loaned me dozens of stills than I scanned for both DD&MM and the upcoming Handsome Heroes and Vicious Villains. Jim did considerable writing on chapter plays himself for such fan publications as Serial World and others whose titles escape me at the moment. I never knew him to refuse assistance to someone working on a worthwhile serial-related project. Beyond that, Jim was a wonderful person. He was shy, quiet, unassuming, but always kind and considerate. His was one of the first Christmas cards I got every year. I don't know anyone who ever said a bad word about him. I can't honestly say I was an intimate friend of his, but I'll certainly miss him. I heard about Jim's passing from a book dealer who just acquired most of his books. (Apparently, two other dealers got all the stills, posters, lobby cards, etc.) Among these are numerous file copies of TEMI given to Jim by Bob Malcolmson. According to the dealer, these are unread, uncirculated copies in boxes as shipped from the printer. My dealer friend doesn't know how many complete sets he'll have once the pieces are counted, but he wanted me to spread the word. He hasn't made a firm decision as to pricing, but he threw out a figure of ten bucks per issue, which strikes me as pretty reasonable for uncirculated file copies. So if any of you would like to pick up complete mint sets, drop me a line and I'll let you know when my friend gets around to compiling them. (Hopefully in the next few weeks.) Meanwhile, let's have a moment of silence for one of the pioneer serial fans, one of the guys who enriched the hobby immeasurably. |
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6:52 AM Jul 11