Otto was still “Mr. Binder” to Julius Schwartz in March 1934. Courtesy of Julius Schwarz.
In May 1934, Julie Schwartz and Mort Weisinger launched Solar Sales Service, a literary agency specializing in science fiction. By this time, they were well acquainted with many of the editors in the pulp business, and offered writers the benefit of those contacts—for the typical 10 percent of the story payment. Binder was in the first group of writers contacted. Schwartz wrote, “Only recently Mortimer Weisinger and myself made an extensive survey of the entire science fiction field, through a series of talks with the various editors, and as a result we believe that science fiction is due for a renaissance. In view of this favorable situation, I am pleased to announce the formation of Solar Sales Service, an agency for all s-f writers.”23 Soon they had an impressive roster of talented writers who depended on them to place their stories, which they did with speed and professionalism.
Mort Weisinger met Otto and Earl Binder in person on his trip to Chicago in August 1934 to see the Century of Progress exhibition. Despite the fact that they were already represented by another agent, the Binders agreed to try Solar Sales, and within two weeks Solar made a sale on their behalf. The story was “The Chessboard of Mars,” to Amazing. (It was resold to Thrilling Wonder Stories in late 1936 because Amazing hadn’t used it. Thrilling paid more per word, and upon acceptance. Otto Binder, who is credited with writing this story without his brother’s help, received one hundred dollars for this sale, less his agent’s percentage.)
A propitious trip cemented Binder’s relationship with Schwartz and Weisinger. In the summer of 1935, the Chicago SFL sent a delegation of three to the national headquarters in New York City. Jack Darrow, William Dillenback, and Otto Binder arrived on June 29, when they met Charles Hornig in the offices of Wonder Stories, were introduced to Julius Schwartz, and said hello to Mort Weisinger, whom they’d met ten months before. Moskowitz wrote, “Their thousand-mile trip was one of the most interesting news tidbits to circulate in fandom at the time, and went well with the chapter’s reputation as the leading SFL group of its day.”24
This trip gave Binder the opportunity to get a look at the city where most of the pulps had their offices, and to get better acquainted with the leading lights of New York science fiction fandom. He fell in with Julie and Mort as if they were old friends.
A gathering of Binder’s friends and colleagues in front of Mort Weisinger’s family home in New Jersey. Rear: Jack Williamson, L. Sprague de Camp, John D. Clark, Frank Belknap Long, Mortimer Weisinger, Edmond Hamilton, Otis Adelbert Kline. Front: Otto Binder, Manly Wade Wellman, Julius Schwartz. Courtesy of the Julius Schwartz Collection.
In his autobiography, Man of Two Worlds, Schwartz related an incident that occurred during the visit. “One summer day … I went hiking in Palisades Park with Mort and another friend, Otto Binder … when—BAM!—a car hit us and knocked us over like a row of ten pins. Sometime later we came to in the hospital.
“We were very lucky, and I often wonder what might have been different in science fiction and comics had we been wiped out on that day upstate … But, fortunately, I guess it wasn’t our time.”25
Otto Binder, having grown to manhood in Chicago, was not intimidated by New York City, and enjoyed his visit immensely. In a letter to Weisinger, he declared, “We fellows will always remember our trip to the Big Town as a great and glorious adventure, due to the efforts you fellows put in to showing us a good time. No suddenly wealthy oil-king from the badlands of Oklahoma doing N.Y. for the first time could have enjoyed it more than we did.”26
Unbeknownst to him, within six months—through an unexpected job offer—he would have the opportunity for “glorious adventure” on a daily basis.
The job: literary agent.
His employer: the redoubtable Otis Adelbert Kline.
The place: New York City.
4.
THE NEW YORK BEAT
By the mid-1930s, Otis Kline was focusing more on serving as a literary agent on behalf of writers of popular fiction than on producing more works of his own. He represented many of the top writers in the field, including Robert E. Howard, who was successfully branching out from sword-and-sorcery stories to Western and boxing tales. Kline couldn’t earn enough money as a writer (with rates rarely over one cent a word) to give him the lifestyle he wanted, especially since he had lost $125,000 in investments in the stock market crash. He was making up for lost ground, which his agency fee on a large volume of novels and short stories would make possible.
