The Thriller: Not Quite the Saint
Some writers become so identified with one character you don’t often think of other characters they created. Erle Stanley Gardner is a perfect example. Perry Read More
Month: February 2020
Link: The Trail of Lovecraft: Part Two: Recycling the Mythos
In my last column, I talked about how J. Sheridan Le Fanu influenced H.P. Lovecraft, even though he never read the Irish master’s many great Read More
The Strangest Northerns: Fawcett Style II
“Mary Marvel’s Rescue at the North Pole” (Mary Marvel #5, September 1946) saw two brothers work together on this strange tale of the North Pole. Read More
Spear and Fang: A Prehistoric Premiere
“Spear and Fang” (Weird Tales, July 1925) was Robert E. Howard’s premiere as an author. He was only nineteen when it appeared in Weird Tales. Read More
The Genuine Article: Detective Comics
Comics based on famous detective characters are not uncommon. Sherlock Holmes alone has dozens in many languages. But what is rarer, and the focus of Read More
Link: Skull the Slayer: Polemic or Pulp?
1975 saw two things happen almost simultaneously. Marv Wolfman came to Marvel comics and he created Skull the Slayer. Who? Yes, Skull was not the Read More
Link: The Trail of Lovecraft: Part One: J. Sheridan Le Fanu
H.P. Lovecraft was pretty thorough in his survey The Supernatural Horror in Literature, but he did not possess a crystal ball. He was limited to Read More
SF Pulp Authors in Boys’ Life
Boys’ Life is the magazine of the Boy Scouts of America. It began publishing in March 1911 and is still going to this day. The Read More
Link: Portrait of the Author as a Young Madman
The Lovecraft Circle played a kind of game, one in which they shared manuscripts before publication, in-jokes, writing jams and putting little snippets from one Read More
Link: Adam Link: The Autobiography of a Mechanical Man
Sympathetic robot characters were not the norm in the 1930s. Robots were either the tools of mad scientists or out-of-control monsters. Isaac Asimov’s fame as Read More