Pat Calhoun Posted May 6, 2014 Share Posted May 6, 2014 How complete is your collection at this point? I am the original non-complete-ist. I buy books by authors I like (or think I might) preferably with nice covers… mj frontrunners are: (all whom I’ve read and enjoyed some of) 13 Fearn 12 Hughes 7 Tubb (need more Tubb- tuff & pricey) + the fact that I have yet to pay over $65 on an mj (will bust that soon). That being said, I have stacked up many of the ones I want. I bought ‘Space Hunger’ late May last year so am approaching anniversary of tight focus- quite a feat for this old scatterbrain. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
damonwad Posted May 6, 2014 Share Posted May 6, 2014 How complete is your collection at this point? I am the original non-complete-ist. I buy books by authors I like (or think I might) preferably with nice covers… mj frontrunners are: (all whom I’ve read and enjoyed some of) 13 Fearn 12 Hughes 7 Tubb (need more Tubb- tuff & pricey) + the fact that I have yet to pay over $65 on an mj (will bust that soon). That being said, I have stacked up many of the ones I want. I bought ‘Space Hunger’ late May last year so am approaching anniversary of tight focus- quite a feat for this old scatterbrain. That's one heck of an awesome group shot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pat Calhoun Posted May 6, 2014 Share Posted May 6, 2014 Thank You !!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pat Calhoun Posted May 18, 2014 Share Posted May 18, 2014 (edited) Normally I wouldn’t plan to have 2 high ticket books show up on the same day, but the Tubb was one of those ‘ebay emergencies’ where an ‘ungettable’ somehow appears. In my intense year of mushroom jungle collecting I’ve not seen another copy for sale at any price… Since by some miracle it had been up for a week on a 30-day listing I even dared the devil a bit and used the ‘make offer’ rather than BIN though I was only going to wait couple hours (seller in Calif)… Said $70 on $79 listing hour later AGREE popped into inbox ($3.5 ride). Had ordered the Wellman (listed on Abe $95 shipped- took $85 for sweet copy). The Tubb solid too (both have super spines) is more PB-like than the other Milestone I have. My plan is to buy 1 more MJ- rounding out solid year and completing row on group shot –will post- then get down to summer hardback book bash that culminates on Sept 7, as the books are gifts for John C, my deceased bro whose collection I helped build and inherited, on his B-day. Already have an MJ tie-in picked out + maybe a 19th C sleeper… The Beasts from Beyond by Manly Wade Wellman, World Fantasy Classics 1950. First published in STARTLING Sum 1944 as ‘Strangers on the Heights’. Quoting the back cov: ‘A tale of dread demons and devil worshippers in unknown realms of psychic adventure…’ I Fight for Mars by EC Tubb, Milestone 1953. Cover by Ron Turner. Giant robot insects on Mars thwart Earth human attempts to colonize in what H&H called ‘a colorful superior adventure novel’. Edited May 18, 2014 by pcalhoun Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BangZoom Posted May 19, 2014 Author Share Posted May 19, 2014 Congratulations on the addition of these two new titles to your collection. I like the fact that you're continuing on with a collection that your brother started. Great story. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BangZoom Posted May 19, 2014 Author Share Posted May 19, 2014 The Beasts from Beyond by Manly Wade Wellman, World Fantasy Classics 1950. First published in STARTLING Sum 1944 as ‘Strangers on the Heights’. Quoting the back cov: ‘A tale of dread demons and devil worshippers in unknown realms of psychic adventure…’ Here is a scan of my Startling Stories. Summer 1944 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pat Calhoun Posted May 19, 2014 Share Posted May 19, 2014 Yes. JCC bought every ish of Astounding from 1/30 on but didn't save them. When I started collecting in 1960 one of the first things was getting him to keep the Astoundings (he also bought Galaxy). Then I'd go over to the used bookstores in San Diego- I retro filled in for a nickel each (took a few years) Astounding from 1947-1959 & Galaxy '50-'59 which he had bound by year (AST green Gal red). Other than that I helped him with hardbacks too, and of course triple-plus good JCCCC took me (& later the Carter bros) up to LA eventually glomming onto Cherokee Bookshop on Hlywd Blvd where the collecting of GA comics began... see top shelf- couple Gals upper left... plus recently turned Grandma (at 91 reading has been all she does for quite a while) who was on an 'obscure writers kick' onto 'War with the Newts' by Karel Capek (not my newt-spined copy seen here...) and she really loved it. It is a great humanitarian SF classic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BangZoom Posted May 19, 2014 Author Share Posted May 19, 2014 see top shelf- couple Gals upper left... plus recently turned Grandma (at 91 reading has been all she does for quite a while) who was on an 'obscure writers kick' onto 'War with the Newts' by Karel Capek (not my newt-spined copy seen here...) and she really loved it. It is a great humanitarian SF classic. I've never read any of Capek's work but I am familiar with the fact that he is credited with introducing the word "robot" to the world of literature. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pat Calhoun Posted May 19, 2014 Share Posted May 19, 2014 Czech first 1936 this 1937 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flex Mentallo Posted May 20, 2014 Share Posted May 20, 2014 How complete is your collection at this point? I am the original non-complete-ist. I buy books by authors I like (or think I might) preferably with nice covers… mj frontrunners are: (all whom I’ve read and enjoyed some of) 13 Fearn 12 Hughes 7 Tubb (need more Tubb- tuff & pricey) + the fact that I have yet to pay over $65 on an mj (will bust that soon). That being said, I have stacked up many of the ones I want. I bought ‘Space Hunger’ late May last year so am approaching anniversary of tight focus- quite a feat for this old scatterbrain. Great stuff Pat! Do you have an overall impression as to scarcity? Are they all generally scarce? I seem to see the Vargo Statten books more often than anything else. