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Author: Doug Ellis

Why You Should Go to Conventions

Why You Should Go to Conventions

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The Dray Prescot series, by Alan Burt Akers

Last month, I posted in a couple of Facebook groups a piece of new art that Deb and I had bought. In response to the post, one person asked how to go about acquiring illustration art, and I mentioned that one good venue was going to conventions such as The Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention (shameless plug) or PulpFest for vintage art, or IX or Spectrum Fantastic Art Live for new stuff. And many of the larger comic conventions also have some dealers who specialize in vintage illustration art, or artist attendees doing current work. And several SF/fantasy conventions, such as World Fantasy, Boskone or Worldcon still have good art rooms (and Boskone in particular has strong vintage art components to their art shows), though in most cases SF cons are not what they used to be when it comes to art. In addition to conventions, I also mentioned various auction houses, eBay and dealers, which are more typical day-to-day places to find illustration art, as cons are scattered throughout the year and most of us can’t attend all of them.

Of course, this is only my opinion, and others may have different experiences, particularly when it comes to collecting newer illustration art. Our focus is on older illustration art, and while we do have several pieces that have been created in the past few years, the bulk of our collection is illustration art that’s at least 30 years old, with the majority of it at least 60 years old and some over 100 years old.

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Julius Schwartz on A. Merritt, Amazing Stories, and the First Worldcon

Julius Schwartz on A. Merritt, Amazing Stories, and the First Worldcon

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The first Worldcon, July 1939. Left to right: Jack Darrow, Jack Williamson,
Julius Schwartz, unknown, and Conrad Rupert. Photo by Bill Dellenback

While letters from and to Otto Binder made up the majority of the correspondence I acquired from the estate of Clifford Kornoelje (aka in science fiction circles as Jack Darrow), Binder wasn’t the only science fiction notable that Darrow corresponded with. One of his other correspondents was Julius Schwartz, remembered today for his roles in both the science fiction and comics fields. I thought I’d post two of those letters from Schwartz — along with some related material — today.

The first letter from Schwartz to Darrow is dated December 12, 1932. The Mort that he refers to in several places is their mutual friend, Mort Weisinger. It has a mention of Astounding, a mention of a dinner that Schwartz (and presumably Weisinger as well) will be having with pulp author David H. Keller. And most particularly, it has an interesting bit resulting from an interview that Schwartz had conducted with A. Merritt two weeks earlier. I don’t know if Merritt actually sued Amazing, as Schwartz claims, or whether he just threatened them, but Amazing did run an apology in their June 1933 issue.

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Otto Binder on H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard

Otto Binder on H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard

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In late December 1935, science fiction author Otto Binder moved from Chicago to NYC to represent Otis Adelbert Kline’s literary agency. Among the authors he represented for Kline’s agency was Robert E. Howard. Binder had been to NYC previously, in late June and early July 1935, with his friends Clifford Kornoelje (better known in SF circles as Jack Darrow) and Bill Dellenback.

As I’ve mentioned before, back in 2001 I bought a few boxes of correspondence from Darrow’s estate, including dozens of letters that Binder had written to Darrow over the course of many decades. In going through them last month, I pulled this one and thought I’d post it today.

Once in NYC, Otto quickly resumed his friendships with Mort Weisinger and Charles Hornig, and rapidly met more figures involved in the local science fiction community. Less than two weeks after he’d arrived, he was invited to a gathering at Frank Belknap Long’s place, which was held on Friday, January 3, 1936. Binder and Long were fellow Weird Tales authors, with Binder and his brother, Earl, having sold WT some stories under their Eando Binder penname.

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Otto Binder on John W. Campbell

Otto Binder on John W. Campbell

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John W. Campbell (photo by Astounding cover artist Hubert Rogers)

Back to Otto Binder letters today. This one, from Binder to his friend, Jack Darrow, dated May 23, 1937, was written just before Binder was cut loose from Otis Adelbert Kline’s literary agency, which happened on June 1 of that year. As a result of his job upheaval, Binder spent some time, unsuccessfully, trying to land a gig as an editor (and a few years later interviewed with Ziff-Davis re: the Amazing Stories opening before it was given to Ray Palmer).

