14.
BINDER IN FANDOMLAND
In September of 1960, Otto Binder received an envelope that had been dropped off at the editorial office of Space World on West Fifty-Seventh Street in Manhattan by SF fan Richard A. Lupoff. Inside he found a copy of a new fanzine named Xero (pronounced “zero”), which featured an article on the Marvel Family and Otto himself: “The Big Red Cheese.” To say Binder was surprised would be an understatement.
For the most part, comics professionals in the 1940s and 1950s had worked in a vacuum, having next to no contact with those who read comic books. Even letter columns weren’t instituted in most comics (the major exception being EC) until the late 1950s.
In his response to Xero’s editors, Dick and Pat Lupoff, Otto wrote, “Let me sincerely commend you for a remarkable resume of the Cap’n’s adventures,” and added, “This all seems of a remote past that itself seems part of another world.”140 When the Lupoffs printed Otto’s letter under the heading “At Home with the Marvels,” with his various additions and corrections to that first installment of the “All In Color, For A Dime” series, Binder became one of the earliest comic book professionals to contribute to what would soon be called “comics fandom.” He also added a major dollop of data about comics past, including statistics on all the comic book scripts he had written in the past twenty years.
The Lupoffs invited the Binders to a showing (in their apartment at 210 East Seventy-Third Street in New York City) of the Republic Adventures of Captain Marvel movie serial, which Otto had never seen. When he and Ione arrived, they were greeted by Dick and Pat, and introduced to “Baby Marvel” (their infant son Kenneth) who sported a red outfit with a yellow lightning bolt sown on the front.
As to the others in attendance, Otto later said, “It just never occurred to me that there could be such a thing as comics fans. I knew there were science fiction fans and movie fans and such, but—I just assumed people read [the comics], enjoyed them for what they were, and threw them away. I was astounded when Dick Lupoff called me up and invited me to a meeting of comics fans at his house. They all knew Captain Marvel backwards and forwards.”141 His discovery of the emerging comics fandom movement was a happy one for OOB.
Richard and Patricia Lupoff as the Marvels at the 1960 World Science Fiction convention in Pittsburgh.
Courtesy of Richard Lupoff.
The delight of this discovery was set against the sickening realization that Space World had not reached escape velocity. Though Binder and Woolfolk toiled mightily to produce a high-quality magazine, it made little difference when it failed to get proper distribution.
“Otto was very competent as an editor,” Woolfolk recalled, “and the other people he got to write for us were all very competent and very good at it. When you consider the budget, I think [Space World] was extraordinary.” According to Woolfolk, while distribution was poor, the magazine was steadily gaining subscribers. “It wasn’t making money, but it was gaining. We were getting subscribers all the time.”
Then Bill Woolfolk got an offer he couldn’t refuse. Actually, he did refuse it the first couple of times, since he knew he would have to leave the magazine to accept it. He had been offered a lucrative job writing for television. “I got this offer from Reginald Rose at The Defenders, a popular courtroom drama starring E. G. Marshall. He said, ‘You’ve got to come over. The television money is so much better than publishing money. There’s no comparison.’” Finally, he couldn’t turn down the offer of $50,000 a year. He ended up as head writer on The Defenders.142
Woolfolk knew his $75,000 investment in the magazine was lost, but he had the means to make up for it. Their parting was friendly. Binder assumed full ownership of the operation. Now, at least, the magazine needed only to produce enough income for a single owner.
To get some immediate cash, Otto wrote Victory in Space (Walker & Co., 1962), a book about the space race that attempted to anticipate the events in outer space exploration that would occur in the near future. In the final chapter, entitled “Project Victory,” Binder summarized, “It is my first opinion that the tragic failure of space leadership heretofore has placed our nation’s future security—if not its very survival—in jeopardy. I do not think the American people can be asked to tolerate any further erosion of their country’s power, prestige and future promise by a continued repetition of the inexcusable blundering of our previous lackadaisical space policy.
