MattBrady
12-31-2002, 11:51 AM
<center><a href="http://www.newsarama.com/Thousand_Flowers_index.htm"><img src="http://www.newsarama.com/flowers/flowers_banner.jpg" width="475" height="75" border="0"></a></center>
<center>A THOUSAND FLOWERS</center>
<center>Comics, Pop Culture, and the World Outside</center>
<center>Installment 8</center>
<center>by Stuart Moore</center>
8. Comics’ Drunken Uncle: Science Fiction
Conclusion: What We Do That No One Else Does
<img src="http://www.newsarama.com/flowers/howtv.jpg" width="300" height="269" align="right" alt="it really will, you know..."> If there’s one thing science fiction and comics people share -- and, as I’ve tried to show in the past few columns, there’s a lot more than one thing -- it’s a love/hate relationship with Hollywood. It’s where the money is, where the glamor is, and the people there seem so…important. But, oh yeah, there’s that pesky matter of your art, your creations. What happens to them on the way to the silver (or little black) screen isn’t always pretty.
In The Dreams Our Stuff is Made Of, Thomas Disch says: “Television and science fiction, though they’ve lived a long time together, have not enjoyed a happy relationship. Television, the dominant and more affluent partner, has been blithely unaware of this fact, which is often the way in such cases. Science fiction, on the other hand, has felt, well…used.”
SF writers have complained for years -- usually, though not always, in inverse proportion to the size of their option checks -- about the dilution of their ideas on the way to film. If comics play fast and loose with logical rigor and legitimate science, Hollywood just throws them out the window. The priorities there are different, and not always conducive to producing coherent, powerful works of art.
For years, sf held two strong attractions for bright young readers -- attractions that weren’t duplicated in filmed media. Number 1: mind-bending ideas explored with logical rigor. Number 2: an exciting set of props -- space travel, time machines, etc. But now, technological and cultural shifts have changed the conditions surrounding those attractions. Here’s Disch again, on the phenomenon (and I strongly recommend his book to any interested readers of this column):
“There used to be a truism…that the golden age of science fiction is twelve, the age we begin to read SF and are wonderstruck. That truism is no longer true, for science fiction has come to permeate our culture to such a degree that its basic repertory of images -- rocket ships and robots, aliens and dinosaurs -- are standard items in the fantasy life of any preschooler. As for the twelve-years-olds of our own era, nothing science-fictional is alien to them.”
In other words, attraction #2 -- the props, the robots and aliens -- are all around; they’re ubiquitous in the media, in a way that would have been unthinkable twenty-five years ago. And without that advantage, it’s hard to lure kids to attraction #1.
Comics have traditionally had a different, though related, advantage over film: unlimited special effects. It costs no more to draw a galaxy exploding than a raised eyebrow, as artists like Jack Kirby proved over and over again, for decades. The Fantastic Four, for instance, simply couldn’t be made as a film -- even if you could afford the effects, the technology didn’t exist to meld them properly with the human figures. Mister Fantastic would look like a sloppy, moving collage, and the Human Torch would just be a guy with a transparent filmstrip of a fireplace superimposed on him.
That’s all changed, too. CGI effects have made it possible to depict the entire Negative Zone in more detail than Kirby ever showed, and even Blastaar would probably look okay (if you really wanted to show him). Purists will argue that Kirby’s artistry makes his work superior, but if that’s true, it just means we haven’t had an equal visionary working in CGI yet. The tools are new, but they’re definitely there, and they’re getting better -- and more accessible -- all the time.
So the CGI revolution, and a new breed of sf/comics fans in power in Hollywood, are eating away at the core appeals of the parent fields. But Hollywood is starting to have its own problems, too -- it’s being co-opted by reality. From Roger Ebert’s review of the new Star Trek film: “There might have been a time when the command deck of the Starship Enterprise looked exciting and futuristic, but these days it looks like a communications center for security guards.”
Ebert (who sold a few stories to Amazing in the early ‘70s) is a little overly harsh, to my mind. But he’s got a point. I carry in my pocket a combination cell-phone/PDA, which is functionally a mini-computer. I can write on it and save documents, call anyone in the world from almost anywhere, access e-mail and web pages, send and receive text messages, call up my entire rolodex, manipulate years’ worth of datebook information, and hotsync information back and forth with my desktop computer. Oh, and it’s a calculator and “pocket watch,” too, and it looks pretty sharp. It weighs 5.2 ounces. Mister Spock would have killed for this thing!
