Then Otto dug a little deeper. “You know, seeing characters coming to pictorial life out of what had only been the printed words before (except for a few illustrations with each story in Amazing) is a unique experience, at least to me. Not just Adam and Eve Link, but Hillory, Jack Hall, Kay Temple, and other humans. Somehow, seeing them in comics format with the strong illusion of reality that comes from the impact of pictures, I re-lived in a new way the emotional experience of writing the original story long ago. They became quite real to me during the time I wrote the series; now, in pictures, they seem more real, if such a thing is possible.”152
Other pros, too, appreciated “Adam Link’s Vengeance.” Russ Manning (best known for his artwork on Magnus, Robot Fighter, Tarzan, and the Star Wars Sunday strips) enthused, “Otto Binder’s Adam Link is a minor masterpiece, and your choice of this story, the adaptation, and assignment of artist are editing of high quality. Bruce Berry’s art and staging are beautifully simple and effective. More like this one, please!”153
On the fan side, response was equally rhapsodic. Richard Kyle (who coined the term “graphic story”) deemed it “a terrific job. Bruce’s version of the story is vastly superior, in my mind, to Joe Orlando’s for EC. Adam is perfect—the only good one, either in the pulps or the comics. Hillory is superb, and Eve Link is virtually a work of genius. I’m looking forward to the conclusion in FI #2—this is going to be a classic of the field.”154
Another adaptation of an Eando Binder story, in Fantasy Illustrated #2 (June 1964). Art by Landon Chesney. Adam Link ™ and © the Estate of Otto Binder.
In FI #2, a few months later, Spicer duly published the conclusion of “Adam Link’s Vengeance,” and another adaptation of a Binder SF story, “The Life Battery.” It’s about a reclusive scientist who invents a ray that can give life to inanimate matter. When he dies, the story’s narrator aims the battery’s ray on the scientist’s corpse, with horrific consequences.
Binder described “The Life Battery” (a prose SF tale that originally appeared in Startling Stories, July 1939) as “a sort of strange-ling story … which didn’t get much notice from the readers—to my bafflement.”155 The finished nine-page strip, with wonderfully evocative art by Landon Chesney, also ranks as a fan classic. Chesney’s art is somewhat reminiscent of the artwork of Johnny Craig at EC, but with its own unique slant. His careful staging, and use of light and shadow, proved Chesney was one of the best artists in fandom.
Typical postcard from Otto Binder to Jerry Bails. Their correspondence probably started not long after Bails published Alter Ego #1 on March 28, 1961.
Another fan who drew Otto’s attention was Jerry Bails, PhD. Bails had advanced degrees in mathematics and science, and was working as a professor at Wayne State University in Detroit when he founded the first fanzine devoted exclusively to superhero comic books, Alter Ego (A/E). Then, in quick succession, Bails spun two other publications off from A/E: The Comicollector (the first advertising fanzine in comicdom) and The Comic Reader (the first fanzine of comics news). As a result of these and his other activities, Bails is considered one of the principal founders of comic fandom.
The project that was most urgent in the early 1960s was the indexing of comics of the past. Up till then, fans had nothing but fragmentary information about the history of comic books. Bails was a prime instigator in these indexing efforts. His correspondence with Binder began in 1961 when Jerry was seeking data for his DC Index. He hoped Otto would be able to document his past work.
Binder was one step ahead of Bails. He had been keeping fairly complete records of his comics work all along. It only remained for him to type up the lists from his notes, and fill in the inevitable gaps as best he could. Binder took on this task with zeal. The finished list, which in some cases included the story titles, runs an astonishing seventy typed pages. It took him two full years, working in his spare time, to complete the task.
The Binder-Bails correspondence flagged somewhat in the late 1960s, though they always kept in touch with little notes and Christmas cards. By the decade’s end, however, Bails would play a pivotal role in events in Binder’s life that would leave the writer forever grateful.
Alter Ego #7 (October 1964). Cover art by Biljo White. Characters ™ and © DC Comics. Alter Ego is a ™ of Roy & Dann Thomas.
