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Superworld Comics

Superworld Comics

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Superworld Comics #1, April 1940 cover

Hugo Gernsback, the self-proclaimed “Father of Science Fiction,” has been lauded a thousand times for publishing the first all science fiction magazine, Amazing Stories. Rightly so, for modern science fiction as a genre starts there. Amazing was launched in 1926, when Gernsback was 42. Gernsback lived another forty-one years and continued to throw off ideas as dervishly as in the first half of his life. Could it be that he has other, perhaps lesser-known, firsts to celebrate? Could it be that he also published the first all science fiction comic book?

Well, not quite. Pulp publisher Fiction House made a simultaneous launch of a science-fiction pulp, Planet Stories, cover-dated Winter 1939, and a comic book, Planet Comics, cover-dated January 1940, and so they get the credit. (The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction gives first place to the most oxymoronically-titled comic, Amazing Mystery Funnies. That featured several sf strips, but those were never even more than half the contents throughout 1939.)

I’m burying the lede. Hugo Gernsback published a comic book!
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Thoughts on Our Ecosystem

Thoughts on Our Ecosystem

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pegasus

This is one of mine. I’m working on getting better.

Good morning, Readers!

One of my favorite conventions, Can*Con, is rapidly approaching (sure, it’s the only convention I can afford to go to, it being in my hometown, and all, but that doesn’t detract from the fact that it is, in truth, a wonderful convention), and I’m excited. This excitement, however, is also tinged with not a little trepidation. There are many reasons for this, but foremost among them is anxiety. I am anxious for a number of reasons.

First among those reasons are the sheer number of people. There will be a lot of them. Some of them will be important-types. Some will be just regular folk like myself. Being a very small, unimportant fish, struggling to grow, being surrounded by much bigger, more successful fish can feel a little suffocating. It’s difficult to get seen, and harder still to be heard.

One of the reasons I so love Can*Con is how, despite how it has continually grown, it hasn’t forgotten those of us who aren’t so big and important. When I first turned up there, I purchased a table to sell my one and only book, a self-published collections of short stories and poems called The Dying God & Other Stories. It was the only thing I had. Despite having only one book, and despite it being a self-published thing, I was welcomed warmly.

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A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Paul Bishop on Lance Spearman – The Black James Bond

A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Paul Bishop on Lance Spearman – The Black James Bond

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Spear_HeadShotEDITED“You’re the second guy I’ve met within hours who seems to think a gat in the hand means a world by the tail.” – Phillip Marlowe in Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep

(Gat — Prohibition Era term for a gun. Shortened version of Gatling Gun)

Paul Bishop wrote the very first entry for our Discovering Robert E. Howard series (covering REH’s fight stories). I knew he’d come up with another great piece for the return of A (Black) Gat in the Hand – and boy, did he! I had never even heard of the Lance Spearman books, but what a cool story! Pulp magazines fell by the way-side for pocket paperbacks and comic books. Topics related to the latter two groups will be sprinkled in to this series. And today, Paul is going to tell us about a third entry: the popular ‘Look Books’ Read on!

‘Lance Spearman, has a charming way with girls and a deadly way with thugs’

Look-books—a term coined for magazines featuring a mash up of action photographs accompanied by comic strip style captions (also known as photo books)—are relatively unknown in America. However, in many other parts of the world, this comic book hybrid of captioned action photographs had a rabid following from the ‘60s to the late ‘80s. In Africa, look-books served as surrogates for films—as a means to tell film-like stories— at a time when commercial African cinema was not yet invented.

African Film Magazine (AFM) was the most popular of the African look-books. Alternately called Spear Magazine, every bi-weekly issue had eager fans clamoring for it at their local newsstand. Created by James Richard Abe Bailey, the character of Lance Spearman shattered racist stereotypes of the uncivilized, uneducated, spear-carrying Africans as portrayed in most Western comic books of the era. Each issue of AFM contained thirty-one pages of action filled black and white captioned photographs edited in urbane cinematic style.