The letter is primarily of interest due to its discussion of John W. Campbell, a few months before Campbell would become editor of Astounding. It’s a shame that no more detailed record of the story telling game played at Binder’s house between him, Dr. John Clark, Frank Belknap Long, Campbell and Campbell’s wife exists; it would have been fascinating to sit in on this! Binder is clearly a fan of Campbell’s fiction (later on, when he found it difficult to sell to him at Astounding, he was not nearly as much a fan of his editing).

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Jack Binder and the Early Chicago SF Fan Club

Jack Binder and the Early Chicago SF Fan Club

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Back in the mid-1930’s, one of the most active science fiction fan clubs was the Chicago Science Fiction Club, which had among its members such fans as Jack Darrow (among fandom’s most prolific writers of letters of comment to the SF pulps), Earl and Otto Binder (the Eando Binder writing team), Jack Binder (their brother, an artist), Walter Dennis and Paul McDermott (both of who had started the Science Correspondence Club in 1929 and later published The Comet, edited by Ray Palmer and arguably the first SF fanzine), William Dellenback, Allen Kline (brother of author Otis Adelbert Kline) and Howard Funk. The Chicago Club had formed as the Chicago Chapter of the Science Fiction League, the nationwide fan organization created and promoted by Wonder Stories. The Chicago Chapter’s activities were prominent in the pages of Wonder Stories, and in Sam Moskowitz’ words, it was “the outstanding chapter of the time.”

From November 1935 to the Spring of 1937, the Club published a fanzine called The 14 Leaflet. The Spring 1937 issue is available online as a pdf in the fanzine section of fanac.org. The copy that’s online, however, is missing the first interior page of the issue. Following the cover (by William Dellenback; I acquired his original preliminary for it back in 2001 when I bought material from Jack Darrow’s estate) but before page 1, many copies of the issue had another page inserted, which contained 19 very small photos (all taken by Dellenback) of various club members. The photos were all glued to a plain sheet of white paper, with numbers identifying them, with the code, revealing the identities of the folks in the photos, on page 2. However, the copy scanned online was apparently missing this photo page. On page 11 of the issue, the editors noted that 50 copies were being printed with the photo page (most going to the members) and 25 copies were being printed without the photo page.

I’ve looked for the Spring 1937 issue of The 14 Leaflet for many years, but had not had any success finding it. I wanted to see those photos!

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Acquiring Michael Whelan’s Cover for The Bane of the Black Sword

Acquiring Michael Whelan’s Cover for The Bane of the Black Sword

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Michael Whelan The Bane of the Black Sword-small Michael Whelan The Bane of the Black Sword DAW-small

I thought I’d move a bit further ahead in time tonight than my usual pulp related posts, though it does have a bit of a pulp connection for me. I was discussing this piece with a friend of mine earlier today, so I figured I’d post it. By Michael Raymond Whelan, this is the cover for The Bane of the Black Sword by Michael Moorcock, featuring the one and only Elric of Melnibone (click the art for bigger versions). Both Deb and I loved the Elric books when we read them as teenagers, in the DAW editions featuring all those great Whelan covers, and when we had the chance to pick this up, we jumped at it.

We bought this in a hotel room many years ago, from our friend Randal Hawkins. He and his wife Donna drove up from the K.C. area with the painting, and we met them at a hotel about half way between there and Chicago to do the deal. It wasn’t the only time we did a deal like that in a hotel room with Randal — we bought other art from him that way as well, over the years, as well as many pulps. Hence the bit of a pulp connection for me. Those were good hotel rooms! Randal passed away much too young, but we have fond memories of visiting with him and Donna in K.C., looking at their great art collection, as well as their place in Las Vegas. And we often think of him when we look at this piece.