The third well-known fan whom Binder befriended was Roy Thomas. Thomas, initially the titular co-editor of Alter Ego with Bails, had taken over the full editorship of the prestigious fanzine in mid-1964 after Bails moved on to other things. Thomas had been casting about for a subject for the lead article for his first issue. “I was looking for a subject, like Captain Marvel,” he remembered recently. “But I didn’t want to just duplicate ‘The Big Red Cheese’ article by Lupoff, so I decided to make my focus the Marvel Family. They were, of course, one of Otto’s specialties.”156 The article would be given the title “One Man’s Family,” and was the cover feature of Alter Ego #7 (October 1964).
“One Man’s Family” provided the first panoramic view of the Fawcett superstars for comics fandom, written in a highly entertaining, sometimes humorous style by Thomas. Accompanying it was what was billed as “A Long, Long Letter from Mr. Marvel Family himself, Otto Binder,” which was similar to the one he’d written to Xero in response to “The Big Red Cheese,” but much more extensive. In this letter, prompted by questions advanced by Roy, OOB commented on the whole range of matters concerning his days at Fawcett: the artists on Captain Marvel, how he came up with Mr. Mind and Tawky Tawny, the rates he was paid for his writing in the Golden Age, his views on the anti-comics crusaders of the past, and much more. He also had his say, for the record, on whether there was any merit in the DC-Fawcett lawsuit.
“I did not read Superman stories … except at rare times,” he wrote. “Each time I did, I felt it was not for Captain Marvel, who was developed into a wholly different area of humor, fantasy, and ‘whimsy,’ you might say—not the dead-serious grimness and plodding ‘consistency’ of Superman. In my opinion, my development of Captain Marvel and his ‘family’ … was entirely my own, and if anything, it avoided any of the tone of Superman completely. This I can state categorically—not one story idea was ever ‘lifted’ from Superman!”157
Alter Ego #7 was mailed in October 1964, just days before the deadline to qualify for the fan awards for that year (called the Alley Awards). Binder must have been impressed with the finished product, since he immediately gathered up a number of items to make up a surprise package for Thomas.
Page one from letter accompanying Otto Binder’s “surprise package” of materials to Roy Thomas, who had become editor of Alter Ego with issue #7 (October 1964). Much of the material appeared in Alter Ego #9 (June 1965).
The package, accompanied by a two-page letter from Binder dated November 11, consisted of a treasure trove of fascinating items: photographs of Otto and others who worked for Fawcett in the 1940s, an old Fawcett Christmas card, various unused scripts and story synopses, and the original art to three things he had been working on with Beck, after Captain Marvel folded. “The prize of it, to me, was six Talky Tawny strips,” Roy recalled, referring to samples of a proposed Tawny daily newspaper strip worked up by Binder-Beck. “I ran them in Alter Ego, but the artwork was never returned by the printer. Although Otto never made a big deal out of the loss of that artwork, I’ve always felt badly about it.”158
While it’s clear that Otto appreciated comics fanzines for what they were, this November 11 letter reveals that he—accurately—saw fanzines as a way to develop and publicize some of his creative properties. His letter began, “The comics-adaptation rights [to Adam Link] have just been bought by Jim Warren (publisher of monster mags) … the whole series. Regretfully, this cuts off the promising renditions started in Bill Spicer’s Fantasy Illustrated and which presumably you might have taken over in Alter Ego.” The difference, of course, was that Otto would be paid for the adaptations of Adam Link in Creepy, and the strips would be seen by many mor
e readers.
With regard to Jon Jarl, Binder added, “I would very much like this continued, either in FI … or in A/E … trust you two can work it out amicably. You and Spicer have charge of scripting, art, choice of series story—the works. They need not be done in syndicate daily form; comics-mag page-form is fine. It brings out the character and possibilities for [newspaper] syndicate people as well. Please try to assign the best art to this feature as I think it has strong syndicate possibilities.”
Binder indicated to Thomas that he was contacting virtually all the other extant comics fanzines (over thirty) to see which ones might be good, and might want to work with them on features that Thomas and Spicer didn’t want. “In a sense,” he wrote, “you and Bill Spicer (I treat you more-or-less as a team) are getting first crack at my things so that you can choose features purely from the standpoint of what’s good for your fanzine.” He soon discovered that few of those fanzines could come up to the near-professionalism of FI and A/E.
