Browsed by
Author: Doug Ellis

A Man of Science: A Study of the Readership of Analog Science Fact-Fiction

A Man of Science: A Study of the Readership of Analog Science Fact-Fiction

Comments 1 comment

analog man of science cover-small

Here’s what I think is an interesting little item, a 20 page booklet (including covers) entitled A Man of Science: A Study of the Readership of Analog Science Fact-Fiction. This was published by Street & Smith, the then-publisher of Analog, and was a promo piece aimed at advertisers.

There’s no publication date, but my guess is it was published in early 1962 — on page 3, Ralph Sharp, Director of Research for the S&S mags, mentions that in the November 1961 issue of Analog a return postcard was included (I’ve looked through several copies of that issue and haven’t found one that still contains the postcard; I’d love to see that, if anyone has one). He states that the issue went on sale on October 17, and within a month 4,700 usable returns had been received by Intercity Research, an independent tabulating firm.

…

Read More Read More

Doom, Zork and Wizardry: 20th Century Retro Gaming

Doom, Zork and Wizardry: 20th Century Retro Gaming

Comments 6 comments

zork - zork II - apple - personal software - infocom-small

Zork and Zork II for the Apple II (Personal Software and Infocom)

Back in the day, I used to play a lot of computer games. And to be honest, I still spend a fair amount of time each week playing, though these days it’s pretty much limited to Lord of the Rings Online.

I started out in the late 1970’s on the Apple II computers in our high school or at the houses of a few of my friends who were lucky enough to have a computer. I bought my first computer, a Commodore 64, when I went to college in 1981, and played a variety of games on it. I particularly remember Wizard of Wor, which was a port from the arcade game that I loved (my friends and I spent a lot of time, and quarters, in arcades during this period).

Later on, after I’d move to a Windows PC, my wife and I, along with a group of friends and family, used to play a lot of first-person shooters, such as Doom, Duke Nukem, Heretic, Hexen, Day of Defeat, Call of Duty and many others. To this day, several of my nephews and nieces still sometimes address me as Duke, a shortened form of the in-game nickname I used in the multi-player games (and no, it had nothing to do with Duke Nukem, but rather was inspired by David Bowie).

When Deb and I went to law school in 1985, we quickly found one of Cambridge’s top attractions (at least if you were a science fiction fan!). This was the Science Fantasy Bookstore, which was owned and run by Bruce “Spike” MacPhee. We used to visit the bookstore quite a bit during the three years we lived there, and always enjoyed talking with Spike, who was a passionate and knowledgeable SF fan. Spike had founded the bookstore in 1977 and it stayed open until 1989.

…

Read More Read More

The 19th Annual Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention

The 19th Annual Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention

Comments 6 comments

Windy City Pulp and Paper 2019-small

The 19th annual Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention is now just over a month away! The convention will take place on April 12-14, 2019 at the Westin Lombard Yorktown Center in Lombard, Illinois. As usual, we will have auctions on both Friday (April 12) and Saturday (April 13) nights, and this year’s auctions promise to be our best ever.

The Friday night auction consists of 230 lots of material from the estate of famed collector Robert Weinberg, while the Saturday night auction begins with 100 lots from the estate of Glenn Lord, literary executor for the Robert E. Howard estate, followed by 56 lots from a few other consignors. And more lots will be added to the Saturday night auction at the convention, to include material consigned there by convention attendees.

Here are some of the highlights in this year’s auctions.

…

Read More Read More

The Judges Guild Journal Third Ultimate Dungeon Design Contest

The Judges Guild Journal Third Ultimate Dungeon Design Contest

Comments 3 comments
judges guild journal 18 cover - Copy-small judges guild journal 18 contest announcement - Copy-small

Yesterday I was going through some old notebooks of gaming stuff from high school and found a piece of original art I’d completely forgotten about. Back then, my friends and I spent most of our free time playing role-playing games — particularly Advanced Dungeons & Dragons — and other war games. I subscribed to a bunch of the gaming magazines at the time, including The Judges Guild Journal.

In issue #18 of that mag (December 1979-January 1980) they announced The Third Ultimate Dungeon Design Contest — also referred to as the “Judges Guild Journal Bride of — the Son of — The Worlds First and Greatest Dungeon Creation Contest — Contest — Contest!!!” JG never met hyperbole they didn’t like.

