On August 19th I gave this talk to an audience at the Central Alberta Fanfest. I figured after all that research, why not make a post about it? This fifteen minute look at Pulps and comics, and their connection to Alberta, Canada, was given in Ponoka, Alberta.
Where I Grew Up
Growing up in Alberta, I realized I could not have chosen a better place to be a kid than St. Paul. (Not the one in Minnesota.) This small Alberta town has a U. F. O. landing pad! What could be better for a future Science Fiction fan? The only possible alternative is Vulcan, Alberta. I wrote about this before in “Growing Up Star Trek”.
Lytton
Now let us consider this gentleman. This is Lord Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873). He wrote such classics as “The House and the Brain” but he is best known for the opening: “It was a dark and stormy night!” This writer has a town in British Columbia named after him. (Lytton, British Columbia was in the news a lot two years ago because a forest fire burned down the town.)
Lord Bulwer-Lytton never visited the place. It was named after him because he was the Minister of Highways at the time that it was surveyed.
Bulwer-Lytton wrote a lost race novel called The Coming Race (1871) that featured a magic power called Vril. (The Bovril Company of England borrowed the name for their meat extract! Cow Power!) There is a bad writing contest named after Lord Lytton. But that’s not in Alberta!
Flin Flon
Consider this gentleman. This is J. E. Preston Muddock (1843-1934), who also wrote under the name Dick Donovan. He wrote a Pulp novel called The Sunless City (1905).
The hero of this tale is one Josiah Flintabbatey Flonatin or “Flin Flon” for short. When the pioneers found what is now Flin Flon, Manitoba, they named the town after this character’s nickname. Imagine if they had called it Josiah Flintabbatey Flonatin, Manitoba!
The town sports a cool statue of him as their symbol. But again, this isn’t Alberta!
Bindloss
Okay, Alberta has one, too. This guy is Harold Bindloss (1866-1945). He is a British-born writer who farmed in Canada and wrote several Westerns including Winston of the Prairie (1905) and Masters of the Wheat-Lands (1910).
Bindloss was so popular, the town of Bindloss, Alberta is named after him. Now, Bindloss is no metropolis, being not more than a church and a grain elevator but these small towns in Alberta are classic.
The Pulps
Pulp magazines have existed in one form or another since 1882 but they hit their stride during the Great Depression. There were all kinds of Pulps: Romance Pulps, Western Pulps, Detective Pulps, and my favorite, Horror Pulps.
Athabasca
The best of them all: Weird Tales! Our first connection to Alberta and a real Pulp magazine is the May-June-July issue of Weird Tales. This issue has a story set in Athabasca, Alberta. Was it written by H. P. Lovecraft? No, he was there doing some ghost-writing (get it?) for Harry Houdini.
Was it Seabury Quinn, creator of Jues de Grandin, Weird Tales most famous ghostbreaker? Nope. It was this story: “The Sunken Land” by George W. Bayly.
Mr. Bayly was a one-hit wonder but this story is a gem.
(Here’s Athabasca. No wait! That’s Athabasca from Clive Barker’s 1990 film, Night Breed! I remember seeing this in a theater is Calgary when it opened. You can believe they were rolling in the aisle when this image popped up! Here’s the real town.)
Anyway, the real story has two RCMP officers and a doctor go after some criminals in the bush near Athabasca (or Athabasca Landing as it was originally called.) They don’t find the crooks but the doctor gets eaten by some killer trees. The Mounties take refuge on a tree-less island and only escape because of a forest fire. (Love a good plant monster story!)
Gus Smith
But what about Pulp writers who lived in Alberta? Met Augustus deHerries Smith (1881-1945). Gus Smith left Ireland to become a farmer in the Paddle River area of Alberta. (Here is a picture of the Paddle River today.)
To my surprise, I spent my youth only half an hour from where Smith lived, and never knew it until I was in my fifties!) Later Smith would move to Edmonton and wrote for the Pulps, but not just any Pulps. He wrote for Adventure, the top Pulp in the world.
(I mention this because later we will meet a writer who wanted nothing more than to appear in Adventure, but never did. And what came of that.) Smith’s Pulp stories were often set in the Arctic or on the Prairies.
John Byrne
Now I promised some comic books in here too. Here is a man who helped create one of the most popular characters in comic history.
He is from Calgary. This is John Byrne, who along with British-born writer, Chris Claremont, gave us the version of Wolverine that would end up on movie screens. John wasn’t born in Calgary but moved there when he was eight.
Todd McFarlane
But here’s another guy, born and raised in Calgary. Todd McFarlane, creator of the independent comic Spawn. But Todd got famous drawing this guy– Spiderman!
And the movies would lack a certain bad guy without Todd’s work: Venom. So I guess Calgary gave us something besides one Stanley Cup. (Obligatory pro-Edmonton Oilers joke for the locals.)
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention OnSpec Magazine, published out of Edmonton. This is a true Canadian SF classic. You can buy copies in most bigger bookstores.
Robert E. Howard
Finally, let’s talk about that guy who wanted to be in Adventure Magazine. He wasn’t an Albertan, but growing up in Texas he might not have been all that different than one. It’s Robert E. Howard. Howard wrote several adventure-oriented stories for that Pulp but all were rejected.
So he added Horror elements and sold them to Weird Tales. Adventure‘s loss and our gain. Because when Robert E. did this, he created the sub-genre of Fantasy known as Sword & Sorcery. Among other things, he created the character of Conan the Barbarian.
And that is the Pulp-descended style of writing that I do. RAGE machine Books has published several Sword & Sorcery titles over the years, including Swords of Fire 1 and 2, and now my newest series, the Bearshirt novels.
This Albertan is happy Robert E. Howard didn’t become a top writer for Adventure.
Thanks to the Ponoka Library for sponsoring the event. See you again next year!