Gservo
19th November 2002, 03:32 PM
In our previous thrilling installment , Uncle Hugo -- the author’s oh-so-clever stand-in for the field of science fiction -- finally had a real heart-to-heart with his nephew, Comics. Between belts of Scotch, Uncle Hugo admitted that, while he’d sometimes been ashamed of Comics, he saw a lot of himself in the youngster. Having discussed the similar relationships the two had with their respective fandoms, Hugo nodded off to sleep and Comics crept quietly out of the room. Now the poor kid’s come back for more…
**
“There is no way in which a contemporary audience -- even the contemporary audience for ‘serious’ fiction -- can understand the degree of humiliation and self-revulsion many science fiction writers suffered until at least the mid-nineteen-sixties.”
--Barry N. Malzberg, ENGINES OF THE NIGHT
Sound familiar?
There’s a certain…defensiveness…on the part of long-time comics readers. It creeps into professionals’ discussions, too. The world doesn’t take us seriously -- why not?
When comics people get into this discussion, the answers they come up with are usually twofold and somewhat contradictory. On the one hand, it’s because the world is too stupid. On the other, it’s because so much of what we publish is crap. If only we could dump all that garbage and only publish JIMMY CORRIGAN, then they’d like us. Unless…unless they’re just too stupid…
Welcome back to Uncle Hugo’s parlor.
When I began reading science fiction in the 1970s, it was an axiom of the field -- repeated virtually everywhere -- that good science fiction had started with John W. Campbell Jr., editor from 1938 to 1971 of ASTOUNDING STORIES, which became ANALOG and is still published today. In ALTERNATE WORLDS, James Gunn wrote, “The dozen years between 1938 and 1950 were ASTOUNDING years. During these years the first major science fiction editor began developing the first modern science fiction magazine, the first modern science fiction writers, and, indeed, modern science fiction itself.” Jack Williamson, whose first sf story was published in 1930 and who astonishingly is still writing, wrote in 1975: “John Campbell has been, by common consent, the greatest of our editors.”
Before about 1950, most category science fiction appeared in the magazines, which were the main driving forces in the field. Book publication usually came later, if at all. And among the magazine editors, Campbell was indeed the leader, at least for those first dozen years he helmed ASTOUNDING. (Later he became overly enamored of crackpot scientific theories, and most of ANALOG’s fiction got pretty dull.) Campbell imposed a certain rigor of logical thought on his writers, and cultivated some of the finest writers of the ‘40s, most notably Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, Theodore Sturgeon, and A.E. van Vogt.
In 1949-50, two new magazines challenged ASTOUNDING’s reign. As Williamson said: “Horace Gold was more liberal than Campbell, with less concern for gadgets and more for man’s future psychological and cultural evolution. Gold’s GALAXY became as exciting as ASTOUNDING had ever been…[and] THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION led the field in wit, style, and sheer literary quality.”
This progression -- Campbell’s ASTOUNDING to the more literary works of the ‘50s GALAXY and F&SF -- again became part of the accepted wisdom. In the ‘60s, the field fragmented with the arrival of sf’s “new wave,” a loose movement that brought experimental literary techniques to the field. Over the years, this was refined and synthesized into cyberpunk and various other movements.
I’m generalizing wildly, of course -- it’s not within the scope of this column to present a comprehensive history of science fiction. The point is this: Through all this change, sf pros and fans still felt that same inferiority complex, that obligation to defend science fiction to the outside world at every opportunity. And part of that defense involved openly, publicly sneering at the field’s more “primitive” examples -- most notably the works of E. E. “doc” Smith.
Smith’s SKYLARK and LENSMAN books were unabashed, huge-scale, crazy adventure fiction. The “science” in them was ridiculous, even for the time (the ‘30s and ‘40s); the characterization was, er, primitive; and the writing was…well…let’s just say clunky. (I was going to quote a sample here, but it would be too long -- Smith said nothing briefly.) But the scale, the motion, the sheer sense of wonder was unmatched. Small wonder the Lensman series became the inspiration for a major Silver Age superhero -- more on that next time.
Old-style sf has arguably moved primarily into TV and films at this point -- but it survived in print for years, much of it in “pulpier” magazines than ASTOUNDING. The late Leigh Brackett, a pioneering space-opera writer, is probably best known today as the co-writer of THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK which, like the entire STAR WARS series, was heavily influenced by early prose sf. In Brackett’s introduction to THE BEST OF PLANET STORIES #1, she wrote: “It was fashionable for a while, among certain elements of science-fiction fandom, to hate PLANET STORIES. They hated the magazine, apparently, because it was not ASTOUNDING STORIES, a view I found ridiculous at the time, and still do…ASTOUNDING went for the cerebrum, PLANET for the gut, and it always seemed to me that one target was as valid as the other.”
