Of course Fawcett’s house policy was to keep its writers and artists anonymous, but for some reason they relented when it came to the text stories, and here was an adventure of Jon Jarl, futuristic space policeman, by “Eando Binder.” I had no idea at the time that “Eando” was a joint pseudonym of Earl and Otto Binder. I just thought it was an unusual name. Probably pronounced “Yann-doe,” or something like that.
And of course I didn’t realize that most of the stories in every issue of Captain Marvel Adventures were written by Eando Binder, too. Or, more accurately, by Otto Binder, his brother Earl having left the writing team to pursue other business opportunities.
In that same era—I’m talking about the mid-1940s—I was also developing an interest in science fiction. A little later, as a high school student, I stumbled across some old pulp magazines and discovered that Eando Binder had written stories for them as well. I was especially taken with his “Via Etherline” series that ran in Thrilling Wonder Stories, one of my favorites in those days. By now Otto (or “Eando”) was not seen in the pulps any longer, save for an occasional reprinted short story, and I thought that he was eking out a meager income writing Jon Jarl yarns. I came very close to sending him a sympathetic and encouraging letter, urging him to struggle and get back onto his feet. He could climb back up to the heights of Thrilling Wonder Stories, I thought, if only he’d try. And there I was, all unaware that “Eando” was writing comic book scripts at a furious pace and making a very good living at it, and that Jon Jarl represented just the smallest part of his output.
The “Via Etherline” stories had originally been published under the pseudonym “Gordon A. Giles.” When I learned that Giles was really Eando Binder—this was a few years later, when I was a college student—I was fascinated. “Gordon A. Giles” contains a clue to the fact that it was a pseudonym. The initials spell out GAG—the name was all a joke. As an active science fiction fan at the time, I proceeded to create a double pseudonym for myself, in honor of both “Eando” and “Gordon A. Giles.” Thus, for a little while, I became twins—Frank Arthur Kerr and James Otho Kerr. Reduce the given names to initials and the result is “Faker” and “Joker.” Not long after this, Captain Marvel and the other Marvels disappeared from the newsstands. I was going through a lot of changes, too. I received my degree, earned an army commission, was called to active duty for several of those tense Cold War years, finally returned to reserve status, took a job in the then-fledgling computer industry, and married.
By 1960 my bride and I, having tried suburban life and found it not to our liking, moved into the heart of Manhattan. Seeking a creative outlet (computer manuals being no more exciting to write than they are to read), we inaugurated a fanzine, Xero. This was published in the context of science fiction fandom, but in fact it was a broad-spectrum journal of popular culture. It addressed films, fantasy literature, theater, television, and sociology. And, of course, comics.
In the first issue we ran a nostalgic essay that I’d written about my comics reading days. I called it “The Big Red Cheese,” and to my surprise it led to a series of essays by diverse hands, at least two books, and is regarded by many cultural historians as seminal in the creation of comics scholarship and comics fandom. Those were the days when a hardy few people dared suggest that comic books, the most despised form of literature, might actually have some value and might even merit serious attention.
By now the wall of anonymity at Fawcett and most other comics publishers was starting to crumble, and fans and scholars were beginning to track down the talented writers and artists and editors who actually created those exciting, colorful stories. Otto/Eando Binder had been discovered (or rediscovered), and I was impressed to learn that he had not only written many hundreds of stories for Fawcett but had worked for some of the other, lesser publishers in the 1940s.
When Fawcett dropped out of the comics business in the early 1950s, Otto wound up working for Fawcett’s former rival, DC. Not content with merely spinning out new yarns about existing characters, Otto was instrumental in the creation and development of new and fascinating aspects of the Superman mythos—Superboy, Supergirl, the lost “bottle city” of Kandor, Brainiac, and Superman’s odd doppelganger, Bizarro.
And still later, in 1990, when I was in Hollywood and visited the set where a film based on one of my own short stories was being shot, I met Helen Slater, who had played Supergirl in an earlier film. We live in a strangely interconnected world!
