Golden Age Collection 22 22

[Theagenes]

 

Here's one of the later articles I talk about in the book (1952) where Kantor claims Siegel as a business partner -- this time for an unnamed comic venture.

 

 

Brad, this is all fascinating material. Thank you and BZ so much for sharing.

[BangZoom]

The Humor Course seems to have gone out -- there was a copy on eBay a few years ago -- it's all typewritten and kind of standard '30s humor stuff.

 

I bought that copy. In fact, you were the one who alerted me to the fact it was for sale.

 

It wasn't just any old copy however. It was the hand typed copy that was sent to the Library of Congress for copyright purposes. When the LOC disaccensioned tens of thousands of pamphlets in their collection years ago, this was one of the items they released.

 

So, I know the course was written. I am just curious why no commercially printed copies have apparently surfaced.

 

Anyway, here is a look at it.

 

The course consists of 10 chapters, totaling 134 pages.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Scrooge]

The Humor Course seems to have gone out -- there was a copy on eBay a few years ago -- it's all typewritten and kind of standard '30s humor stuff.

 

I bought that copy. In fact, you were the one who alerted me to the fact it was for sale.

 

 

[BR-migration]

ha ha that was great

 

I forgot you bought the LoC copy (writing this book took a long time and made my brain hurt). I wonder if a) no one bought it from the ad or b) it was too expensive for them to copy? But I kind of doubt a) because look at that ad! And Siegel was a popular comics name by then -- they were advertising comics based on the fact that he created them.

 

I wonder how many other fanzines, etc. were let go by the LoC?

 

The really interesting part about all of this is that Jerry registered them right away. Clearly, he learned his lesson from Superman (and regretted it) almost immediately.

[BangZoom]

The really interesting part about all of this is that Jerry registered them right away. Clearly, he learned his lesson from Superman (and regretted it) almost immediately.

 

 

No doubt. The copyright date on the humor course is September 9, 1938 which was just a few months after Action #1 hit the newsstands.

 

It was Siegel and Shuster's misfortune that Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson was forced from his position as publisher of DC Comics by Harry Donenfeld in 1937.

 

If he had still been at the helm of the company in 1938 he likely would have been amenable to signing a deal with them (as he did with Clem Gretter, another contributor) to purchase only the first serial rights to Superman which would have allowed Siegel and Shuster to retain ownership of the feature.

 

 

From Alter Ego #98

 

[BR-migration]

There is a book that is early in process about The Major -- I don't want to steal their thunder, but I think readers will be really pleased by the people who are doing it. I know I can't wait to read it. And I agree -- he had a problem paying on time (to be fair, the whole system was being invented on the fly), but he absolutely put Siegel and Shuster on the map and in a position to do Superman. He took the big chance on two total unknowns, not National.

Edited August 29, 2013 by BR

[Arkadin]

I am still a fan of Marcoux and his Supersnipe strip but it is nice to see other things that he drew.

 

Thanks for posting that strip.

 

I'd read in one of Ron Goulart's books about Marcoux's work on Toddy but I'd never actually seen one before now.

 

Better late than never - here's another Toddy from 1938. Pretty obscure strip, and the only one I have.

 

Edited August 29, 2013 by Arkadin

[BangZoom]

Better late than never - here's another Toddy from 1938. Pretty obscure strip, and the only one I have.

 

Thanks for posting.

 

I love the strip. The characters all look like they wandered over from a Supersnipe comic.

[sacentaur]

I continue to be fascinated with early promotional items - here's the backside of a promo mailed out (folded like a letter) for AMAZING STORIES #1.

 

[50YrsCollctngCmcs]

I continue to be fascinated with early promotional items - here's the backside of a promo mailed out (folded like a letter) for AMAZING STORIES #1.

 

 

Very cool, where did you pick up that?

[BangZoom]

I continue to be fascinated with early promotional items - here's the backside of a promo mailed out (folded like a letter) for AMAZING STORIES #1.

 

 

Wonderful item, Steve.

 

Reading it made me curious about the content of letter columns in Gernsback's other magazines in the years leading up to his decision to launch Amazing Stories. Was there some sort of embryonic SF fanbase forming in those early days?

 

[sacentaur]

I continue to be fascinated with early promotional items - here's the backside of a promo mailed out (folded like a letter) for AMAZING STORIES #1.

 

 

Very cool, where did you pick up that?

 

I wish - it's in a friend's collection, this is a copy.

[sacentaur]

Reading it made me curious about the content of letter columns in Gernsback's other magazines in the years leading up to his decision to launch Amazing Stories. Was there some sort of embryonic SF fanbase forming in those early days?