Still…for years, it just wasn’t right to enjoy “doc” Smith, to enjoy PLANET STORIES. It wasn’t respectable. It didn’t further the cause of science fiction.
Just as it’s not respectable today, in certain quarters, to enjoy superhero or “mainstream” comics.
But the market didn’t care. Smith’s books sold for decades…right there on the shelf next to Ursula LeGuin, Frank Herbert, and yes, Isaac Asimov. (They don’t sell as well now…but the decline of the backlist in category fiction is another, huge topic that, unfortunately, we don’t have room for here.)
There’s one big difference between comics and sf that I haven’t mentioned yet. Comics is a medium; sf is a genre. From a marketing standpoint, comics are more analogous to books as a whole than to sf as a category. There have been very few sf-only bookstores, and I don’t think there’s more than one or two left in the country at this point.
So let’s look at comic book stores for a minute. There’s a lot of debate today about what makes a “good” comic store. Some people say you should throw out the superheroes, or at least hide them in the back, and push the indy stuff, whether it sells or not. Others say you should lead with the current big sellers. Obviously it depends on local clienteles; and the broader the spectrum of product you carry, the more careful you have to be about ordering nonreturnable items.
But I’ve never seen the harm WOLVERINE does to EIGHTBALL. Bookstores sell both potboiler fiction and time-tested works of literature; record stores carry Britney Spears and the latest indy bands (good record stores, anyway). Nobody avoids a Virgin Megastore because there’s a big ‘Nsync poster in the window. It’s where you buy records!
And nobody ever avoided the science fiction section because doc Smith or Perry Rhodan were in there stinking it up. If you wanted Philip K. Dick, Cordwainer Smith, or Samuel R. Delany, they were there.
Why should comics be any different?
**
Oh, god. Uncle Hugo’s awake again:
“So that’s it, kid. We ain’t so different, you an’ me. Y’know? We ain’t so different. Hey! Where y’goin’?
“I know, I know…I promised to talk about the connections between comics and sf, about the talented guys who crossed between the two fields over the years. I’ll get to it next time, I promise. You got no patience, you know that? If it don’t fit in 22 pages, you just don’t get it.
“You’ll come back an’ see old Uncle Hugo again, won’t you? Look here. ASTOUNDING. FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION. William Gibson. That’s the good stuff. Never mind those doc Smith books in the closet. I’m respectable! Respectable, I tell you!
“Is he gone?
“Aaaah…PLANET STORIES…”
**
“There is no way in which a contemporary audience -- even the contemporary audience for ‘serious’ fiction -- can understand the degree of humiliation and self-revulsion many science fiction writers suffered until at least the mid-nineteen-sixties.”
--Barry N. Malzberg, ENGINES OF THE NIGHT
Sound familiar?
There’s a certain…defensiveness…on the part of long-time comics readers. It creeps into professionals’ discussions, too. The world doesn’t take us seriously -- why not?
When comics people get into this discussion, the answers they come up with are usually twofold and somewhat contradictory. On the one hand, it’s because the world is too stupid. On the other, it’s because so much of what we publish is crap. If only we could dump all that garbage and only publish JIMMY CORRIGAN, then they’d like us. Unless…unless they’re just too stupid…
Welcome back to Uncle Hugo’s parlor.
When I began reading science fiction in the 1970s, it was an axiom of the field -- repeated virtually everywhere -- that good science fiction had started with John W. Campbell Jr., editor from 1938 to 1971 of ASTOUNDING STORIES, which became ANALOG and is still published today. In ALTERNATE WORLDS, James Gunn wrote, “The dozen years between 1938 and 1950 were ASTOUNDING years. During these years the first major science fiction editor began developing the first modern science fiction magazine, the first modern science fiction writers, and, indeed, modern science fiction itself.” Jack Williamson, whose first sf story was published in 1930 and who astonishingly is still writing, wrote in 1975: “John Campbell has been, by common consent, the greatest of our editors.”
Before about 1950, most category science fiction appeared in the magazines, which were the main driving forces in the field. Book publication usually came later, if at all. And among the magazine editors, Campbell was indeed the leader, at least for those first dozen years he helmed ASTOUNDING. (Later he became overly enamored of crackpot scientific theories, and most of ANALOG’s fiction got pretty dull.) Campbell imposed a certain rigor of logical thought on his writers, and cultivated some of the finest writers of the ‘40s, most notably Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, Theodore Sturgeon, and A.E. van Vogt.