Just as the word Shazam has entered the English language (did you catch it on the soundtrack of the 2002 Spider-Man film?), so too has the concept of “Bizarro,” in contexts as varied as office-cooler conversation and the Seinfeld television series. But still, Otto’s greatest work, I thought, was the work he did with the Marvel Family for Fawcett. I was intrigued to learn that he didn’t create the character, nor was he the first scripter to turn out Captain Marvel stories. That honor belonged to another Fawcett veteran, Bill Parker. But there is no doubt that Otto Binder, along with artist C. C. Beck, gave the feature its distinctive quality, its brilliant amalgam of action, imagination, suspense, and wit.
Nothing like it had existed before Otto got his hands on the Cheese, and nothing like it has ever happened since. A later revival of the Marvel Family took place under the aegis of DC Comics. Bill Schelly discusses this event so I won’t go into it in detail, but the fact is that the magic of those thick 1940s comics was never recaptured. Cap and his family still hover around the edges of the comics publishing industry, making ghostly guest appearances in various DC periodicals, and a feature film is rumored to be in production, but I doubt that we will ever again see anything to match those grand adventures scripted by Otto Binder and drawn by C. C. Beck. They are treasures all their own, and their availability in reprint editions is cause for celebration.
Since my 1960 essay dealt chiefly with Captain Marvel, I took a copy of Xero Number One to the offices of Space World magazine, where Otto was now working along with his onetime colleague at Fawcett Comics, Bill Woolfolk. I’m not certain but I think Otto’s wife, Ione, was sitting behind the receptionist’s desk when I arrived. I handed her the magazine, asked her to give it to Mr. Binder, and started to leave. “Don’t you want to give it to him yourself?” she asked.
“Fiction is not life. Fiction shows things the way they ought to be, not the way they are.” —Otto Binder. Courtesy of Michael Turek.
“No, no,” I gasped over my shoulder as I fled the premises. I was so awestricken at the prospect of actually meeting the great and famous Otto Binder, I couldn’t deal with the reality. I had failed twice to connect directly with this man who was one of my boyhood heroes. I hadn’t sent the “Jon Jarl” letter in 1950 and I hadn’t handed him the fatal fanzine in 1960.
That might have been as close as I ever came to meeting Otto Binder, but fortunately it wasn’t. Otto read “The Big Red Cheese” and was obviously pleased by it, as he sent me a lovely, gracious letter of thanks. He also pointed out some errors in my essay, added an anecdote or two, and Pat and I ran his letter as a little article in the third issue of Xero.
Since Pat and I lived in Manhattan and the offices of Space World were also located there, and the Binders lived nearby in northern New Jersey, our exchange of letters led to phone calls and finally to an invitation to dinner at the Binders’ home. Otto and Ione lived in a comfortable, colonial-style home in a pleasant suburban town.
Ione greeted us at the door. She was an attractive, well-dressed woman, the epitome of the Eisenhower Era Donna Reed-style homemaker, with dark hair and graceful features and wearing a classic hostess dress. Otto shook my hand, and Pat’s. I was initially overwhelmed, but Otto made me feel comfortable and at home. He was a slightly stocky man of medium height, several inches shorter than myself. He had a warm, pleasant manner, completely unpretentious and without egotism.
I must have mumbled something clever on the order of, “I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. Binder.” I pronounced his name with a
long i, as in spine.
Otto smiled and said, “It’s pronounced ‘Binder,’” giving the i its short sound, as in spin.
“It’s a German name,” Otto added, “it means ‘binder,’”—pronouncing that word the way I had first done!
We also met the Binders’ young daughter, Mary, a sweet and lovable child.
It was a delightful and unforgettable event. Otto offered us drinks, Ione served a delicious meal, Mary added a bright and happy note. Otto took us upstairs to his workshop, showed us some of his Marvel memorabilia, and talked about his career in and out of comics. As a souvenir he gave me a copy of an early 1930s fanzine called simply, Science Fiction. This had been published by two schoolboys in Cleveland, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, and featured a short story, “The Reign of the Superman”—arguably the first appearance ever of the Man of Steel. (That fragile, mimeographed pamphlet is now part of my son Ken’s personal collection.)
