Transcribe
Translate
Centauri, issue 2, Winter 1944
Page 5
More information
digital collection
archival collection guide
transcription tips
Centauri - - Page 5 THE COMIC QUESTION BY CHARLES McNUTT Although this was discussed in an early issue of Raym's "Scientifun" by Len Moffat, I should like to go into science fiction and fantasy comic-strips in a bit more detail. It is a fact that the public's views on stf have been and perhaps always will be one of an extremely distasteful nature, and a great deal of this is due largely to the fact that the comic industry has monopolized on the highly profitable field of fantasy, aiming, of course, their publications at the wide-eyed ten year old who in turn gobbles it down with great gusto, unwittingly grossing the comic potentates a small fortune. The general non-scientifictionst immediately compares an issue of "Planet Comics" with Amazing or Planet or Captain Future and, finding the covers basically alike, condemns the mag for what it supposedly was---a juvenile. Unlike Moffat, I am not here to defend the industry of "comixia" but to hold it up as the co-conspirator toward the utter demolition of our beloved stf! While all these cartoon artists, publishers, and distributors are unaware of the great wrong they are doing, they continue to turn out a mass production of re-hash and re-hash and then reset upon their laurels, hearing that everpleasant jingle of a coin in their jeans. All this is fact, and I have proven it to myself by going out to the store and buying nine or ten of the rags after reading Moffat's article. Truthfully, nine out of nine of them are downright rotten, and were I a non-stfer, about to weigh this new mag I had discovered (Astounding, perhaps) with the "funny-books" I would certainly walk away disgusted. There is only one plot to all of them; one story pattern that is followed throughout the whole nauseating yarn: Handsome hero-- beautiful babe--horrible monster or race of monsters--mad scientist and rocketship, --all of which supposedly stirs the youngsters' imaginations to the exploding point. If only youngsters read the stuff, it wouldn't be so bad, but that isn't the case. Strangely enough, fully half of the comic-mag public are grown-up,
Saving...
prev
next
Centauri - - Page 5 THE COMIC QUESTION BY CHARLES McNUTT Although this was discussed in an early issue of Raym's "Scientifun" by Len Moffat, I should like to go into science fiction and fantasy comic-strips in a bit more detail. It is a fact that the public's views on stf have been and perhaps always will be one of an extremely distasteful nature, and a great deal of this is due largely to the fact that the comic industry has monopolized on the highly profitable field of fantasy, aiming, of course, their publications at the wide-eyed ten year old who in turn gobbles it down with great gusto, unwittingly grossing the comic potentates a small fortune. The general non-scientifictionst immediately compares an issue of "Planet Comics" with Amazing or Planet or Captain Future and, finding the covers basically alike, condemns the mag for what it supposedly was---a juvenile. Unlike Moffat, I am not here to defend the industry of "comixia" but to hold it up as the co-conspirator toward the utter demolition of our beloved stf! While all these cartoon artists, publishers, and distributors are unaware of the great wrong they are doing, they continue to turn out a mass production of re-hash and re-hash and then reset upon their laurels, hearing that everpleasant jingle of a coin in their jeans. All this is fact, and I have proven it to myself by going out to the store and buying nine or ten of the rags after reading Moffat's article. Truthfully, nine out of nine of them are downright rotten, and were I a non-stfer, about to weigh this new mag I had discovered (Astounding, perhaps) with the "funny-books" I would certainly walk away disgusted. There is only one plot to all of them; one story pattern that is followed throughout the whole nauseating yarn: Handsome hero-- beautiful babe--horrible monster or race of monsters--mad scientist and rocketship, --all of which supposedly stirs the youngsters' imaginations to the exploding point. If only youngsters read the stuff, it wouldn't be so bad, but that isn't the case. Strangely enough, fully half of the comic-mag public are grown-up,
Hevelin Fanzines
sidebar