In 1949-50, two new magazines challenged ASTOUNDING’s reign. As Williamson said: “Horace Gold was more liberal than Campbell, with less concern for gadgets and more for man’s future psychological and cultural evolution. Gold’s GALAXY became as exciting as ASTOUNDING had ever been…[and] THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION led the field in wit, style, and sheer literary quality.”
This progression -- Campbell’s ASTOUNDING to the more literary works of the ‘50s GALAXY and F&SF -- again became part of the accepted wisdom. In the ‘60s, the field fragmented with the arrival of sf’s “new wave,” a loose movement that brought experimental literary techniques to the field. Over the years, this was refined and synthesized into cyberpunk and various other movements.
I’m generalizing wildly, of course -- it’s not within the scope of this column to present a comprehensive history of science fiction. The point is this: Through all this change, sf pros and fans still felt that same inferiority complex, that obligation to defend science fiction to the outside world at every opportunity. And part of that defense involved openly, publicly sneering at the field’s more “primitive” examples -- most notably the works of E. E. “doc” Smith.
Smith’s SKYLARK and LENSMAN books were unabashed, huge-scale, crazy adventure fiction. The “science” in them was ridiculous, even for the time (the ‘30s and ‘40s); the characterization was, er, primitive; and the writing was…well…let’s just say clunky. (I was going to quote a sample here, but it would be too long -- Smith said nothing briefly.) But the scale, the motion, the sheer sense of wonder was unmatched. Small wonder the Lensman series became the inspiration for a major Silver Age superhero -- more on that next time.
Old-style sf has arguably moved primarily into TV and films at this point -- but it survived in print for years, much of it in “pulpier” magazines than ASTOUNDING. The late Leigh Brackett, a pioneering space-opera writer, is probably best known today as the co-writer of THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK which, like the entire STAR WARS series, was heavily influenced by early prose sf. In Brackett’s introduction to THE BEST OF PLANET STORIES #1, she wrote: “It was fashionable for a while, among certain elements of science-fiction fandom, to hate PLANET STORIES. They hated the magazine, apparently, because it was not ASTOUNDING STORIES, a view I found ridiculous at the time, and still do…ASTOUNDING went for the cerebrum, PLANET for the gut, and it always seemed to me that one target was as valid as the other.”
Still…for years, it just wasn’t right to enjoy “doc” Smith, to enjoy PLANET STORIES. It wasn’t respectable. It didn’t further the cause of science fiction.
Just as it’s not respectable today, in certain quarters, to enjoy superhero or “mainstream” comics.
But the market didn’t care. Smith’s books sold for decades…right there on the shelf next to Ursula LeGuin, Frank Herbert, and yes, Isaac Asimov. (They don’t sell as well now…but the decline of the backlist in category fiction is another, huge topic that, unfortunately, we don’t have room for here.)
There’s one big difference between comics and sf that I haven’t mentioned yet. Comics is a medium; sf is a genre. From a marketing standpoint, comics are more analogous to books as a whole than to sf as a category. There have been very few sf-only bookstores, and I don’t think there’s more than one or two left in the country at this point.
So let’s look at comic book stores for a minute. There’s a lot of debate today about what makes a “good” comic store. Some people say you should throw out the superheroes, or at least hide them in the back, and push the indy stuff, whether it sells or not. Others say you should lead with the current big sellers. Obviously it depends on local clienteles; and the broader the spectrum of product you carry, the more careful you have to be about ordering nonreturnable items.
But I’ve never seen the harm WOLVERINE does to EIGHTBALL. Bookstores sell both potboiler fiction and time-tested works of literature; record stores carry Britney Spears and the latest indy bands (good record stores, anyway). Nobody avoids a Virgin Megastore because there’s a big ‘Nsync poster in the window. It’s where you buy records!
And nobody ever avoided the science fiction section because doc Smith or Perry Rhodan were in there stinking it up. If you wanted Philip K. Dick, Cordwainer Smith, or Samuel R. Delany, they were there.
Why should comics be any different?
**
Oh, god. Uncle Hugo’s awake again:
“So that’s it, kid. We ain’t so different, you an’ me. Y’know? We ain’t so different. Hey! Where y’goin’?
“I know, I know…I promised to talk about the connections between comics and sf, about the talented guys who crossed between the two fields over the years. I’ll get to it next time, I promise. You got no patience, you know that? If it don’t fit in 22 pages, you just don’t get it.
“You’ll come back an’ see old Uncle Hugo again, won’t you? Look here. ASTOUNDING. FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION. William Gibson. That’s the good stuff. Never mind those doc Smith books in the closet. I’m respectable! Respectable, I tell you!
“Is he gone?
“Aaaah…PLANET STORIES…”