Soon Kline convinced the Binder brothers to allow him to represent them. He was their agent when they were being wooed by Schwartz’s and Weisinger’s Solar Sales. Since the Binders were frustrated by the lateness of payment for their stories Kline had placed in Amazing, they were receptive to Solar’s agenting offer, but Julie and Mort hadn’t sold many Binder stories before OAK (who was a very persuasive talker) drew the brothers back into his fold. Nevertheless, payment for their Gernsback work wouldn’t be forthcoming for another year.
Not wishing to move to New York City himself, Kline employed a series of representatives to handle his agency’s business there, and to make the necessary personal contacts with the editors and publishers of New York–based firms that were essential to the success of the agency. His latest envoy was his brother Allen, who hadn’t done a satisfactory job and needed to be replaced. Jack Binder suggested Otto for the position.
As Kline recounted in a later letter to Otto, “I was all set to send Ed Welton to New York to take over the agency when I had a talk with Jack, and he suggested that I send you instead. I felt … that you would be a much better man for the job, and that if you wanted to gamble on it I was willing to gamble on you.”27 Binder was just twenty-four, still living at home, and working in a library. He yearned to break out on his own. Kline took an almost avuncular interest in the talented youth, who already had a “name” in the pulps.
Sometime in the fall of 1935, it was agreed: Kline would advance Binder ten dollars a week for living expenses, and Binder would take over the New York office of Kline’s literary agency.
Otto Binder arrived in New York in late December 1935. Fortunately, he saved copies of his letters back to Kline, the first of which is dated December 22. He wrote:
Dear Chief,
Lafayette, we are here! The Great Eastern did its best, but failed to make schedule by four hours. So I arrived at noon. Allen met me and we went immediately to his place, and I find it is a very nice room, not large but cozy. The neighborhood reminds me of Rogers Park. Transportation is all I could ask, with subway, el, tram, and bus within a few of New York’s small blocks. Allen and I have a room together here on W. 122, which place I shall make my center of operations for the nonce. Allen has already given me very valuable information about eating places (notably The Sheik), supply stores, the subway system, and a place to cash checks without the unwinding of scarlet ribbon.
So much for that kind of detail. To get down to business, I have my work cut out for me tomorrow (Monday), and perhaps for the rest of the week, in taking care of some half dozen muy pronto matters.28
Then, after six paragraphs answering questions from Kline with regard to the status of various manuscripts, he continued in a more personal vein:
Your letter of 12/19 (to me)—as I believe I mentioned on the card, I not only had a pleasant trip, but a magnificent one. Seat No. 9, next to me, was a young Bostonian who had picked Northwestern as the school to turn him out as a dentist. Our amiable conversation was ended at Cleveland, where we changed to a mountain bus, and what a monstrous engine it had! We were already three hours late upon arrival at Cleveland, due to the ice in Indiana and Ohio. On this bus it was my good fortune to take a smoker seat at the very back, and here I engaged in conversation an old gentleman and scholar and philosopher, who regaled me for four hours with a splendid line of talk. I was sorry to see him go when he got off at Pittsburgh. But that’s where the fun began. Five Notre
Dame students (who had been vacationing) got on at Pittsburgh and raised general hell back in the smoker section. I think I cracked a rib laughing. That kept up most of the night, and the rest of the time I carried on a conversation with a G.E.S. driver, who was temporarily a passenger. His wife confided in me that he was nervous and couldn’t sleep when other drivers were driving him around, so in sympathy I helped him pass away the long night hours by talking with him. Through him I now know the Great Eastern System from A to Z, or anyway to V. Only one little thing bothered me, however; he had a most disconcerting manner of rolling his eyes with a wincing attitude whenever the bus went around a curve. (It was also quite icy in Pa.) Watching him I got to wincing myself, especially after he had told me how one bus-driver had once failed to make a curve and had ‘mangled up’ his passengers in the process! He didn’t get me nervous (!) but neither did his speech have any soporific effect.