<img src="http://www.newsarama.com/flowers/stsickbay.jpg" width="250" height="240" align="left"> (An aside, while we’re on Star Trek: One of the smartest things the producers did on Next Generation when it started, fifteen years ago, was to change the nature of crew members’ communications from location-based to person-based. On the original series, when Captain Kirk wanted to find Bones McCoy, he’d call Sickbay and McCoy would press a button on the wall to reply. On the newer series, Picard presses his communicator badge and says “Doctor Crusher,” and (presumably) the computer system routes him directly to her own comm-badge, wherever she is. This required a thorough re-think of the dramatic rules of shipboard stories, but it was worth it; our society is just now going through that very same shift from fixed-location phones to personal cellular communication.
Only in the past year or two have TV and films thoroughly embraced this change, most strongly in tech-oriented programs like 24. That’s kind of ironic, considering that cell-phones caught on in Hollywood earlier than anywhere else in this country. But it’s understandable -- it changes the rules of drama more drastically than any other technological innovation of our time. Now, at every stage, screenwriters must stop and ask themselves: If Buffy’s out in the graveyard all alone fighting vampires, and her friends learn that something worse is coming for her, why can’t they just call her and let her know? And so forth.)
Films and television bring respectability to comics and sf, but they also draw potential fans away from the other fields. How do you counter that problem? There’s only one way: one book at a time, one reason at a time for people to pay attention to your field. In comics, that may be From Hell, Dark Knight Returns, Rawhide Kid or Jimmy Corrigan. In sf, it could be the rising popularity of Philip K. Dick, the culture-permeating vision of William Gibson, or the mad urban visions of China Mieville.
In a recent article (http://www.tcj.com/3_online/e_thompson_071499.html ) on The Comic Journal website called “More Crap Is What We Need,”, Kim Thompson argues that the American comics field is too polarized between art comics and superhero titles. We need more competent genre work, “the equivalent of the kind of fat paperbacks you can buy at the airport.” He’s dead right. Those fat paperbacks sell not because they’re life-changing works of literary brilliance, but because they hit a large number of people where they live. Superhero comics and art comics alike are too insular, too often.
This change is happening, slowly. Thanks to the talent and perseverance of a group of very good writers, crime comics have now become an actual genre, one that didn’t exist four or five years ago. I recently wrote an article about this in Mystery Scene magazine; the flagship titles in this genre are Sin City, Powers, 100 Bullets, Alias, Stray Bullets and Queen & Country. All from different publishers, covering a wide spectrum of tone and subject matter. Behold: a genre.
More of this is bound to happen as superhero comics and art comics alike struggle to maintain a sizable readership. Small and large comics publishers alike are looking for new types of material that will, ideally, bring in new readers while still appealing to their core audience. That means genre fiction.
But that brings us back to the big, inherent difference between sf and comics (from <a href="http://www.newsarama.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=3&t=000011" target="_blank"> Installment 5</a>): sf is a genre, while comics is a medium. This is often obscured by the perception of comics as a genre (superheroes), and yes, superhero comics have developed their own, often in-jokey, conventions and accepted ideas, just as prose sf has. These ideas are fair game for any medium.
At core, though, comics is a means of expression. The “ideas” of comics cannot be co-opted by film any more than the “ideas” of haiku can. (The techniques and conventions can be; but that’s a subject for a much longer article. Or maybe a book by Scott McCloud.) That’s not to say that interesting and, occasionally, original ideas don’t come out of the community of comics writers. They do, in part because of the exciting process of creative cross-pollination that crops up in any small field. But those ideas are equally valid if expressed in film or prose.
What’s special about comics is the way the ideas percolate on their way to the finished page. Film and television are mass stews of creative input, which only produce works of value (a) by chance or (b) when one strong creative voice, usually a film director or TV executive producer, is in firm command. Prose is solitary work, the voice of one person working in isolation.
Comics can be one person’s work -- but more often, it’s close collaboration between a small group. When they’re at odds, the result is a mess. When they’re working together, you get a creative synthesis that can be very exciting. Think of the best works of Lee & Kirby; Feiffer & Eisner; Moore, Bissette, Totleben, & Veitch; Ennis & Dillon. (An idiosyncratic list, I realize -- you’ll have your own favorites.) Each side brings something to the table -- and each side encourages the others to do their finest work.
SF’s strengths are different, though they grow out of a similar process of cross-pollination. A fiercely intelligent community of writers; a constant need to top a rival’s ideas with one’s own; and a newer generation of writers determined to fuse the genre’s own strengths with the writing quality of mainstream fiction.