Xero #3 (January 1961). Art “stolen by” Sylvia White from the cover of All-Star Comics #13 (October–November 1942). Xero ™ and © Richard & Patricia Lupoff.
“My hope is to see a concerted national effort, plus sound exploration of the most significant breakthrough techniques, which will insure that the first Space Columbus to set foot on the moon is an American citizen.” He followed Victory in Space with Careers in Space and Riddles of Astronomy, and occasionally did freelance writing for NASA.143
In 1961 and 1962, Otto Binder began appearing on the John Wingate, Arlene Francis, Frank McGee, and Betty Furness radio and television shows, partly to promote the magazine and his books, but also simply because he enjoyed being a “space guru” in the era President Kennedy had dubbed the New Frontier. He was an authority on the space race, and one of many voices urging the increased emphasis on science and mathematics in high school and college. On April 18, 1961, Betty Furness wrote, “This note represents a terribly inadequate thank you for appearing on ‘At Your Beck and Call.’ Your contribution to the show was enormous and I am most grateful to you for taking the time and trouble to be with us.”
DC colleague Murphy Anderson remembered that Otto returned from a radio show appearance and told him that the discussion had centered on the subject of UFOs. “They wanted me to agree with them—that UFOs really existed—but I couldn’t,” he told Anderson. “I can’t say they exist, until there’s real proof.”144 This echoed his view of UFOs expressed in Memoirs of a Nobody a dozen years before. “For all we know, earth is the only world with life. I know I won’t believe there are alien critters until one steps out of his space ship, says ‘KKcybbxx!,’ meaning hello, and extends one of his ten tentacles for a handshake.”
Naturally, in his editorial post at Space World, he had been the recipient of much data about matters pertaining to UFOs. It’s not surprising that his own interest in that subject was piqued by these contacts. He certainly saw a potential area of interest that he could mine as a freelance writer, but it was difficult to go into it very far without losing credibility as a science writer. It took Binder a couple of years of mulling things over to decide which way he wanted to go.
Otto Binder and Murphy Anderson, who had become acquainted while producing SF comics for National, joined forces in October 1960 to collaborate on a daily newspaper panel called (at first) “Our Ever Changing World” (eventually changed to “Our Space Age”), which was syndicated by Bell-McClure. When the panel was slow to be picked up by newspapers, Anderson was forced to withdraw from the project: “My finances at the time were in some disarray, and I couldn’t afford to work for nothing or next-to-nothing.”145 Otto contacted an old friend from the Fawcett and Timely days, Carl Pfeufer, to take over the art chores. Gradually the strip grew until it was appearing six days a week in one hundred and twenty-five U.S. and foreign newspapers (including Spain, Holland, Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina). It lasted ten years. Though it would eventually become more remunerative, for Otto it was partly a labor of love. He was pleased to add the writing of a syndicated daily comic panel to his résumé.
Syndicated single-panel cartoon feature launched in 1960 by Otto Binder with art by Murphy Anderson. ™ and © respective copyright holders.
Space World limped along through 1963, with Binder finally having to bow out and do something about the mounting bills that were at first unsettling, then alarming. Otto and Ione were, in his own words, “dead broke.”146 After all those years of hard work, Otto’s financial position was the same as that of a schoolboy.
Also
, the shocking assassination of President Kennedy—champion of space exploration—must have taken a lot of the joy out of producing a magazine on that subject.
Binder sold Space World to his old friend from SF fandom, Raymond Palmer. “Sold” may not be the proper term, since it’s doubtful there was any money exchanged. Palmer took over the magazine, probably with the promise to fulfill the existing subscriptions. Palmer reconceived the magazine to consist mainly of NASA-produced articles and reprints from other media—thus cutting production costs further. The periodical became, in effect, a one-man operation during the remainder of its life, which unaccountably lasted for many years.
Otto knew what he had to do. He contacted Mort Weisinger and asked if he could return to the DC fold. Weisinger had always said Binder could come back any time. He was as good as his word. He wanted Otto to write exclusively for him—not Julie Schwartz or any other comic book company.