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pat Calhoun Posted May 20, 2014 Share Posted May 20, 2014 They are scarce enough that many of the 25 or so left on my want list have not appeared for sale in the last year. You see a lot of Stattens because there are quite a few. The fact that Fearn had been a prolific SF author for 20 years was obscured by the packaging of the books as new product rather than reprints. In fact the rapid rate at which the Stattens came forth made everyone think they must be … Fearn’s writing is often pedestrian, but he is a superb plotter with great knowledge of SF and its ‘tropes’… As time goes on his star shall rise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BangZoom Posted May 21, 2014 Author Share Posted May 21, 2014 Czech first 1936 this 1937 Speaking of Czechoslovakia. Several weeks ago I picked up this Czech edition of Gulliver's Travels at a local used book store. What caught my eye were the spectacular illustrations by Artus Scheiner. Here's a sampling. I don't think I'd ever heard of Scheiner before but his work is beautiful. Link Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pat Calhoun Posted May 21, 2014 Share Posted May 21, 2014 Nicely illustrated... I have recently been musing over this Capek-Swift connection found on Lloyd Currey’s site… 1923: "Perhaps the most brilliant of his plays, and the only unquestionable fantasy drama among them ... mocks human life and pretensions through a series of beast-fable episodes in which various insects perform vaudeville versions of human behavior at the edge of extinction." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BangZoom Posted May 21, 2014 Author Share Posted May 21, 2014 1923: "Perhaps the most brilliant of his plays, and the only unquestionable fantasy drama among them ... mocks human life and pretensions through a series of beast-fable episodes in which various insects perform vaudeville versions of human behavior at the edge of extinction." Very nice. It matches up well with another purchase I made. I picked up this volume last Saturday. Knizka Ferdy Mravence by O. Sekora From Wikipedia: Ferda Mravenec Ferda Mravenec (Ferda the Ant) is a popular Czech animated character illustrated by Ondřej Sekora. It was first published in 1933 in the Lidové noviny newspaper. The character appeared in many Czech children books. The biggest book about Ferda is Knížka Ferdy Mravence, which unites three previous books: Ferda Mravenec (1936), Ferda Mravenec v cizích službách (1937) and Ferda v mraveništi (1938). Ondřej Sekora Ondřej Sekora (25 September 1899, Brno – 4 July 1967, Prague) was a Czech painter, illustrator, writer, journalist and entomologist. He is known mainly as an author of children books. Style Sekora became popular as an author of comic strips, published in Lidové noviny in 1930s and at the beginning of 1940s. He was inspired by cartoons of Walt Disney, Wilhelm Busch and Albert Dubout. His short stories were full of humor, with indications of situation comedy. The basis of his style was lively and dynamic drawing with clear contours, accompanied with quatrains. His verses were often inspired by folk speech. He is known as the creator of animated characters Ferda Mravenec ("Ferda the Ant") and Brouk Pytlík ("Pouch the Beetle"). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pat Calhoun Posted June 2, 2014 Share Posted June 2, 2014 Another ‘ebay emergency’ with a happy ending. The UK seller wasn’t old pb dealer and had it listed under the vast & amorphous ‘antiquarian books’ category. Found it with 1 day left no bids by direct search for ‘The Whispering Gorilla’, closed early Sunday morn at $46.30 (delivered total) about half retail on a fairly solid quite complete VG- copy of what is considered ‘THE GRAIL’ of the mushroom jungle… I think it’s actually ‘The Return of the Whispering Gorilla’ from 1943 Fantastic Adventures, the splash says, ‘by kind permission of Don Wilcox’ who wrote the original in a 1940 FA. Reed, David Vern, Julie Schwartz’ pal, was editor at Ziff and liked the original so much asked Don W for sequel & Don said ‘you write it’. Reed went on to pen many stories for DC, including a lot of Batman. The cover looks to be a recreation of RG Jones 1943 original… Still want to buy the ‘one more’ MJ book I spotted, but how to squeeze it into group shot ?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BangZoom Posted June 3, 2014 Author Share Posted June 3, 2014 Phenomenal addition to your collection, Pat. I'm a big fan of gorilla covers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BangZoom Posted June 3, 2014 Author Share Posted June 3, 2014 Here is my copy of the Whispering Gorilla's original appearance in Fantastic Adventures. May 1940 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BangZoom Posted June 3, 2014 Author Share Posted June 3, 2014 Everyone probably remembers DC's numerous gorilla covers throughout the 1950's, 60's and 70's. Here's the comic that started the craze. Strange Adventures #8 (May 1951) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pat Calhoun Posted June 3, 2014 Share Posted June 3, 2014 Got some web images- this is the 2/43 FA & here is link to scans of the original WG story BZ posted http://magicmonkeyboy.blogspot.com/2010/05/whispering-gorilla-by-don-wilcox.html thanks magicmonkeyboy the ‘Return’ does seem to have WG fighting Nazis in Africa. (ps- got this, BZ?) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pat Calhoun Posted June 3, 2014 Share Posted June 3, 2014 (edited) pps- please check inside Str Adv 8 see if stories by DV Reed... Edited June 3, 2014 by pcalhoun Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