Both fields face tough new competition for their audience -- but so does every type of media, in this entertainment-soaked new world. The audience faces a dizzying array of choices, but they want to be drawn in, captivated, inspired, transported somewhere new and exciting. By the right piece of work.
One book at a time. One comic at a time.
So come on, Uncle Hugo. Come on, Comics. You’ve both got a lot to offer, and life’s too short to spend it bickering.
Let’s shake hands and welcome in the New Year.
**
UNCLE HUGO’S BIG BORING BIBLIOGRAPHY
Thanks to all my readers who’ve sat through this five-part series (it was supposed to be three!). If you’re interested, here’s some further reading on the subjects covered in installments 4 through 8, divided up roughly by availability.
IN PRINT & AVAILABLE
Brian Aldiss and David Wingrove, TRILLION YEAR SPREE: THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE FICTION (House of Stratus, 2001). My quotes are from the 1986 edition, by Aldiss alone.
Thomas M. Disch, THE DREAMS OUR STUFF IS MADE OF: HOW SCIENCE FICTION CONQUERED THE WORLD (Free Press, 1998; Touchstone, 2000)
Roy Thomas & Bill Schelly, eds., ALTER EGO: THE BEST OF THE LEGENDARY COMICS FANZINE (Hamster Press, 1997)
Stuart Moore, “Graphic Violence: A Talented New Generation of Writers Brings Crime to the Comics” (MYSTERY SCENE, Holiday Issue 2002)
ONE CLICK AWAY
Roger Ebert, STAR TREK NEMESIS review (http://suntimes.com/output/ebert1/wkp-news-startrek13f.html)
Michael Moorcock, “Queen of the Martian Mysteries: An Appreciation of Leigh Brackett” (http://www.fantasticmetropolis.com/show.html?ey,brackett,1)
Kim Thompson, “Modest Proposal: More Crap Is What We Need” (http://www.tcj.com/3_online/e_thompson_071499.html)
E-BAY OR A BIG PUBLIC LIBRARY, MAYBE
Kingsley Amis, NEW MAPS OF HELL (Ballantine, 1960; Ayer Co., 1975)
Leigh Brackett, ed, THE BEST OF PLANET STORIES #1 (Ballantine, 1975)
Roz Chast, PARALLEL UNIVERSES (Harper, 1984)
James Gunn, ALTERNATE WORLDS: THE ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF SCIENCE FICTION (A&W, 1975)
Barry N. Malzberg, THE ENGINES OF THE NIGHT: SCIENCE FICTION IN THE EIGHTIES (Doubleday, 1982; Bluejay Books, 1984)
Julius Schwartz with Brian Thomsen, MAN OF TWO WORLDS: MY LIFE IN SCIENCE FICTION AND COMICS (Harper, 2000). I know -- I can’t believe it’s out of print already, either.
Harry Warner, Jr., ALL OUR YESTERDAYS (Advent, 1969)
GROLIER SCIENCE FICTION: THE MULTIMEDIA ENCYCLOPEDIA OF SCIENCE FICTION, based on THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF SCIENCE FICTION, edited by Peter Nicholls and John Clute (Grolier, 1995)
GOOD LUCK
Richard A. Lupoff, “The Literary Masochist” (SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW #16, February 1976)
Sam Merwin, Jr., “A Nest of Strange and Wonderful Birds” (THE ALIEN CRITIC #10, August 1974)
Sam Merwin, Jr., “Written to a Pulp!: A Reminiscence” (THE ALIEN CRITIC #9, May 1974)
Jack Williamson, “The Campbell Era” (ALGOL, Summer 1975)
Letter column, AMAZING STORIES, February 1932
**
<img src="http://www.newsarama.com/Creators/stuartwizphoto_f.jpg" width="110" height="113" align="right" alt="Stuart Moore">Stuart Moore’s quick plugs: Pick up issue #5 of ZENDRA: HEART OF FIRE, my epic science fiction series from Penny-Farthing Press; more info on the trade paperback of the first ZENDRA series can be found at <a href="http://www.pfpress.com" target="_blank">http://www.pfpress.com</a> .Then go to <a href="http://www.rocketcomics.com" target="_blank">http://www.rocketcomics.com</a> and <a href="http://www.newsarama.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=2&t=000094" target="_blank">http://www.newsarama.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=2&t=000094</a> for a sneak peek at my next big project -- and visit my message boards at <a href="http://www.joequesada.com" target="_blank">http://www.joequesada.com</a> to discuss this column, or anything else interesting.
