Normally in this space I rattle on about pulp magazines. Today we’ll look at a different type of periodical: comic books. Or, if you will, graphic narratives. More specifically, we’ll examine the work of one particular comic book artist: Tony Harris. Pulp magazine characters haven’t always translated well to the comic medium. The characters aren’t […]
P.J. Farmer, Grand Master Award winner in 2000, launched a popular string of novels and essays postulating that a meteorite that landed in Wold Newton, England, in 1795 radiated a band of nearby travelers, whose mutated genes formed the basis for the birth of all the heroes and villains who populated the pages, film, and […]
Any hobby worth its weight in storage space should have a convention. For example, comic book fans have gathered famously during the years in ever-larger facilities with agendas that have expanded to multi-media-focused events with cosplay and Hollywood slants, with the comics taking a back seat. SF and fantasy fans have gotten together for decades […]
As a writer whose work exerted a mighty influence on science fiction, it is entirely appropriate that Jules Verne and Amazing Stories had a tight relationship. That relationship began, of course, 21 years after Verne’s death (1905), because Amazing Stories’ first issue was dated April 1926 — two years short of Verne’s centennial. Nonetheless, Verne […]
In a recent post about Jules Verne and his translators for English editions, I included a few examples of how those translators mangled Verne’s stories, so that for generations his authorial abilities were maligned by English-reading critics, and he was considered a writer only fit for youthful readers–and barely fit, at that. In that essay, […]
I have mentioned elsewhere that my participating as a contributor to the new Amazing Stories feels like one of those Six Degrees of Separation experiences. Once upon a time I worked for a technical publishing start up, The Cobb Group, which was eventually purchased by William Ziff, Jr., heir to the Ziff-Davis publishing empire. Ziff-Davis had been the owner […]
I’m pleased to be participating at Amazing Stories by writing about pulps. But before jumping feet first into that discussion, it’s best to issue a warning: It’s always important for all participants in a conversation to make sure they understand the lingo. That’s an obvious statement when the participants are from different cultures, or if […]