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Call for Backers! New Podcast Derelict is a Science Fiction Thriller You Don’t Want to Miss

Call for Backers! New Podcast Derelict is a Science Fiction Thriller You Don’t Want to Miss

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Since J. Barton Mitchell and I are in the same writer’s group, I had the privilege of reading the script for the first episode of Derelict before it was cast. If you liked Mitchell’s book, The Razor, or are otherwise a fan of action packed, hard science fiction, you definitely don’t want to miss this. Mitchell has provided the following interview, discussing the project in depth, but first, check out the first episode, then go back the production of future episodes here.

Emily Mah: As a science fiction author, your novel Valley of Fires concluded the Conquered Earth series (and was awarded best science fiction novel of 2015 by the RT Book Review), which included Midnight City and The Severed Tower. Last November you had The Razor (picked by Amazon as one of the best Sci-Fi books of 2018). With Derelict, you’re exploring a whole new medium: narrative podcasts. Why turn to podcasting?

J. Barton Mitchell: I actually started on the film side of things, my first success was as a screenwriter, I came to fiction later on. As a result, I tend to think cinematically, even when writing books. The narrative podcast medium was kind of a natural fit because it’s sort of cinematic without visuals (odd as that sounds). It’s, basically, like you’re listening to a movie. The format also lets you do projects that would be completely impossible from a budget standpoint if they were in film or TV. Derelict would be over a $100 million dollar budget as a movie…but, as a podcast, I can make it in my basement, and it’s almost just as visceral and engaging. I think that’s really exciting. The other thing is that, for me, the best kind of storytelling is where the audience is allowed to participate in the storytelling process. In other words, they get to fill in the blanks with their imagination. The audio format allows for that in a major way, because (like a novel) it’s sans imagery. The audience has to imagine the visuals themselves. I think that’s really exciting too.

Emily Mah: So, no spoilers, but what’s Derelict about and why should I tune in?

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The Golden Age of Science Fiction: “Enemy Mine,” by Barry B. Longyear

The Golden Age of Science Fiction: “Enemy Mine,” by Barry B. Longyear

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Cover by Vincent di Fate
Cover by Vincent di Fate

The Best Novella category was not one of the original Hugo categories in 1953. I twas introduced in 1968, when it was won by Philip José Farmer for “Riders of the Purple Wage” and Anne McCaffrey for “Weyr Search.” Since then, some version of the award has been a constant, with the exception of 1958. In 1980, the awards were presented at Noreascon II in Boston.

The Nebula Award was created by the Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA) and first presented in 1966, when the award for Best Novella was won by Brian W. Aldiss for “The Saliva Tree” and Roger Zelazny for “He Who Shapes.” The award has been given annually since then.

The Locus Awards were established in 1972 and presented by Locus Magazine based on a poll of its readers. In more recent years, the poll has been opened up to on-line readers, although subscribers’ votes have been given extra weight. At various times the award has been presented at Westercon and, more recently, at a weekend sponsored by Locus at the Science Fiction Museum (now MoPop) in Seattle. The Best Book Novella Award dates back to 1974, when the short fiction awards were split into Short Fiction and Novella lengths. Frederick Pohl won the first award. In 1980. The Locus Poll received 854 responses.

In January, I wrote about Barry B. Longyear, the winner of the John W. Campbell Award in 1980 and explored the vast amount of fiction he published in 1978 and 1979. At that time, I dismissed his biggest hit with a single line, “His breakout story, of course, was “Enemy Mine,” which will be covered in more depth in the article on that novella’s various awards for the year.” Now is come the time to discuss that story.

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The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Holmes on the Range

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Holmes on the Range

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Hockensmith_HoRCoverEDITEDThat’s right: The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes is back! Well, for one week, anyways. A (Black) Gat in the Hand will resume next Monday. There were quite a few topics I never got around to covering during TPLoSH’ 156-ish week run. (Wow!) And one was Steve Hockensmith’s Holmes on the Range series. I recently got around to finishing the short story collection that I bought for my Nook back in 2011 (I’ve got a bit of a reading backlog, ok?!), and I decided I needed to finally write a post about it, before it got buried in the To Write list again. So, here we go!