 

No idea (sorry) - I'm just now learning about 1930's fandom, which I find quite fascinating for their contemporary views on prose and film, plus their outlook on the future.

 

Not to mention the bickering - the ubiquitous Ackerman appears to be a favorite target.

[sacentaur]

Frederik Pohl has passed away; he was 93.

[BangZoom]

Frederik Pohl has passed away; he was 93.

 

I'm sorry to hear that news.

 

I didn't read much of his work but my father was a subscriber to Galaxy magazine in the 1950's and 60's when Pohl was the editor so his name is one that I remember from my childhood days of perusing the magazine.

 

Pohl published his history of SF fandom online which may be of interest to some of you.

 

Give it a look: Let There Be Fandom

 

 

[BangZoom]

I'm just now learning about 1930's fandom, which I find quite fascinating for their contemporary views on prose and film, plus their outlook on the future.

 

Not to mention the bickering - the ubiquitous Ackerman appears to be a favorite target.

 

Forrest Ackerman remembers early sci-fi fandom.

 

 

[Pat Calhoun]

Reread this recently - still one of the cornerstones of '50s SF - GA prime...

[BangZoom]

Reread this recently - still one of the cornerstones of '50s SF - GA prime...

 

From the copy on the back cover the book sounds like a fun read.

 

This is what Wikipedia says about the story:

 

Plot summary

 

In a vastly overpopulated world, businesses have taken the place of governments and now hold all political power. States exist merely to ensure the survival of huge trans-national corporations. Advertising has become hugely aggressive and by far the best-paid profession. Through advertising, the public is constantly deluded into thinking that the quality of life is improved by all the products placed on the market. Some of the products contain addictive substances designed to make consumers dependent on them. However, the most basic elements of life are incredibly scarce, including water and fuel. Personal transportation may be pedal powered, with rickshaw rides being considered a luxury. The planet Venus has just been visited and judged fit for human settlement, despite its inhospitable surface and climate; the colonists would have to endure a harsh climate for many generations until the planet could be terraformed.

 

The protagonist, Mitch Courtenay, is a star-class copywriter in the Fowler Schocken advertising agency who has been assigned the ad campaign which would attract colonists to Venus. But a lot more is happening than he knows about. It soon becomes a tale of mystery and intrigue, in which many of the characters are not what they seem, and Mitch's loyalties and opinions change drastically over the course of the narrative.

 

Mitch goes to a resort in Antarctica, only to become lost outside in a blizzard. He recovers to find that he has been shanghaied as an ordinary working stiff. His ID number tattooed on his arm has been altered so he cannot reclaim his old identity. However his skills remain intact. He becomes the propaganda specialist for a cadre of revolutionaries, in the process becoming a convert to the cause of those he once manipulated as mere consumers. In the end he confronts those who stole his life, who are not necessarily his enemies, and those from his old life, who are not necessarily his friends.

 

 

[Pat Calhoun]

borrowed from philsp since my bound vols tough to scan - the mag appearance - one of my faves

[BangZoom]

borrowed from philsp since my bound vols tough to scan - the mag appearance - one of my faves

 

The more I read about the story, the more I find myself wanting to read it.

 

From Wikipedia:

 

Critical reception

 

In his study of the pioneers of science fiction, New Maps of Hell (1960), the novelist Kingsley Amis states that The Space Merchants " has many claims to being the best science-fiction novel so far." It is also ahead of its time in stressing the importance of limiting population growth and conserving natural resources. On its initial publication, Groff Conklin called the novel "perhaps the best science fiction satire since Brave New World." Boucher and McComas praised it as "bitter, satiric, exciting [and] easily one of the major works of logical extrapolation in several years. . . . a sharp melodrama of power-conflict and revolt which manages . . . to explore all the implied developments of [its imagined] society." Imagination reviewer Mark Reinsberg described it as "a marvellously entertaining story" and "A brilliant future satire." P. Schuyler Miller compared the novel to Brave New World, finding it "not so brilliant, but more consistently worked out and suffering principally . . . from its concessions to melodrama."

 

It was rated the twenty-fourth "all-time best novel" in a 1972 Locus poll, jointly with The Martian Chronicles and The War of the Worlds. In 2012 the novel was included in the Library of America two-volume boxed set American Science Fiction: Nine Classic Novels of the 1950s, edited by Gary K. Wolfe.

 

As with many significant works of science fiction, it was lexically inventive. The novel is cited by the Oxford English Dictionary as the first recorded source for a number of new words, including "soyaburger", "moon suit", "tri-di" for "three-dimensional", "R and D" for "research and development", "sucker-trap" for a shop aimed at gullible tourists, and one of the first uses of "muzak" as a generic term. It is also cited as the first incidence of "survey" as a verb meaning to carry out a poll.