See you next year -- in two weeks -- for something completely different (and yet, oddly familiar).
<center>A THOUSAND FLOWERS</center>
<center>Comics, Pop Culture, and the World Outside</center>
<center>Installment 8</center>
<center>by Stuart Moore</center>
8. Comics’ Drunken Uncle: Science Fiction
Conclusion: What We Do That No One Else Does
<img src="http://www.newsarama.com/flowers/howtv.jpg" width="300" height="269" align="right" alt="it really will, you know..."> If there’s one thing science fiction and comics people share -- and, as I’ve tried to show in the past few columns, there’s a lot more than one thing -- it’s a love/hate relationship with Hollywood. It’s where the money is, where the glamor is, and the people there seem so…important. But, oh yeah, there’s that pesky matter of your art, your creations. What happens to them on the way to the silver (or little black) screen isn’t always pretty.
In The Dreams Our Stuff is Made Of, Thomas Disch says: “Television and science fiction, though they’ve lived a long time together, have not enjoyed a happy relationship. Television, the dominant and more affluent partner, has been blithely unaware of this fact, which is often the way in such cases. Science fiction, on the other hand, has felt, well…used.”
SF writers have complained for years -- usually, though not always, in inverse proportion to the size of their option checks -- about the dilution of their ideas on the way to film. If comics play fast and loose with logical rigor and legitimate science, Hollywood just throws them out the window. The priorities there are different, and not always conducive to producing coherent, powerful works of art.
For years, sf held two strong attractions for bright young readers -- attractions that weren’t duplicated in filmed media. Number 1: mind-bending ideas explored with logical rigor. Number 2: an exciting set of props -- space travel, time machines, etc. But now, technological and cultural shifts have changed the conditions surrounding those attractions. Here’s Disch again, on the phenomenon (and I strongly recommend his book to any interested readers of this column):
“There used to be a truism…that the golden age of science fiction is twelve, the age we begin to read SF and are wonderstruck. That truism is no longer true, for science fiction has come to permeate our culture to such a degree that its basic repertory of images -- rocket ships and robots, aliens and dinosaurs -- are standard items in the fantasy life of any preschooler. As for the twelve-years-olds of our own era, nothing science-fictional is alien to them.”
In other words, attraction #2 -- the props, the robots and aliens -- are all around; they’re ubiquitous in the media, in a way that would have been unthinkable twenty-five years ago. And without that advantage, it’s hard to lure kids to attraction #1.
Comics have traditionally had a different, though related, advantage over film: unlimited special effects. It costs no more to draw a galaxy exploding than a raised eyebrow, as artists like Jack Kirby proved over and over again, for decades. The Fantastic Four, for instance, simply couldn’t be made as a film -- even if you could afford the effects, the technology didn’t exist to meld them properly with the human figures. Mister Fantastic would look like a sloppy, moving collage, and the Human Torch would just be a guy with a transparent filmstrip of a fireplace superimposed on him.
That’s all changed, too. CGI effects have made it possible to depict the entire Negative Zone in more detail than Kirby ever showed, and even Blastaar would probably look okay (if you really wanted to show him). Purists will argue that Kirby’s artistry makes his work superior, but if that’s true, it just means we haven’t had an equal visionary working in CGI yet. The tools are new, but they’re definitely there, and they’re getting better -- and more accessible -- all the time.
So the CGI revolution, and a new breed of sf/comics fans in power in Hollywood, are eating away at the core appeals of the parent fields. But Hollywood is starting to have its own problems, too -- it’s being co-opted by reality. From Roger Ebert’s review of the new Star Trek film: “There might have been a time when the command deck of the Starship Enterprise looked exciting and futuristic, but these days it looks like a communications center for security guards.”
Ebert (who sold a few stories to Amazing in the early ‘70s) is a little overly harsh, to my mind. But he’s got a point. I carry in my pocket a combination cell-phone/PDA, which is functionally a mini-computer. I can write on it and save documents, call anyone in the world from almost anywhere, access e-mail and web pages, send and receive text messages, call up my entire rolodex, manipulate years’ worth of datebook information, and hotsync information back and forth with my desktop computer. Oh, and it’s a calculator and “pocket watch,” too, and it looks pretty sharp. It weighs 5.2 ounces. Mister Spock would have killed for this thing!