A few weeks later Pat and I reciprocated by inviting the Binders to our home for a meeting of the Fantasy Film Club.
This organization was run by two friends of ours, Chris Steinbrunner and David Foley. Chris was manager of the film library at a New York television station, and was able to snag 16mm prints of a wide array of movies. This was, remember, pre-VCR, pre-videocassette, pre-DVD. If a movie you wanted to see was on television, you made it your business to be home in front of the tube at the scheduled time, or you were out of luck.
But not for the lucky few in the Fantasy Film Club.
Chris would lug the heavy prints to his home or to the homes of other members of the club and screen programs of feature films on Sunday afternoons and evenings. We would have an Agatha Christie day, a Sherlock Holmes day, a Frankenstein day. From time to time Chris would vary the program by showing a serial: The Green Archer, The Purple Monster Strikes, The Spider, Captain America.
This Sunday the attraction was the Adventures of Captain Marvel, the grand 1940s Republic serial starring Tom Tyler in the title role, the magnificent Nigel De Brulier as the wizard Shazam, and Frank Coghlan, Jr. as Cap’s youthful alter ego, Billy Batson. Pat and I were the proud parents of a baby boy at the time, and before our guests of honor arrived we togged little Ken out in a pair of bright red tights blazoned with a golden lightning bolt. When Otto and Ione and their daughter Mary entered our apartment, we presented them with “Captain Marvel Baby.”
The Binders were all delighted with the event and it remains a bright, glittering entry in my personal memory bank.
In that era I was working for a computer company writing software manuals and application studies, but I really wanted to get out of the industry and flex my wings as a freelancer. Otto encouraged me, critiquing my work and assuring me that rejection slips were par for the course, and that I really would make the grade if I kept working at it.
Around this time he also made a comment that I found striking, and that has stayed with me ever since. “A professional writer can write anything, from a technical manual to an opera libretto,” Otto said. Something of a hyperbole, I think, but basically true. It certainly applied to his own work, which ranged from introductory science books for young readers and informational brochures for NASA, to horror stories, space adventures, and of course his most popular works, his comic book scripts. There is an irony in the fact that those last-named items, which had literally millions of readers, seldom bore a credit line mentioning their creator.
In 1965 my first book, a nonfiction effort, was published. The next year I sold my first novel, and the year after that it made it into print. The last time I saw Otto was at the World Science Fiction Convention in 1967. One Million Centuries was about to be published. Finished books weren’t yet available, but my publisher had created a dummy copy for display by wrapping a cover proof around another author’s book. I showed it to Otto with pride, and he gave me his wonderful, distinctive smile. But even then, and I remember this all too vividly, his eyes were watery with unshed tears.
Otto Binder and Dick Lupoff at the 1966 New York Comicon organized by John Benson, the only known photograph of them together. Courtesy of Jack C. Harris.
This was, alas, not long after the death of Otto and Ione’s daughter, Mary. They had always wanted a family, and when Ione became pregnant relatively late in life they regarded their child as a blessing, little short of a miracle. They called their home in New Jersey “the house that Captain Marvel built,” and they named their daughter Mary, as in Mary Marvel.
I remember the moment that I learned of Mary Binder’s death. I received a phone call from Robert Stewart, a friend from my science fiction fan days and later sometime DC employee. He told me that Mary had been struck by a car and killed, and a cold hand grasped my insides.
As far as I know, Otto and Ione never recovered from Mary’s death, and as a father (and now a grandfather) I can only imagine the shock and sense of loss that they must have experienced, and pray that I never have to deal with such a tragedy. Wherever the Binders are now, I only hope that they are together again.
The last time I saw Otto, in 1967, it was obvious to me that he had been drinking heavily, and I could understand his pursuing anything that would dull the jagged edges of the grief and pain that he and Ione were feeling.
That science fiction convention took place in the Statler-Hilton Hotel in New York, opposite the old Pennsylvania Station. Once known as the Hotel Pennsylvania, it was immortalized in a World War II song, “PEnnsylvania 6-5000.” Younger folks may be mystified by the lyric. It refers to the hotel’s telephone number. Countless GIs and swabbies and their girlfriends had used the Pennsylvania for a final farewell before the boys shipped out to Europe or the Pacific. Half a million of them never came back.
