When in the 1930s and early 1940s comic books became very popular and promised good profits for its publishers, the market was soon flooded with various sorts of adventures at the newsstands. The comic book stories would take place on far away planets, on the American frontier of colonial America, in the West, in exotic […]
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Tag: Buck Rogers
The Fantastic Worlds of Frank Frazetta by Dian Hanson (ed.) (2022)
If there is one virtuoso who rightfully deserves the title “Godfather of Fantasy Art” it is Frank Frazetta (1928-2010). The “Brooklyn-born hustler and brawler” son of Italian immigrants quickly established a reputation for himself at the age of 16, when he entered the comic book business in 1944. His early works appeared in EC Comics, […]
Toys in the Age of Wonder: Science Fiction, Society and the Symbolism of Play by Mark Rich (2020)
As it happened so often before, fiction by authors of early wonder and adventure tales, such as H. G. Wells, Jules Verne, Edgar Allan Poe, William Rice Burroughs, and others, provided man (and particularly children and youngsters) with hopes and fantasies about machines that featured technology not yet been invented to dream a while. As […]
The Rise and Fall of American Science Fiction, from the 1920s to the 1960s by Gary Westfahl (2019)
Even though a title such as “The Rise and Fall” usually has readers prepared for a large, heavy volume that will provide audiences with loads of information amassed in a mostly boring manner, Westfahl’s book differs from that stereotype. In fact, the four major parts (and a short epilogue) read very much like a collection […]
Robots in American Popular Culture by Steve Carper (2019)
The idea of building, commanding and using artificial creatures, based on mechanical components that would assist mankind doing anything from work, transportation or pleasure goes back to very early stories of creation such as the Gilgamesh epic. And mythology from ancient Greece and other regions. That idea also demonstrates man’s wish to become the creator […]