One of the key finds in that treasure trove sent to Roy was a synopsis for a seventeen-page Marvel Family story to be called “Seven Modern Wonders,” which would have been used in the comic book but for its sudden cancellation. According to his notes, the “first chapter of six pages was done and paid for in June 1953.” It’s impossible to decipher some of Otto’s scrawled notes on the manuscript pages, but interesting to get a firsthand look at an early stage of a Binder script.
Roy got the idea of printing that synopsis with illustrations by Biljo White, who was the art editor of Alter Ego and had done the Beck-inspired illustrations for “One Man’s Family.” In his response to Otto’s letter in #7, Thomas said, “Alter Ego is proud to announce that an illustrated version of that last, previously unpublished Marvel Family story will appear in A/E #8.”
Such was not to be. In mid-December, some weeks after A/E #7 had gone out in the mails, Thomas received a letter from an attorney for Fawcett Publications. In that letter, Fawcett indicated that it intended to sue Thomas if he went ahead with his plans to publish any further stories of the Marvel Family—or even any future articles or drawings dealing with Fawcett’s copyrighted characters. Furthermore, he was to cease distributing copies of A/E #7 and retrieve all previously mailed copies and destroy them.
Perhaps at Binder’s suggestion, Thomas wrote to Ralph Daigh, a Fawcett vice president. Daigh responded, “Such use as you have made … would tend to permit the characters to go into public domain. … It is my recollection that, as a result of [the lawsuit with National/DC], Fawcett agreed not to publish, and also not to give anyone else permission to publish, material of or concerning the Marvel Family.”159 A shaken Roy Thomas complied as best he could, agreeing not to publish the unused Marvel Family synopsis. At that point, Fawcett backed off from its other demands—doing nothing to stop another fan named G. B. Love from selling exact reprints of Alter Ego #7 when Roy ran out of copies in early 1965.
Otto experienced other repercussions from the contents of A/E #7. After Mort Weisinger read Binder’s “long, long letter,” he was livid. How dare Otto say there was no basis for the DC-Fawcett lawsuit? Or that he characterized Superman as being rather dull, weighed down by “plodding consistency”? Otto himself referred to this negative reaction at DC in a letter written as a follow-up to a visit from a comics fan. “Please do not quote me on any phase of the suit between Superman and Captain Marvel. Anything you repeat might get me in trouble with DC-National for whom I now work—they are still very touchy about the whole thing. I had an article in one fanzine [A/E #7], merely stating that I, personally, as a writer, had never imitated Superman stories. … Well, the next time I was there at DC, they were very irked and told me not to give out quotes of that sort.”160 After that, at least until he was no longer working for DC, Binder was circumspect in his utterances for attribution on those subjects.
Cover of the video release of the Outer Limits episode broadcast November 14, 1964, adapting “I, Robot” for the show’s second season. ™ & © respective copyright holders.
Adam Link—Robot (1965). Binder converted his Link stories from Amazing into novel form. ™ and © the Estate of Otto Binder.
Just three days after Otto’s “treasure trove” package arrived at the home of Roy Thomas in Arnold, Missouri, millions of television viewers were treated to the first live-action adaptation of Binder’s Adam Link stories. The Outer Limits dramatized science fiction for adults, and presented work by (or adapted from) top SF authors. One of the most notable was “The Demon with a Glass Hand” by Harlan Ellison. Another was “I, Robot” by Eando Binder, which is generally considered one of the best episodes of that groundbreaking series. Having Leonard Nimoy among its cast has also ensured continuing interest in that particular episode, helping establish Nimoy’s SF credentials before Star Trek.
Binder himself didn’t adapt “I, Robot” for Outer Limits, though he was excited with the development and sent out postcards to his friends to alert them to the broadcast date. The teleplay of the second-season show was by Robert C. Dennis, with “Eando” relegated to “Story by” credit. The hour-long program (broadcast November 14, 1964) starred Howard Da Silva, Leonard Nimoy, and Marianna Hill, and featured a reasonably successful realization of Adam Link, robot. While the episode fiddled with the details, the basic thrust of OOB’s first two Link stories was there, and both Nimoy and Da Silva gave skilled, nuanced performances. The dramatic climax is Adam’s trial. (“I, Robot” was redone for an Outer Limits revival in 1995, again with Nimoy.)