Not long after the convention I made my final break with the computer industry. With my own family—Pat and I had two children, and our third child would be born the following year—I moved to the West Coast. Otto and Ione also moved from the New York area to an upstate town, so our nexus was thoroughly scattered.
As for Otto Binder as an author, I cannot pretend that he was a great literary figure. He was a bright, talented, imaginative writer. He was a storyteller. He wrote with verve, with whimsy, with color, and with humor. He was neither a Thomas Wolfe nor a Thomas Mann. He wrote to entertain his readers, and he did just that. He brightened many of my childhood hours, and I know that he brightened the lives of literally millions of other boys and girls, young and not-so-young men and women, who read his comic book stories, his pulp stories, his novels, and his occasional forays into nonfiction.
Now Bill Schelly has brought my friend Otto Binder back to me for a few hours, the hours that it took me to read his wonderful book. It’s a touching portrait of a fine man who gave pleasure and joy to a generation of readers, most of whom, sadly, had no idea whose works they were reading. Sympathetic but honest and realistic, it shows Otto as he was and as he lived. An unsung hero to most of the media world, Otto Binder deserves to be remembered and his contributions to be recognized.
Bill Schelly has spent years researching his subject, tracking down surviving family members, fans, friends, and colleagues, unearthing rare surviving tapes or transcripts of interviews and panel discussions in which Otto participated, and searching out copies of everything he could find that Otto wrote. But the book is far more than an effort of biographical and bibliographic research. Simply turning its pages, reading Bill Schelly’s words—and Otto’s—I feel as if I were somehow, miraculously, once more in the presence of this man who meant so much to me, so many years ago. Although I knew Otto, I still learned much that I hadn’t previously known about him from reading Bill’s book. These revelations include Otto’s early involvement with the science fiction fan movement and his varied business and creative enterprises.
I like to think that my 1960 essay, “The Big Red Cheese,” was at least partially responsible for the Otto Binder renaissance of later years, and that through it I contributed, at least in a small way, to Otto�
�s being recognized and remembered for the grand contributions that he made to the lives of generations of boys and girls and men and women. That his life was marked with personal tragedy and professional rebuffs only adds poignancy to this complex human story.
When you finish reading this book, I hope you will take the trouble to scout up some of Otto’s “Via Etherline” stories; his Jon Jarl vignettes; his science fiction novels featuring Anton York, Immortal, and Adam Link; and some of his more speculative works (whether you as a reader choose to treat them as fiction or nonfiction).
Adam Link, in particular, may well be regarded as the forerunner of today’s experiments in the field of artificial intelligence—a far cry from the clanking, mechanistic robots popular before Otto and a few colleagues changed all that. In the “Via Etherline” stories Otto broke the “space opera” mold of interplanetary exploration stories, and in effect created a more realistic, even gritty, image of what that enterprise will be like. Recent tragic events in space have proven Otto’s vision grimly accurate.
The publication of Otto’s paperback books in the 1970s and the inclusion of some of his stories in science fiction anthologies of that era are largely attributable to the efforts of his then-agent, Roger Elwood. Another denizen of New Jersey, Elwood was a highly controversial character. He hit the science fiction world like a cyclone in the late 1960s, working as editor, anthologist, agent, and occasional author in his own right. He was incredibly energetic and had natural talents as a salesman. He would visit a publisher’s office and pitch project after project. He had an endless store of ideas, and he would persist until he sold something, anything. In a short time it seemed that Roger Elwood was the science fiction industry.
There were obvious and unavoidable problems with his multifarious roles, suggestions of conflict of interest and a not-unexpected deterioration in the quality of product, so much of it turned out at such incredible speed. It seemed that Elwood was almost single-handedly responsible for a huge inflation in the publication of the science fiction anthology. He flooded the market. This in turn led to an inevitable collapse. It took the field years to recover from the disaster.
Otto Binder: The Life and Work of a Comic Book and Science Fiction Visionary Page 2