<img src="http://www.newsarama.com/flowers/stsickbay.jpg" width="250" height="240" align="left"> (An aside, while we’re on Star Trek: One of the smartest things the producers did on Next Generation when it started, fifteen years ago, was to change the nature of crew members’ communications from location-based to person-based. On the original series, when Captain Kirk wanted to find Bones McCoy, he’d call Sickbay and McCoy would press a button on the wall to reply. On the newer series, Picard presses his communicator badge and says “Doctor Crusher,” and (presumably) the computer system routes him directly to her own comm-badge, wherever she is. This required a thorough re-think of the dramatic rules of shipboard stories, but it was worth it; our society is just now going through that very same shift from fixed-location phones to personal cellular communication.
Only in the past year or two have TV and films thoroughly embraced this change, most strongly in tech-oriented programs like 24. That’s kind of ironic, considering that cell-phones caught on in Hollywood earlier than anywhere else in this country. But it’s understandable -- it changes the rules of drama more drastically than any other technological innovation of our time. Now, at every stage, screenwriters must stop and ask themselves: If Buffy’s out in the graveyard all alone fighting vampires, and her friends learn that something worse is coming for her, why can’t they just call her and let her know? And so forth.)
Films and television bring respectability to comics and sf, but they also draw potential fans away from the other fields. How do you counter that problem? There’s only one way: one book at a time, one reason at a time for people to pay attention to your field. In comics, that may be From Hell, Dark Knight Returns, Rawhide Kid or Jimmy Corrigan. In sf, it could be the rising popularity of Philip K. Dick, the culture-permeating vision of William Gibson, or the mad urban visions of China Mieville.
In a recent article (http://www.tcj.com/3_online/e_thompson_071499.html ) on The Comic Journal website called “More Crap Is What We Need,”, Kim Thompson argues that the American comics field is too polarized between art comics and superhero titles. We need more competent genre work, “the equivalent of the kind of fat paperbacks you can buy at the airport.” He’s dead right. Those fat paperbacks sell not because they’re life-changing works of literary brilliance, but because they hit a large number of people where they live. Superhero comics and art comics alike are too insular, too often.
This change is happening, slowly. Thanks to the talent and perseverance of a group of very good writers, crime comics have now become an actual genre, one that didn’t exist four or five years ago. I recently wrote an article about this in Mystery Scene magazine; the flagship titles in this genre are Sin City, Powers, 100 Bullets, Alias, Stray Bullets and Queen & Country. All from different publishers, covering a wide spectrum of tone and subject matter. Behold: a genre.
More of this is bound to happen as superhero comics and art comics alike struggle to maintain a sizable readership. Small and large comics publishers alike are looking for new types of material that will, ideally, bring in new readers while still appealing to their core audience. That means genre fiction.
But that brings us back to the big, inherent difference between sf and comics (from <a href="http://www.newsarama.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=3&t=000011" target="_blank"> Installment 5</a>): sf is a genre, while comics is a medium. This is often obscured by the perception of comics as a genre (superheroes), and yes, superhero comics have developed their own, often in-jokey, conventions and accepted ideas, just as prose sf has. These ideas are fair game for any medium.
At core, though, comics is a means of expression. The “ideas” of comics cannot be co-opted by film any more than the “ideas” of haiku can. (The techniques and conventions can be; but that’s a subject for a much longer article. Or maybe a book by Scott McCloud.) That’s not to say that interesting and, occasionally, original ideas don’t come out of the community of comics writers. They do, in part because of the exciting process of creative cross-pollination that crops up in any small field. But those ideas are equally valid if expressed in film or prose.
What’s special about comics is the way the ideas percolate on their way to the finished page. Film and television are mass stews of creative input, which only produce works of value (a) by chance or (b) when one strong creative voice, usually a film director or TV executive producer, is in firm command. Prose is solitary work, the voice of one person working in isolation.
Comics can be one person’s work -- but more often, it’s close collaboration between a small group. When they’re at odds, the result is a mess. When they’re working together, you get a creative synthesis that can be very exciting. Think of the best works of Lee & Kirby; Feiffer & Eisner; Moore, Bissette, Totleben, & Veitch; Ennis & Dillon. (An idiosyncratic list, I realize -- you’ll have your own favorites.) Each side brings something to the table -- and each side encourages the others to do their finest work.
SF’s strengths are different, though they grow out of a similar process of cross-pollination. A fiercely intelligent community of writers; a constant need to top a rival’s ideas with one’s own; and a newer generation of writers determined to fuse the genre’s own strengths with the writing quality of mainstream fiction.