There are a lot of ways to go about writing a Sherlock Holmes story. Some folks attempt to very carefully emulate Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s own style, and turn out a tale that feels as if it might have been done by the creator of the great detective himself. Of course, success varies greatly. Hugh Ashton and Denis O. Smith are the best I’ve found in this regard. You can find stories ranging from pretty good to not suitable for (digital) toilet paper. I’ve had three of my own stories published with ‘meh’ results.

Some folks write whatever the heck they want, often with the name of Holmes being the only similarity to the famed detective. It is possible to find good Holmes stories that sound nothing like Dr. Watson’s narrative style, of course. And Holmes has been placed in different eras, and even worlds.

There have been Holmes parodies around for over a hundred years. I’ve written a couple myself, and they were fun!

There are Holmes-like successors out there, of whom August Derleth’s Solar Pons is the best. Yes, I’m aware that’s a subjective judgement, but it’s mine, and I’m the one writing this essay, so it stands. I’ve written about Pons more than once (here’s a good overview), and even contributed introductions and pastiches to anthologies.

But today I’m going to talk about one of Sherlock Holmes’ contemporaries; albeit, quite different and far away. Steve Hockensmith had been writing short stories for Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine Christmas issue, and wanted to sell more to the venerable magazine. EQMM does an annual Sherlock Holmes issue, so he figured that was the way to go. But he wanted to write more than just another Holmes story.

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Blogging Marvel’s Master of Kung Fu, Part Six

Blogging Marvel’s Master of Kung Fu, Part Six

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Master_of_Kung_Fu_Vol_1_33Master of Kung Fu #33 sees writer Doug Moench continuing to build upon the series’ new direction while also continuing to deploy offbeat humor sparingly to great effect. This first installment of a three-part storyline begins when Shang-Chi thwarts an assassination attempt on Clive Reston by a highly-advanced automaton. The reader and Shang-Chi learn from MI5 that the automaton is one of the toys of Mordillo, a robotics genius and master assassin who, it transpires, was the force behind Carlton Velcro.

Shang-Chi is provided with his own swank London townhouse (courtesy of MI5). While Clive Reston is showing him around his new digs, they encounter Reston’s former lover, seductive MI5 agent Leiko Wu. Her introductory scene, taking a bubble bath and shamelessly dressing (barely) in front of Reston and Shang-Chi establishes her not only as a Bondian seductress, but also signals her as a confident and capable woman who is content to leave a string of broken hearts in her wake. Doug Moench excels at establishing a sense of fatalism in his work. Just as the reader understands that Shang-Chi compromising his principles in working for MI5 will only lead to regret; so too the reader understands that the innocent and somewhat naive Shang-Chi falling for the far more worldly Leiko Wu is also fated to end in pain and suffering. Shang-Chi, in his professional and personal choices, chooses the short-term good and ignores the fact that the long-term can only lead to misery.

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Feet: Pedipulator, Walking Truck

Feet: Pedipulator, Walking Truck

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1962-01-31 [Pittsfield MA] Berkshire Eagle 1 pedipulator headline

1962-07-24 Allentown [PA] Morning Call 21 pedipulator illus cropped - Copy

“Machine Walks on Moon” doesn’t have nearly the headline power as “Man Walks on Moon,” but for a short time in the early 1960s the U.S. Army funded a project for a moon walker.

The “Pedipulator,” as General Electric’s ordnance department in Pittsfield, MA, called it, was a concept vehicle. The concept, all but admitted in so many words by ordnance GM Gene R. Peterson, was to pump money into GE. Cold war spending in the US/USSR missile race had boosted employment in the department by 250%. They needed something to do. So they turned, once again, to the incredibly fertile mind of Ralph Mosher, whose Man-Mate, Handyman, and Hardiman I talked about in my last column.