Well, enough of the trivia of the trip. Received the check, for which thanks, and have already cashed it. With the helpful cooperation Allen has so far given me, and offers to continue giving me as long as I need it, I’m sure I’ll get things here in New York in A-1 order in a short time. If any of the points above are out of line, let me know.
Best regards to the family and I wish you all a Merry Xmas and a Happy and Prosperous New Year.
Cordially yours,
Otto O. Binder29
Binder also hastened to assure his parents that all was well. On January 5, 1936, he wrote:
Dear Mother and Dad:
I received the box of eats and thanks over and over. That goose meat was delicious; we ate that as soon as I opened the box. The cookies also were good and we licked up every crumb before three days had passed. We also gave some to the landlady, and she said you are a good cook, so you see, Mother, your reputation for good cooking is gradually getting around N.Y.
Let me tell you something about my landlady. She is Danish born and is a motherly type. We’re just like her own sons here, since her three children have married and left. She treats us to soup and tea and sandwiches now and then for nothing.
And every single evening around six o’clock, when Mr. Walsh comes home with a pail of mixed ale and beer (strong but tasty stuff), they call me into the kitchen to have a glass with them. It’s come to be a regular ritual, so I’m getting a glass of beer a day which is a nice tonic.30
Since New York City was the publishing center in America, writers were drawn there like moths to a flame. Binder soon appreciated the social benefits of living in Manhattan, when, on January 4, 1935, he was invited to a gathering at the apartment of Frank Belknap Long. He recounted the evening in his letter to his parents.
Long, one of OAK’s clients, was one of the best writers in Weird Tales. His apartment in New York City was the site of many gatherings of literary types. The evening Binder visited was no exception. As Otto entered the place, he was struck by the way it was outfitted in gorgeous Asian style with draperies and figurines all over.
In evidence were Long’s “New York gang” of writers and poets, with the star guest being his friend Howard Phillips Lovecraft. Binder wrote, “There were all kinds of writers and poets there, including H. P. Lovecraft, one of the three greatest living writers of weird stories.”
When Long introduced Binder, Lovecraft smiled and exclaimed, “You’re half of one of my favorite authors!”
Binder wrote, “Thank God I had just enough wit to say, ‘And you’re all of one of mine.’ [Lovecraft] made me blush by telling me our stories were good. He even remembered that little story ‘The Ancient Voice’ in Hornig’s fan magazine. Also ‘Dawn to Dusk.’
“He is a very tall and thin man, quite unhandsome, but with the most kind and cheerful eyes, and a mind that works like lightning, and he seems to know everything. He is a marvelous talker. Almost all I did all evening (the others too) was sit and listen to him talk. It’s an evening I’ll never forget.”31
Over the ensuing months, OOB labored mightily: organizing the business, writing letters to OAK, visiting the offices of the publishers, moving the many manuscripts along predetermined submission schedules, and doing anything else he could to produce enough sales to support himself on the agreed-upon 5 percent that was his to keep.
By April Otto privately admitted in a letter to Earl that he wasn’t making enough money to cover even the most parsimonious lifestyle, and was getting discouraged. Earl relayed this information to Jack, who sent Otto a telegram on April 7 advising him to “stay with Kline.” Binder spent a few weeks mulling over the situation. On May 11, 1936, he wrote the following letter to his employer:
Dear Mr. Kline:
I want to state at the outset that this letter is being written in all friendliness, but I feel it necessary at this point to go over a few things relating to my connection with the business.
I have been in N.Y. as your representative, 140 days last Sunday, April 10. [This appears to be an error. Binder meant May 10.] Accordingly, my expense account today has reached the sum of $200. (It may be $10 either way, as I have not kept an itemized record of that.) I find on adding my commissions that I have earned $88.05. (This sum may also be a few dollars out of line, one way or the other.) But using $200 as the amount of the expense account, and $100 as the earned commissions, I am your debtor to the extent of (approx.) $100.