Weisinger, who had only grown more overbearing in the interim, really put Binder through the mill during this return stint. Woolfolk recalled, “Mort was quite an ogre. He’d say, ‘I treat writers like lemons. I squeeze them until they’re dry and then I throw them away.’ He’d insult Otto’s work, insult him. Otto was quite crushed. It was a bad, weak time in his life—at the dregs of his hope, and with his drinking, and his problems. That was a bad thing for Mort Weisinger to do. I couldn’t stand the man.”147
Binder’s contacts with fandom increased at this time, and proved to be a saving grace. He was thrilled that high-achieving teenagers and adults in a number of professions were the instigators of the movement, and particularly enjoyed knowing how much his work on Captain Marvel was remembered. “Even more dumbfounding to me was … when, through Dick Lupoff … I learned the Cap’n was far, far from forgotten … not by thousands of one-time avid fans and readers now grown up into [the fans] who contacted me.
“And this was most incredible of all—they were decent, law-abiding citizens rather than unspeakable degenerates (as the Comics Code people and their ilk preached far and wide in the old days).
“In fact, the comics ‘fans’ were serious, often scholarly, researchers, many of them sporting engineering degrees and professional honors, all far more important and promising first-class people overshadowing the anti-comics crowd who today no doubt have some other scapegoat to hound—perhaps motherhood by now! And who are, mercifully for America, obscure and impotent to have any slightest power to block young minds charging eagerly into the future.”148 In many ways, a great deal of Otto’s delight in the emergence of comics fandom was fueled by a feeling of vindication after the trouncing that comics had been given.
“The really surprising thing was how big the movement got!” Binder declared. “And then all the fanzines. I felt like I was suddenly doused by fans.”149 That fan appreciation was a soothing balm to his battered self-esteem.
Like Julius Schwartz, Binder could understand the fan mentality because he had been one. He saw a little of himself in the eager fans who besieged him with letters, and having a generous nature, wanted to be as supportive as time would allow. He did this by entering into a number of fairly extensive correspondences with fans, and by offering certain fanzine editors the chance to publish some of his work in one form or the other. He took a special, almost avuncular, interest in the lives of three of the most prominent members of comics fandom: Bill Spicer, Jerry Bails, and Roy Thomas.
Bill Spicer’s interest in comics ran mostly to the extraordinary science fiction, horror and war comics published by EC in the early 1950s. He had been active as a youngster in EC fandom of that period, exemplified by his effective SF cover to The EC Fan Bulletin, a fanzine published in 1953. A decade later, the California-based Spicer was planning an EC revival of sorts in fanzine form. The resulting magazine would be called Fantasy Illustrated, an amalgam of the names of EC’s Weird Fantasy and Shock Illustrated.
The contact between Binder and Spicer began in early 1963, just as Spicer’s publishing plans were taking shape. Spicer doesn’t recall exactly how they got in touch, but is certain it wasn’t because of Xero, since he didn’t get that publication until later. He probably wrote Binder a letter via his Space World address.
Spicer’s interest in Binder was largely admiration of Adam Link, for he had loved the adaptations of those stories that had appeared in EC comics. Frustrated that they only ran through the trial of Adam Link, he asked Binder if he could continue the EC series by adapting “Adam Link’s Vengeance” to comic book form for Fantasy Illustrated, though he couldn’t pay him for it. (The work in fanzines was generally done for free.) Otto agreed, and offered Bill several other items, including his permission to adapt any of the Jon Jarl prose stories. Spicer was thrilled and immediately got to work.
Fantasy Illustrated #1 (February 1964). Art by Alan Weiss.
Jon Jarl ™ and © the Estate of Otto Binder.
