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Fantascience Digest, v. 2, issue 1, Novermber-December 1938
Page 14
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FANTASCIENCE DIGEST Page 13 STF in the Comics Harry Warner Jr. For the past several years there has been a growing tendency to bemoan the 'degeneration' of science fiction into merely another form of action and sex stories. But during this time another tendency has been almost completely overlooked-- the constant growing of the comic strips featuring, in one form or another, fantasy-- and the almost universal poorness of these. As far as I know, "Buck Rogers" was the first comic strip devoted to stf. exclusively. When this strip was but a few years old it had already become the most popular of all comic strips-- it even branched out into a radio program of the same general type, the radio program later being banned because of its effect on children. At any rate, the popularity of this strip soon caused a flood of others to follow; chief among which was "Flash Gordon," which is now among the worst of them all. "Mandrake the Magicish" was another to feature stf. shortly, and in the meantime many other comics, already established, were beginning to use stf. plots; for example, "Connie," "Brick Bradford," and others, too numerous to mention. Most of these, however, soon returned to the 'legitimate' comic strip situations of dapper detectives and gun-toting gangsters. "Flash Gordon" is typical of those that started on the heels of "Buck Rogers"-- unfortunately --so let us see just what happened to our friend Gordon. The first installment, as I remember it, showed the people of earth tremendously excited over a new planet which had been discovered, and was about to hit earth, destroying, of course, both worlds. Then, after some rather muddled intrigue, a Dr. Zarnov captured the hero, Flash, and his beautiful sweetie, Dale, and shot his newly-invented rocket-ship straight for the new planet, which it was to hit and veer from its orbit, thus saving earth and destroying the occupants of the rocket. But the rocket makes a safe landing on the planet, which misses earth and takes up an orbit around the sun (apparently, as nothing was mentioned of this) and after Dr. Z has become, in some way that I do not remember, a friend of Flash and Dale, they set out to explore the planet--- and there ends all semblance of sanity to the cartoon. For the last four or five years now, ever since then, they have been battling ferocious monsters and even more ferocious men (who miraculously speak English)--- in fact, all that has been done is change any other run of the mine cartoon to a locale on another planet, and instead of the customary Chinese villains and lions and tigers, substitute other-world men and dinosaurs. This is, of course, merely a sample--- all of the others run along the same line, and the majority of these are not recommended for human consumption. Up until a few months ago "Buck Rogers" seemed to be the only one that preserved some semblance of sanity; but now that too has become only silly, the latest bright idea of the authors being to turn the world cockeyed on its axis, thus causing a dreadful war with Venus to end peaceably, and somehow getting the world turned around so nicely that, outside of a few hurricanes, no damage at all is caused. So now that "Buck Rogers" has gone the way of all the others, there is not a decent stf. cartoon
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FANTASCIENCE DIGEST Page 13 STF in the Comics Harry Warner Jr. For the past several years there has been a growing tendency to bemoan the 'degeneration' of science fiction into merely another form of action and sex stories. But during this time another tendency has been almost completely overlooked-- the constant growing of the comic strips featuring, in one form or another, fantasy-- and the almost universal poorness of these. As far as I know, "Buck Rogers" was the first comic strip devoted to stf. exclusively. When this strip was but a few years old it had already become the most popular of all comic strips-- it even branched out into a radio program of the same general type, the radio program later being banned because of its effect on children. At any rate, the popularity of this strip soon caused a flood of others to follow; chief among which was "Flash Gordon," which is now among the worst of them all. "Mandrake the Magicish" was another to feature stf. shortly, and in the meantime many other comics, already established, were beginning to use stf. plots; for example, "Connie," "Brick Bradford," and others, too numerous to mention. Most of these, however, soon returned to the 'legitimate' comic strip situations of dapper detectives and gun-toting gangsters. "Flash Gordon" is typical of those that started on the heels of "Buck Rogers"-- unfortunately --so let us see just what happened to our friend Gordon. The first installment, as I remember it, showed the people of earth tremendously excited over a new planet which had been discovered, and was about to hit earth, destroying, of course, both worlds. Then, after some rather muddled intrigue, a Dr. Zarnov captured the hero, Flash, and his beautiful sweetie, Dale, and shot his newly-invented rocket-ship straight for the new planet, which it was to hit and veer from its orbit, thus saving earth and destroying the occupants of the rocket. But the rocket makes a safe landing on the planet, which misses earth and takes up an orbit around the sun (apparently, as nothing was mentioned of this) and after Dr. Z has become, in some way that I do not remember, a friend of Flash and Dale, they set out to explore the planet--- and there ends all semblance of sanity to the cartoon. For the last four or five years now, ever since then, they have been battling ferocious monsters and even more ferocious men (who miraculously speak English)--- in fact, all that has been done is change any other run of the mine cartoon to a locale on another planet, and instead of the customary Chinese villains and lions and tigers, substitute other-world men and dinosaurs. This is, of course, merely a sample--- all of the others run along the same line, and the majority of these are not recommended for human consumption. Up until a few months ago "Buck Rogers" seemed to be the only one that preserved some semblance of sanity; but now that too has become only silly, the latest bright idea of the authors being to turn the world cockeyed on its axis, thus causing a dreadful war with Venus to end peaceably, and somehow getting the world turned around so nicely that, outside of a few hurricanes, no damage at all is caused. So now that "Buck Rogers" has gone the way of all the others, there is not a decent stf. cartoon
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