Entries were due by February 29, 1980, and my 16 year old self decided to enter. There were three categories, based on the size of the dungeon you created (prosaically listed as Large Dungeon, Medium Dungeon and Mini-Dungeon). I worked up a medium dungeon, “Catacombs of the Undead.” One of my high school friends, John Sweet, who was a year younger than me and a talented artist, offered to do some art for it.

…

Read More Read More

Mel Hunter and Hal Clement’s Needle

Mel Hunter and Hal Clement’s Needle

Comments 1 comment

hunter clement needle unpublished-small

The Monday before this year’s San Diego Comic-Con, I drove up to LA to visit a longtime SF fan and art collector. Among the two dozen pieces of art I picked up from him is this painting by artist Mel Hunter. Hunter was active in the SF field, contributing cover art to paperbacks and digests, as well as digest interiors, primarily from the early 1950’s until the early 1960’s, though he was still contributing an occasional cover into the early 1970’s. From December 1955 through December 1957, he also was the art director of If (the sister magazine to Galaxy). Over time, the painting has suffered some damage along the edges, so this image is a bit cropped.

Written on the back of the illustration board is a note stating that this painting is an unpublished illustration for Needle by Hal Clement, and that Hunter gave this painting to Edward Everett Evans and Thelma Evans. Another note below that mentions that the collector I bought it from purchased this from the estate of E.E. Evans (who passed away on December 2, 1958) for $25. Not surprisingly, I paid significantly more for it!

…

Read More Read More

Today’s Bit of Odd Pulp-Related Ephemera

Today’s Bit of Odd Pulp-Related Ephemera

Comments 0 Comment
Astounding Stories of Super-Science Wesso March 1930-small Astounding Stories of Super-Science June 1930-small

A pair of Wesso covers for the Clayton Astounding — March and June, 1930

For today’s bit of odd pulp related ephemera…

Among the material I acquired from the estate of Jack Darrow back in 2001 were his runs of two early fanzines, The Time Traveler and Science Fiction Digest. Mort Weisinger and Julius Schwartz, destined for even bigger things in the worlds of pulp and comic publishing, were involved in both. In a foolish moment of weakness, I let my friend Jerry Weist talk me out of The Time Traveler set. But I think that I’ll get over that one of these days…

I was looking through some of my Science Fiction Digest issues recently for some info a friend wanted on a project he’s doing, and when I opened the March 1933 issue, I discovered that tucked inside was a notice to Darrow that his subscription expired with this issue. On rare occasions I’ve found a notice like that in an issue of a pulp, but hadn’t encountered one in an early fanzine before, so thought I’d post it below.

The following issue, April 1933,contained an article that Weisinger and Schwartz wrote based on their interview of artist Hans Wessolowski, better known as Wesso. Wesso did a lot of work for the Clayton chain of pulps (taking their name from publisher William Clayton), including the covers to Strange Tales and the Clayton issues of Astounding. I’ve seen a few original interior illustrations by Wesso over the years, but as far as I know, none of his original pulp paintings from the Clayton chain still exist.

…

Read More Read More

What’s a Fair Exchange for a Frank R. Paul Original? In 1940, It Was $2.15

What’s a Fair Exchange for a Frank R. Paul Original? In 1940, It Was $2.15

Comments 2 comments

fantastic Adventures 1940 05 back cover life on io-small

Back Cover of Fantastic Adventures, May 1940, by Frank R. Paul

After Otto Binder, the most prolific correspondent of SF fan Jack Darrow (real name Clifford Kornoelje) was their mutual friend, Bill Dellenback. In 1935, the three friends drove from Chicago to NYC, to meet up with various SF fans, editors and publishers. I ran Otto’s account of this trip (which were among the papers I acquired at Darrow’s estate auction nearly two decades ago) several years ago in Pulp Vault #14.

A few days ago, I posted a letter from Mary Gnaedinger (editor of Famous Fantastic Mysteries) to SF fan and collector Thyril Ladd, enclosing an original interior illo by Virgil Finlay, and promising Ladd the next Finlay cover. Running that letter reminded of another, even earlier, letter concerning original art, which I picked up from Darrow’s estate, that I’ve been meaning to post for some time.