Which means, putting it on a weekly basis, that I have earned $5, and gone into debt $5—each week. Obviously, this is to my disadvantage.
Whether or not this twenty-week period I have been your representative is a typical cross-section of your N.Y. business, I don’t know. I sincerely hope not. Because that would mean it is an impossibility for me to remain in my present capacity.32
Binder goes on to point out that some of Kline’s best authors have not been producing, and though Robert E. Howard’s breakthrough into new markets might help, it would take a dramatic shift to make the position viable. He stated that he had turned down an offer of a twenty-dollar-a-week job, and if another such offer came his way, he would have no choice but to accept it. He also brought up the possibility of representing Kline on a part-time basis if volume could be increased, which presumably would leave him free to get back to writing, of which he had done little thus far.
Fortunately, Kline’s letter in response has survived. In it, he isn’t unsympathetic to the difficulties faced by OOB. Some of Kline’s top writers weren’t producing as expected, or hadn’t been satisfied with Allen Kline’s efforts on their behalf and had gone elsewhere for representation. He wrote:
The fates seem to have conspired against us in more ways than one. You’ve been caught in the ebb tide, unfortunately, and no one is sorrier than I am that this should have been the case, for more reasons than one. I know you want to send money to your mother, that you gave up a job and life at home to take on this work, and I am just as anxious to see you get ahead as you are to do so. If you would receive an offer of even a few dollars more I certainly wouldn’t blame you for taking it. On the other hand, you have done a lot of constructive work—the hardest, in all probability, that you will be called on to do. I won’t say that new problems and new crises won’t come up. But you have cleaned up a hell of a situation and got all set to cash in on your efforts. So I’d hate to see you lose the reward of those efforts merely by taking the dollar which is in sight at the moment.
Now about that part time proposition, if you want to go along on part time, say half time, and devote half of the time to your writing, that is all right with me.
If, on the other hand, you have lost all heart for and interest in this business, why go along until you can get a better offer, grab it, and let me know. I want you to succeed … but you can’t do justice to yourself and your job if your morale is broken. I doubt that it is, but this, also, is a matter which you must decide for yourself.33
OAK’s nine-page single-spaced letter is a remarkable document. It seems to lay all his cards on the table, and combines a stirring pep talk with a decl
aration that the New York end of the business will succeed, eventually.
The letter may have breathed new hope for the enterprise into Binder, but then a blow came, six weeks later, out of nowhere: Robert E. Howard had committed suicide. On June 27, Binder wrote:
Dear Chief:
Just last night, as chance would have it, I heard from Frank Long, Jr. of the suicide of Howard. He had got it from Donald Wandrei, who had received a letter from Lovecraft. But Lovecraft said it might be an unfounded rumor, and I was hoping it was till I received your letter this morning. Quite a shock, any way you look at it, and it doesn’t make sense to me, in view of the promising outlook for Howard in the near future.34
Howard’s death would seem to have meant the end of hope for the NY job to remain a full-time one. Robert Howard’s work had constituted about a fourth of the sales that Binder had made to this point.
All along, Binder felt that the agency’s position in New York would likely increase considerably if the top man himself moved to the city and took charge. Therefore, when Kline announced his plan to take up residence there in the fall of 1936, Binder’s spirits were greatly buoyed.
5.
BANGING THE KEYS
Jack Binder knew that if he was to make a go of a career in art, especially doing illustrations for the pulps with an eye toward breaking into the slick magazine market, he needed to move to New York City where the vast majority of publishers were located. With his family growing, he would have no choice but to continue working for the milk company as long as he stayed in Chicago. After a series of farewell parties with family and friends, Jack traveled east in September 1936. He was determined to make good, and send for Olga and the children as soon as possible.
Otto Binder: The Life and Work of a Comic Book and Science Fiction Visionary Page 5