Pulps and Comic Books: Popularizing Air and Space Travel

 

Almost a half-century before humans would invent the airplane, the editors of some popular publications understood the appeal and excitement of flight and incorporated the burgeoning field of flight into their adventure fiction magazines. Filled with futuristic ideas, these publications were never meant to be educational or sophisticated. They were entertainment aimed primarily at young males, simply written and filled with illustrations. Printed on cheaply produced, wood-pulp paper, they were given the derogatory name "pulps." Comic books took this formula a step further, reducing its stories to dynamic drawings with minimal storylines. Despite their lowbrow appeal, however, pulps and comic books gave birth to the way we imagine air and space travel.

 

The parent of the 20^th century pulp was the story papers of the mid- and late-1800s. Titles like The Boys of New York and the still-publishing The Atlantic Monthly featured a combination of short and serialized fiction, non-fiction, and commentaries. Transportation was always a favorite subject, offering escapism, adventure, romantic destinations, and the opportunity to spotlight the latest gizmo. Decades before the Wright brothers' first successful flight in 1903, the heroes of story papers took to the air in a bizarre assortment of airships. Frank Reade, a character who originally appeared in The Boys of New York but was later re-created as Frank Reade, Jr., in the Frank Reade Weekly Magazine, traveled the prairies in a steam-powered air vehicle that looked like a ship held aloft by several oversized umbrellas and a large propeller. By the early 20^th century, Frank Reade, Jr., also flew a helicopter and an Earth-orbiting satellite. The character was very successful and whetted the public's appetite for more air adventure. Airplanes could give a story a creative spin without pulling it too far away from conventional fiction. A hero could use his airplane to fight Indians in the American West, visit foreign countries, or impress young women.

 

Two notable writers, Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, inspired readers to dream about adventure beyond Earth, and the pulps took notice. A few of the early pulps regularly printed science fiction, but it was publisher Hugo Gernsback who created the first all-science-fiction pulp. He began with "invention" magazines that featured a mixture of articles on futuristic (and occasionally preposterous) technologies and science fiction stories. In 1929, he launched Amazing Stories, the all-science fiction pulp that would make him famous. Although Amazing Stories cost 25 cents, a high price when compared to other magazines of the time, it was a thick publication and featured reprints of stories by famous authors like Verne and Wells, while developing its own stable of good writers who transformed space travel from a Victorian novelty into a 20^th century possibility. Amazing Stories gave us the first space hero, Anthony "Buck Rogers", featured in the story "Armageddon, 2419", who would become the model for space travelers up through the early 1960s. Rocket ships would become the transportation of choice among pulp readers. Raymond Palmer, the editor for Amazing Stories from 1946 to 1949, launched a pulp called Air Adventures, but it ran only six issues before folding.

 

Air travel found a different home. Throughout the early part of the Golden Age of comic books, which spanned the 1930s and 1940s, air and space travel played only a minor role in stories. Perhaps readers did not need airplanes and rocket ships to transport them to adventure when Superman could do this, and more, without technological help. World War II, however, inspired a wave of comics centered on air combat and adventure. Titles like Bill Barnes, America's Air Ace (which later became Air Ace; Street and Smith Publications), Air Fighters Comics (which later became Airboy; Hillman Periodicals), and Military Comics (Quality Comics Group), offered patriotic tales of dog fights, bombing runs, and daring rescues. David Nelson, the lead character of Airboy, was a superhero for the war era, with his bright flight suit and his custom-made aircraft. It was characters like David Nelson that would help forge the image of combat pilots as dashing adventurers (quite unlike their rugged ground-troop counterparts).