Dated August 20, 1940, it’s from Dellenback to both Darrow and Binder. The Convention that Dellenback mentions several times on the first page is the upcoming Chicago Worldcon (or Chicon I), which started a few days later, running from September 1-2, 1940. On the topic of original art, Dellenback states that shortly before, he dropped in to the offices of Ziff-Davis and chatted with editor Ray Palmer before leaving town. While there, Dellenback picked out five Frank R. Paul back cover paintings, used on either Amazing Stories or Fantastic Adventures for a series on Life on Other Planets, which were going to be displayed at the Convention but which Palmer was then going to sell to Dellenback. The price isn’t mentioned; just that Dellenback was going to pay Palmer a “fair exchange.” A lot of other art from those pulps would be auctioned off at the Convention.

…

Read More Read More

Here They Are — The Brand New 1957 Titles from Gnome Press

Here They Are — The Brand New 1957 Titles from Gnome Press

Comments 7 comments

Gnome Press 1957 brand new titles announcement-small

For tonight, I thought I’d post a rare bit of Robert E. Howard Conan ephemera I’ve been meaning to post for awhile, but hadn’t gotten around to yet. This is the front page of the 1957 Gnome Press catalog — the catalog is four pages long, printed on an 11″ x 17″ sheet of paper folded in half (click the image above for a legible version).

Among other books, it advertises “The Fabulous Conan Series,” stating

CONAN, the very-human splendid barbarian, who found high adventure and fought both men or demon in his climb to kingship in the magical pre-dawn lands of Hyboria.

And then followed by a quote on the Conan stories from a professor in the History Department at SMU.

Inside was a one-sided sheet offering their Christmas Discount Offer, 10 books for $12, which I’ll post below. I’d gladly pay that!

…

Read More Read More

Time to Revise Your Lin Carter Bibliography

Time to Revise Your Lin Carter Bibliography

Comments 3 comments

The Brythunian Prints 1-smallAmong the couple of boxes of fanzines I picked up a few weeks ago was this oddity.

It’s the first (and I suspect only) issue of The Brythunian Prints, dated June 1967. I’ve not been able to find out any information at all on this title. It was a sword and sorcery fanzine, “published by the Brythunian Troop of the Hyborean Legion.”

The editors (Ken Hulme, Jim Feerhmeyer and Greg Shank) dedicate the issue “to L. Sprague de Camp and George Scithers for their kindness and cooperation!” Based on Shank’s editorial, they were apparently students at Toledo University, where they formed an organization called the Northwest Ohio Science Fiction Society.

The fanzine is 16 pages long, five pages of which are a S&S story, “Shandu the Magnificent” by Tom Trotter and Ken Hulme. It’s just as good as you would expect it to be. ?

The most interesting content is two pages of poetry by Lin Carter, under the general heading “War Songs and Battle Cries,” apparently reprinted with Carter’s permission from The Wizard of Lemuria and Thongor of Lemuria. The remaining content is taken up with editorials, limericks by John Boardman (four of which were reprinted from Amra) and a book review of The Fantastic Swordsmen edited by de Camp. The back cover is Tolkien related, as it pictures “Baggins and Trinket” (the Ring).

I’d be curious to know if anyone has any further info on this one.

Doug’s last post for us was The Fellowship of the Ring and the Palantir.

The Fellowship of the Ring and the Palantir

The Fellowship of the Ring and the Palantir

Comments 3 comments
I Palantir 1-small I Palantir 2-small I Palantir 3-small

Last week, I posted a few fanzines that I’d picked up in a SF collection a few weekends ago. These originated from the estate of a Chicago area fan who appears to have been pretty active in the 1960’s and 1970’s, even publishing his own fanzine. He apparently attended a number of SF conventions, including many Worldcons, during that period. Among the material are several program books and other ephemera from cons during that time, including the 1960 Worldcon, known as Pittcon. One of the more interesting items I picked up which has a convention tie-in is a copy of the Fantasy Press edition of E.E. “Doc” Smith’s The Vortex Blaster, which is inscribed by Doc to him, reading, “At the Pittcon 1960. Ain’t we having fun? With very best regards, Edward E. Smith, PhD.”

Among the events at that Pittcon was the organizational meeting of the first organized group of J.R.R. Tolkien fans, The Fellowship of the Ring. The FotR went on to publish the first Tolkien fanzine, I Palantir (the first issue of which contained the first piece of Tolkien fan fiction), edited by Ted Johnstone and Bruce Pelz. Among other contributors was Marion Zimmer Bradley, who had pieces in issues 2 and 3 (the latter under the name Elfride Rivers). I Palantir lasted four issues, from 1960 through 1966, before folding.

…

Read More Read More