Fancying himself something of an artist, Spicer adapted the Jon Jarl text story “World of Vampires” for Fighting Hero Comics #3 in mid-1963, doing both art and panel breakdown. This nine-pager is fun, drawn in a sort of simplistic version of Al Feldstein’s art style, but Bill was bumping up against his artistic limitations. He would recruit the best artists in fandom for the strips that were planned for Fantasy Illustrated. The lead-off feature in Spicer’s first issue was Binder’s “The Ancient Secret” starring Jon Jarl, featuring art by a very young Alan Weiss. Weiss had been peppering fan publishers with drawings in 1962 and 1963, trying to get his work in print. Though only about fourteen years old, Alan’s work was better than many fan artists who were several years older. He wasn’t afraid to work in ink on Bristol board. The finished strip was a credible first attempt by the artist, with a reasonably good story gimmick by Binder. But “The Ancient Secret” was immediately lost in the shadow of the other major OOB adaptation in that same issue.
A fan of the Harvey Kurtzman method of creating comics, editor Spicer broke down the prose story “Adam Link’s Vengeance” into what would soon come to be called “graphic story” form—even going so far as laying out and lettering the pages in advance. To design Adam and Eve Link, and fill all those panels, Bill turned to a prominent artist in SF fandom, D. Bruce Berry. Berry recalled, “I read the stories of Adam Link when they first appeared in the pulp magazines, and enjoyed them tremendously. But the original illustrations of Adam Link [in Amazing Stories] did not satisfy me. They looked like something out of The Wizard of Oz. They were definitely not the impression I got from reading the stories.
“I pictured Adam Link as being a creation of human dignity, who just happened to be a machine. I re-designed the robot on a higher technological level. To the best of my ability, I tried to depict human emotion in an entity that was made of metal.”150
The first half of “Adam Link’s Vengeance,” which appeared in Fantasy Illustrated #1 (February 1964), is excellent in every respect. The story offers plenty of action, and Spicer did an extraordinary job of adapting it. Berry, who had the more time-consuming task of drawing and inking all those pages, produced artwork that managed to seem both futuristic and pulp-inspired at the same time.
Otto was delighted with both adaptations. He wrote, “We do not live by bread alone and it is magnificent gestures like yours that lift an author into a thrilled orbit. The paying publishers may fill our pocket books but the fanzines feed our egos and pay the coin of praise.
The fanzine Fantasy Illustrated #1 presented a superlative adaptation of Eando Binder’s “Adam Link’s Vengeance” by Bill Spicer and D. Bruce Berry. Adam Link ™ and © the Estate of Otto Binder.
“I sincerely congratulate Alan Weiss for his Jon Jarl rendition. He caught the spirit of the story superbly, as did the script you wrote, Bill. The whole job matches the well-planned smooth progression of key scenes of professional comics stories, which is no mean trick as I think you will agree after you carried out those buckets of sweat. It’s easy writing comics scripts—just like falling off the bottom of a crater!
“Adding to the complexity of the task is adapting a previously written story to comics, as distinguished from dreaming one up without restrictions. I know, in that for Fawcett back in the 1940s and also for Dell, I turned out a dozen or so adaptations of movie-scripts current at the time, including Destination Moon. Wading through a movie scenario and distilling it all down to ‘stills’ in pen-and-ink … well, it seemed impossible each time. I can picture how your head spun dizzily at first after reading the Jon Jarl prose story, wondering just how to chop it up into the right sequence of scenes. One false move and you’re off on the wrong track heading for disaster. So I am well aware that using an already-written story was not easier but harder to do, than making up one of your own. A paradox, but true.
“Now, having run out of superlatives with Jon Jarl, how can I express my pleased reaction to the Adam Link adaptation? I definitely agree that [D. Bruce Berry’s] version of the robot is far better than the rather ridiculous ‘humanized’ type used in the later stories by Amazing, though at the start they had the ‘right’ kind of robot faithful to my description … and which Bruce has captured and improved upon.
“Two masterful feats stand out from your artist/writer collaboration. 1) on the third page, where a close-up of Adam’s ‘expressionless’ face does show expression … namely, his double-take at Hillory’s suggestion. Simply great. 2) on page 5, where the close-ups of Eve’s face alone clearly stamp her as a feminine robot, not male. How you accomplished that miracle I don’t know.”151
Otto Binder: The Life and Work of a Comic Book and Science Fiction Visionary Page 17