 

Air Ace and Airboy lasted longer than the war, but tastes would soon shift back to science fiction, with the help of a real pilot. On June 25, 1947, the Pendleton, Oregon, paper, East Oregonian, ran an article about a "flying saucer" seen the day before by pilot Kenneth Arnold. From that small article started an enormous flying saucer craze and a new public passion for anything space-related. Pulp science fiction experienced an explosion in popularity, with a number of new titles, including Startling Stories, The Magazine of Fantasy (which became The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction with the second issue), If, Galaxy, and a number of others that entered the market in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The pulps of this era attracted good authors like Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Heinlein, and Poul Anderson, who created believable tales of space travel that even, occasionally, adhered to the laws of physics. They also attracted skilled artists, including Virgil Finlay, Howard Brown, and the enormously talented Chesley Bonestell, who brought the stories to colorful life. Together, the pulp authors and artists created the popular look and feel of futuristic human space travel: long, tapered, V-2-like rockets, diving gear-like helmets and pressure suits, ringed space stations, and even the aliens and flying saucers astronauts could expect to meet during their trip.

 

Air combat comics made one more brief return to the comic books during the 1950s. Unlike their World War II predecessors, however, these comics, such as All American Men of War, G.I. Combat, Our Army at War, and Star-Spangled War Stories (all published by DC Comics), covered all fighting forces, with issues focusing either on air, ground-troop, naval, or armored combat. By the mid-1960s, conventional air travel and air combat had all but vanished from the comic book limelight. The space race with the Soviet Union turned attention to human space travel. However, it was a television show, Star Trek, which ran from 1967 to 1969, that permanently took comic book readers out of Earth's atmosphere. It also began the trend of tie-ins with science fiction television shows and movies. Star Trek, and later Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica, spawned several comic book series that either built on the established characters and situations or created whole new story lines. Star Trek and Star Wars continue to inspire new series and have resulted in a new popular look for space travel. Rockets and craft that can land on the surface of a planet have been replaced with more sophisticated space vehicles and large stations, and humans (and several aliens) have become citizens of the galaxy.

 

Pulps, too, continue to transform the way we imagine future space travel. Asimov's Science Fiction, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and Analog: Science Fiction and Fact are the latest pulps to uphold the science fiction tradition. They have embraced a far-more ambitious vision of space travel, but some of these pulps, such as Analog, even offer essays on the real space program. Like Hugo Gernsback's early invention magazines, today's pulps find a logical connection between today's technology and science and the scenarios presented in science fiction.

 

Comic books and pulps continue to take readers to the new frontier, pushing the limits of human space exploration, and leaving the bonds of Earth behind. They are also leaving paper behind. More and more comic books, and especially pulp-style magazines, are finding a home on the Web. The future of space travel may only be a mouse click away, a fitting transition for a medium that has always celebrated futuristic technologies.

 

-Anne Simmons

 

References and Further Reading:

Daniels, Les and Kahn, Jenette. DC Comics: Sixty Years of the World's Favorite Comic Book Heroes. New York: Bulfinch Press, 1995.

Pringle, David (ed.). The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Science Fiction: The Definitive Illustrated Guide. North Dighton, Mass.: JG Press, 1996.

Robinson, Frank M. Science Fiction of the 20^th Century: An Illustrated History. Portland, Ore.: Collectors Press, Inc., 1999

Wright, Bradford W. Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001.

 

Airboy. http://www.toonopedia.com/airboy.htm

Analog: Science Fiction and Fact. http://www.analogsf.com/

Asimov's Science Fiction. http://www.asimovs.com/

Frank Reade Victorian Airships. http://www.bigredhair.com/airships/

Hugo Gernsback's forecast. http://www.hugogernsback.com/

Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. http://www.sfsite.com/fsf/

Pulp Net. http://www.thepulp.net/

The Comic Page. http://www.dereksantos.com/comicpage/

 

Educational Organization	Standard Designation (where applicable)	Content of Standard
International Technology Education Association	Standard 4	Students will develop an understanding of the cultural, social, economic, and political effects of technology.
International Technology Education Association	Standard 6	Students will develop an understanding of the role of society in the development and use of technology.