With the use of the “I, Robot” title on the television program, confusion over the Asimov book arose. “Many people watched, thinking they were going to see one of my stories,” Asimov wrote. “I had to write to each of them and explain carefully that it was I who was the joker and that Binder was there first.”161
Shortly before the Outer Limits telecast, Binder sold New Paperback Library the rights to publish an Adam Link mass-market paperback. (The first episode had already been reprinted before, in the 1963 paperback from Collier Books, The Coming of the Robots, which bore the dedication “To Otto O. Binder, popularizer of the ‘modern’ robot.”) Binder adapted most of the original Adam Link chapters from Amazing Stories into book form, adding connective material to turn them into one long novel. In general, changes were made to update the story, and to bring it up to the type of writing required for books in the 1960s. He did the same for his Anton York tales, which sold to Belmont Books. Both appeared on paperback racks in 1965.
The publication of Alter Ego #7 led to still another consequence, one that proved life-altering. When Roy Thomas sent a complimentary copy of A/E #7 to Mort Weisinger at DC Comics, it led to a surprising opportunity for the young Missourian. Mort was impressed by A/E, deeming it “quite a superior production.” This led Weisinger—some months later—to offer Roy a job as his editorial assistant. (Roy had three champions at DC who might have recommended him for the job—Julie, Otto, and Gardner Fox—but Weisinger never acknowledged any other impetus than the fanzine itself.)
The last fan project Roy was able to complete was to send Alter Ego #9 to the printer. This was with the knowledge that comic fandom had given “One Man’s Family” its highest honor: an Alley Award, voted on by fandom’s rank and file—the fan “Oscar” of the day. (Spicer’s adaptation of “Adam Link’s Vengeance” also won an Alley Award in a different category.) In his ninth issue, Roy Thomas printed all six Tawky Tawny strips by Binder and Beck, and used many of the photographs from Otto in a picture feature called “Otto in Binderland” with captions by Binder himself. The printer did a poor job on the issue, yet the fact remains that A/E helped Binder find a way to get this work into print. (One wonders if Fawcett’s lawyers might not have considered Tawky Tawny one of their employer’s “copyrighted characters.”)
Weisinger’s job offer to Thomas came just as he was putting the final touches on A/E #9. Roy finished his teaching year at Fox High School in Arnold, Missouri, then boarded a plane to New Yo
rk City at the end of June 1965. Finally, Thomas would meet Binder, one of the “patron saints” of his fanzine, though it proved to be under less than favorable circumstances.
Thomas immediately found himself at odds with Weisinger. “I found to my surprise that I reacted unfavorably to his particular methods and personality,” he remembered. “The only social engagement Mort and I ever went to was when he invited me to have lunch with him and Otto at a restaurant near DC’s office that’s called The Summit. I found Otto to be very much like in his letters: very nice, open and honest. Otto then invited me to spend the next weekend at his house.”162 Roy did so, though it turned out that he had quit his job at DC that Friday to become Stan Lee’s assistant at Marvel Comics, and was preoccupied with those events.
“I was feeling bad,” Roy said. “Was I a failure to have quit DC and not toughed it out? I had always wanted to work for DC. While the job at Marvel was still great, and I certainly admired Stan’s comics even more than DC’s at that point, the fact remained … that I had jumped ship, and I didn’t feel very good about it in certain ways. I didn’t want Gardner [Fox] and Julie [Schwartz] to be mad at me just because I couldn’t work for Weisinger.”163
Otto did his best to cheer Roy up. He pointed out that Weisinger was a difficult person to get along with, and this was almost everybody’s relationship with Mort, including much of his own. Thomas recalled, “One of his theories [to explain] why Weisinger was so hard on his writers was that Otto felt Mort was a frustrated fiction writer. Those were Otto’s exact words. He said that this was because Mort hadn’t had any success writing fiction, despite being an editor of pulp magazines and comic books.
Otto Binder: The Life and Work of a Comic Book and Science Fiction Visionary Page 18