Myrtle R. Douglas, otherwise known as Morojo was born in June 1904. Between the years of 1938 and 1958, she edited three separate long-running sci-fi fanzines and wrote editorials for several major early sci-fi “pro”-mags in the early ’40s. Active in the Los Angeles Science Fiction Society, the couple collaborated on the production of an eight-year, 50-issue run of the club’s official zine Voice of the Imagi-Nation as well as their own fanzine Novacious.
Myrtle Rebecca “Mō-rō ‘yō” Douglas Smith Gray Nolan was a Gemini, born in June 1904. She was an atheist, an active member of the Los Angeles Science Fiction Society, and a proponent of the 19th-century constructed auxiliary language Esperanto, meant to foster communication and understanding between people of all cultures. (Obviously, she was a big nerd.)
For more than 10 years Morojo and her “Bae” Forrest J Ackerman (Forrie) were an inseparable, intellectually compatible dream duo, and 1939 was an especially big year for the pair: they started their first major zine together, jointly financed the publication of teenage Ray Bradbury’s first sci-fi zine, and attended the first-ever World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon) wearing “futuristicostumes” straight out of the 1936 H.G. Wells movie Things to Come – the FIRST FAN COSTUMES EVER WORN IN RECORDED HISTORY.
Handsome Forrie cut a dashing figure in his giant shoulder pads and breeches, tiny Morojo’s ball gown converted into a ROMPER with a CAPE, and every other attendee who wasn’t busy hatin’ on ’em for out-fanning the rest of the world started planning their own costumes for next year.