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A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Hugh B. Cave’s Peter Kane

A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Hugh B. Cave’s Peter Kane

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Cave_KaneCoverEDITED“You’re the second guy I’ve met within hours who seems to think a gat in the hand means a world by the tail.” – Phillip Marlowe in Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep

(Gat — Prohibition Era term for a gun. Shortened version of Gatling Gun)

Matt Moring of Steeger Books (and Altus Press, and Black Mask, and…) allowed me to write the introduction to Hugh B. Cave’s The Complete Cases of Peter Kane. Matt has kindly let me reproduce that intro as an entry here for A (Black) Gat in the Hand.

Hugh B. Cave was the last of the great pulpsters. From hundreds of short stories in the pulp magazines of the thirties, to his final novel in 2004, Cave wrote over a thousand shorts and over three dozen novels. He was also a war reporter and later even owned and managed a coffee plantation in Jamaica.

While H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, August Derleth and Robert E. Howard are better remembered for weird menace/horror stories, Cave is worthy of standing alongside them. But early in his career, Cave also wrote extensively in the mystery field.

He was one of the few to write for the last three (named) editors of the king of mystery pulps, Black Mask: the legendary Joseph ‘Cap’ Shaw, Fanny Ellsworth and Kenneth S. White.

Black Mask’s major competition came in the form of Dime Detective Magazine, which touted itself as “twice as good – for half the price” (Black Mask cost 20 cents at the time; though the price would shortly drop to 15 cents, in part due to Dime Detective’s success at the cheaper cost).

Editor Kenneth White (the same mentioned above) was instructed to lure as many writers from Black Mask as he could, paying an extra penny a word as enticement. And with a going rate of one to two cents for pulp writers (Black Mask’s three cents a word was indicative of its standing and quality in the field), the four cent rate made a significant difference to writers. As the prolific Erle Stanley Gardner supposedly replied to observations that he always seemed to use his hero’s last bullet to knock off the story’s antagonist:

“At three cents a word, every time I say ‘Bang’ in the story I get three cents. If you think I’m going to finish the gun battle while my hero still has fifteen cents worth of unexploded ammunition in his gun, you’re nuts.”

Writers were forbidden from doing novel serializations (The Maltese Falcon was first a serial) and were also instructed to create their own characters, which could not appear elsewhere, for the magazine. The onslaught was successful, with many of the era’s most popular writers switching to Dime Detective. Carroll John Daly (who brought the iconic Race Williams with him), Erle Stanley Gardner, Frederick Nebel and Norbert Davis (whose humorous stories were frequently rejected by Shaw but who flourished at his new home) were among those lured to Dime Detective.

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John W. Campbell was a Racist and a Loon: A Response to Jeannette Ng’s Campbell Award Acceptance Speech

John W. Campbell was a Racist and a Loon: A Response to Jeannette Ng’s Campbell Award Acceptance Speech

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JEANNETTE NG

Jeannette Ng

I don’t think I have anything much to add to the commentariat’s discussion of Jeannette Ng’s Campbell Award acceptance speech. But why should that stop me?

The simplest thing to note is this — however you parse the word Fascist (and I would parse it differently than many), John W. Campbell was a racist, and a loon. (However you parse THAT word.) His ideas about how we should best be governed were, if not Fascist by a strict definition, not exactly democratic, to say the least. He cheered on the Kent State massacre, for goodness’ sake. He was sexist too, though in that case I think maybe he was just “a man of his time” — his racism, however, was definitely more virulent than the norm. And loonier! (See his editorial suggesting that black people preferred to be slaves.)

And on those grounds I have no complaint with Ng’s speech. Yes, she misidentified the magazine Campbell worked for (and has apologized for that) — but, heck, she was excited and nervous — these things happen.

The real point is — and I think Alec Nevala-Lee deserves tremendous credit for clarifying this — that “we”, as the SF field, especially those of us who’ve been around a lot longer, kind of ignored how whacko — and downright harmful — Campbell’s views could be. It’s not that they weren’t known — he trumpeted them in the pages of Astounding! — but people tended to sort of excuse them — “Oh, John was just trying to stir conversation,” that sort of thing. It’s pretty clear that he really did believe many or most of the things he wrote. And we should have, collectively and individually, been more forceful in standing against those ideas.

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