Both fields face tough new competition for their audience -- but so does every type of media, in this entertainment-soaked new world. The audience faces a dizzying array of choices, but they want to be drawn in, captivated, inspired, transported somewhere new and exciting. By the right piece of work.
One book at a time. One comic at a time.
So come on, Uncle Hugo. Come on, Comics. You’ve both got a lot to offer, and life’s too short to spend it bickering.
Let’s shake hands and welcome in the New Year.
**
UNCLE HUGO’S BIG BORING BIBLIOGRAPHY
Thanks to all my readers who’ve sat through this five-part series (it was supposed to be three!). If you’re interested, here’s some further reading on the subjects covered in installments 4 through 8, divided up roughly by availability.
IN PRINT & AVAILABLE
Brian Aldiss and David Wingrove, TRILLION YEAR SPREE: THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE FICTION (House of Stratus, 2001). My quotes are from the 1986 edition, by Aldiss alone.
Thomas M. Disch, THE DREAMS OUR STUFF IS MADE OF: HOW SCIENCE FICTION CONQUERED THE WORLD (Free Press, 1998; Touchstone, 2000)
Roy Thomas & Bill Schelly, eds., ALTER EGO: THE BEST OF THE LEGENDARY COMICS FANZINE (Hamster Press, 1997)
Stuart Moore, “Graphic Violence: A Talented New Generation of Writers Brings Crime to the Comics” (MYSTERY SCENE, Holiday Issue 2002)
ONE CLICK AWAY
Roger Ebert, STAR TREK NEMESIS review (http://suntimes.com/output/ebert1/wkp-news-startrek13f.html)
Michael Moorcock, “Queen of the Martian Mysteries: An Appreciation of Leigh Brackett” (http://www.fantasticmetropolis.com/show.html?ey,brackett,1)
Kim Thompson, “Modest Proposal: More Crap Is What We Need” (http://www.tcj.com/3_online/e_thompson_071499.html)
E-BAY OR A BIG PUBLIC LIBRARY, MAYBE
Kingsley Amis, NEW MAPS OF HELL (Ballantine, 1960; Ayer Co., 1975)
Leigh Brackett, ed, THE BEST OF PLANET STORIES #1 (Ballantine, 1975)
Roz Chast, PARALLEL UNIVERSES (Harper, 1984)
James Gunn, ALTERNATE WORLDS: THE ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF SCIENCE FICTION (A&W, 1975)
Barry N. Malzberg, THE ENGINES OF THE NIGHT: SCIENCE FICTION IN THE EIGHTIES (Doubleday, 1982; Bluejay Books, 1984)
Julius Schwartz with Brian Thomsen, MAN OF TWO WORLDS: MY LIFE IN SCIENCE FICTION AND COMICS (Harper, 2000). I know -- I can’t believe it’s out of print already, either.
Harry Warner, Jr., ALL OUR YESTERDAYS (Advent, 1969)
GROLIER SCIENCE FICTION: THE MULTIMEDIA ENCYCLOPEDIA OF SCIENCE FICTION, based on THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF SCIENCE FICTION, edited by Peter Nicholls and John Clute (Grolier, 1995)
GOOD LUCK
Richard A. Lupoff, “The Literary Masochist” (SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW #16, February 1976)
Sam Merwin, Jr., “A Nest of Strange and Wonderful Birds” (THE ALIEN CRITIC #10, August 1974)
Sam Merwin, Jr., “Written to a Pulp!: A Reminiscence” (THE ALIEN CRITIC #9, May 1974)
Jack Williamson, “The Campbell Era” (ALGOL, Summer 1975)
Letter column, AMAZING STORIES, February 1932
**
<img src="http://www.newsarama.com/Creators/stuartwizphoto_f.jpg" width="110" height="113" align="right" alt="Stuart Moore">Stuart Moore’s quick plugs: Pick up issue #5 of ZENDRA: HEART OF FIRE, my epic science fiction series from Penny-Farthing Press; more info on the trade paperback of the first ZENDRA series can be found at <a href="http://www.pfpress.com" target="_blank">http://www.pfpress.com</a> .Then go to <a href="http://www.rocketcomics.com" target="_blank">http://www.rocketcomics.com</a> and <a href="http://www.newsarama.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=2&t=000094" target="_blank">http://www.newsarama.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=2&t=000094</a> for a sneak peek at my next big project -- and visit my message boards at <a href="http://www.joequesada.com" target="_blank">http://www.joequesada.com</a> to discuss this column, or anything else interesting.
See you next year -- in two weeks -- for something completely different (and yet, oddly familiar).