The Great Pulp Gathering: That Time Jack Williamson, L. Sprague de Camp, Frank Belknap Long, Edmond Hamilton, John W. Campbell, Manly Wade Wellman, Otis Adelbert Kline and others met at Mort Weisinger’s House in 1937

The Great Pulp Gathering: That Time Jack Williamson, L. Sprague de Camp, Frank Belknap Long, Edmond Hamilton, John W. Campbell, Manly Wade Wellman, Otis Adelbert Kline and others met at Mort Weisinger’s House in 1937

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weisinger home 1937 07 - top l to r Williamson de Camp Clark Long Weisinger Hamilton Kline bottom l to r Binder Wellman Schwartz-small

From time to time I’ve posted in various places material I acquired at an auction many years ago from the estate of Jack Darrow. In the 1930’s, Darrow (whose real name was Clifford Kornoelje) was pretty much science fiction fan #2 behind Forry Ackerman.

Darrow’s best friend was science fiction pulp author Otto Binder – who, with his brother, Earl, formed half of the writing tandem of Eando Binder (their other brother was pulp/comic artist Jack Binder). By 1936 however, although the byline often continued to read Eando, the stories were written solely by Otto. In 1939, Binder also began working in comics, particularly for Captain Marvel and the other Fawcett titles, though he would eventually work for all the major publishers. Among the material in Darrow’s estate was a box of correspondence between him and Binder about a foot thick.

Among these letters was one from Binder to Darrow, dated July 10, 1937, which was accompanied by two snapshots. On the back of each, Binder writes that these are photos of “science fiction authors at Mort Weisinger’s home June 1937” (the home was in New Jersey). At the time, Weisinger was the editor of Thrilling Wonder Stories.

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Frank Kelly Freas Illustrates A. Bertram Chandler’s “The Far Traveller”

Frank Kelly Freas Illustrates A. Bertram Chandler’s “The Far Traveller”

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Frank Kelly Freas The Far Traveller-small Frank Kelly Freas The Far Traveller b&w-small

Analog August 1976-smallI thought I’d go back to Frank Kelly Freas today, and post one that most folks won’t be familiar with, at least as it looks in the original. This was an interior illustration by Freas for the August 1976 issue of Analog, illustrating A. Bertram Chandler’s “The Far Traveller” (click on the images above for full-size versions). This was one of the tales in Chandler’s Commander Grimes series. The Analog cover, by John Schoenherr, is at right.

Since it was an interior, it was printed in black and white (which you can see above), but the original was in color. I assume Freas did that for the shading effects he’d get when it was reproduced in black and white, but perhaps one of my artist friends can chime in with their thoughts on that.

Art from the SF digests during that period holds a special place for me. This was the summer when, as a 12 year old, I discovered that SF digests were still being published. A few months earlier, I’d found my first SF digests (primarily F&SF from the 1950’s and early 1960’s) at a garage sale in a large barn. But in May 1976, I was spending the day at my dad’s office, and after lunch I went to the drugstore across the street.

There I found the June 1976 issues of both F&SF and Analog, and snapped them up in a heartbeat. After that, I bought them and the other couple of digests then being published religiously. I was fortunate enough many years ago to acquire the cover to that June 1976 Analog (which I’ll post at some point), but the cover for the June 1976 F&SF continues to elude me. But one day!

Witch Doctors and Mind-Reading Sleuths: Richard Powers’ Interior Art for 1950s Men’s Adventure Magazines

Witch Doctors and Mind-Reading Sleuths: Richard Powers’ Interior Art for 1950s Men’s Adventure Magazines

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In going through several hundred issues of men’s adventure magazines for this year’s upcoming Jerry Weist estate auction at the Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention, I came across the interior illo above by Richard Powers. It’s from the January 1957 issue of Men.

I was actually surprised how many great artists appeared in the issues of Men that I went through, including Bama, Saunders, De Soto, Belarski and many, many more. Some really great art in there!

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