I read just about every word in these during my bedazzed youth. Now it's the covers I love.

I realize Heinlein was originally a sci-fi author, but the fact that he was apparently shilling Dianetics in the May 1950 issue of Astounding Science Fiction is almost surprising in its brazenness.

Oh my god, I meant Hubbard in my last comment, I swear! Not Heinlein! Hubbard! I rescind my nerd cred.

Ebert: Hubbard himself, do not forget, shilled Dianetics in Astounding.

AFTER THE LAST MASS & IN DYING VENICE by Roger Ebert! Oh my goodness! Seriously awesome covers, awesome magazines. The classic names of science fiction, and especially the two issues with your stories. Thank you Roger for sharing these.

Is there anywhere we can find those two stories of yours?

Happy Thanksgiving All!

Are there extant copies of your science fiction stories available anywhere?

Ebert: Nope, but you can find those mags online for a few bucks.

You read these as a youth, and I am wondering - did you ever feel embarrassed or sheepish about some of the more racy covers? Did you hide them from your folks?

Ebert: Oh, hell, yes. There was this babe wearing a white fur bikini on the cover of Astounding that...

I never really thought of the future in erotic terms, although I suppose as a young man you can never fully escape that. I saw my expanding universe -- cowtown, only place to go is up & out -- as Potentialities, rather. And it's that, even after 60 years or more, that the magazines still promise. "Men have an extraordinary, and perhaps fortunate, ability to tune out of their consciousness the most awesome future possibilities." -- Arthur C. Clarke
(The URL is to my movie blog, please dabble in it if you'd like?)

In the early 70's, there was this store near us which had a magazine rack that seemed to be hundreds of feet long (at least to my seven-year-old eyes). Magazines, comics, and what was left of pulp-type stuff - they had everything.

My mom would go food shopping there maybe once a month, and I always made sure I tagged along when she was going to this particular store, just so I could spend an hour or so lost in this little fantasy world.

I love the internet, but I miss things like that.

good link here, Roger:

http://www.coverbrowser.com/

Happy Thanksgiving.

I believe the image is of John W. Campbell. I don't honestly know much about him. I do know that he wrote the short story "Who Goes There" which is the basis of The Thing, right? I also know that he was a very important editor of some science fiction publications.

Gene and Roger did a show about science fiction films when The Empire Strikes Back was released. Here is over 10 minutes of that program.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzwEqRhdFWo

Ebert: I enjoyed seeing that episode after 3o years! Unspeakably.

I like your posts on movies and I love your comments on journalism, life and the Real World(tm), but I really love it when you talk about science fiction. When you recommend a movie that is science fiction, action adventure, or fantasy I know I am going to like it (even if the News Gazette critics pan it).

I was there when you came to the Virginia Theater for 2001 and HAL's birthday party. It was one of the thrills of my life to say that I was sitting just a few seats away from you in that theater.

Hopefully Chicago will get the World Con in 2012 and you can come and hang out with the rest of the fans.

*hugs*

p.s. That's John Campbell

Ebert: You bet. The man who championed Heinlein, Asimov, van Vogt, Leinster, Herbert...and Hubbard. He once had me believing in dowsing rods.

I have three art books full of this stuff. I enjoy reading the classics of the genre when I can find them, but the covers alone are such wonderful prods to the imagination.

OMG I think I am going to decorate my apartment in these. Thank you, Sr. Ebert, for these and for nailing that pre-adolescent feeling of possibility.

As a Gen X'er I have always felt that we got a raw deal as far as sci-fi goes. As opposed to the kind of wondrous-rocketship-summer stuff that Marty McFly's dad was into, the short stories that get published today seem to be numbing tales of human beings uploaded into computer systems and so forth--nothing you would want to read under the blankets with a flashlight.

Those are absolutely fantastic. My favorite book cover ever was for a Moorecock novel: The Silver Warriors.

http://www.darkromance.com/dr-bod/dr-bod-vol_1_12/images/dr-bod-121606-01.jpg

A noodle-drainer wearing barbarian riding a snowmobile that's being dragged by polar bear cubs, rendered by Frank Frazetta. Life does not get better than that.

Had you ever seen the cover of Queen's NEWS OF THE WORLD that paid hommage to "Sad Robot"? http://images.google.com/imgres?

http://www.vinylrecords.ch/Q/Queen/News/news_world.htm

When I was young I had the same feelings you describe, the same childhood passion, only it was with Fantasy literature, not Science Fiction. They are different of course, even though in the early days they seemed to lump them together in a lot of book stores. When I did dabble in Sci-Fi, it was always towards the dystopian side. You can divide Sci-Fi into two categories, steel grating and carpets. The steel grating side was dark and nasty, visually it would look like the Alien movies or the Millennium Falcon. Lots of steel grating for the floors, exposed cable runs, the occasional vent blasting out jets of steam, usually around head level. A place where the engineers still had grease under their fingernails. The carpet side would be bright and hygienic, with lots of carpeted hallways, visually it looks like Star Trek. Everyone neat and tidy, doors slide gently open and closed with a whisper, not the limp chopping clang of the steel grating genre. But that was Sci-Fi, I was into Fantasy.

Fantasy literature was all about wizards and warriors. Tolkien and Lewis were the kings of course. The only problem with Tolkien is he inspired so many imitators. You had to be careful with your precious book money, lest you spend it on yet another Middle Earth rip-off. But these were the books that taught me how to read. We're talking 2am on a school-night, with a fading flashlight shrouded just so, to keep a two word spotlight on the page. Anything more ambitious would arose the investigation of my parents.

With these books, the edges of the page would disappear, the reading itself would become completely subconscious. The words were not printed words, but paint brushes in my mind. Landscapes large enough to fill a continent were painted there, heros as high as mountains, villains as dark as the bottom of the sea. And Quests! Such Quests!

The cover art was top notch for many of these books, comic books and magazines. My favorite was everyone else's favorite, Frank Frazetta. I recently enjoyed a documentary about his life. It was an interesting investigation into the man and his work, in the spirit of another great documentary about an American illustrator, Crumb. Of course the two could not be any more different. Sadly for Frank and his many fans, he's suffered a serious of strokes, leaving him unable to paint. He has found other artistic outlets in sculpting and simple drawing.

Oft-times it was his cover art that enticed me to buy the book. It was no surprise to discover from the documentary that publishers knew for a fact that a Frazetta cover would increase book sales many fold. The content, or indeed the author, did not matter as much as the cover art. Hey, I was young once, and I believe it.

Let's not forget about.... Frazetta women.
http://www.arthistoryarchive.com/arthistory/fantasy/images/FrankFrazetta-Cat-Girl-1984.jpg

The documentary trailer...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mm65Opc74Y&NR=1

Cool covers!

This doesn't really count as it's a movie poster but it's rendered in a similar style and looks like a comic book cover...

"Forbidden Planet!"

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/50/Forbiddenplanetposter.jpg

My favorite classic Sci-Fi movie ever!

Note: "Creature from the Black Lagoon" from 1954 was for me, what "Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein" was for Roger. :)

Original trailer! 1:20 sec

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-mDrE4iUH8

Scared the bee-jeebies outta me!

Great classic covers. You've prompted me to take out some of my own back issues.

Preparing to visit ACC a few years ago, I stopped into a local purveyor of such things to buy a few to take along. These can be had by anyone looking for them, but now they cost a bit more than the original 25 cents.

I've got the Jan. 1954 issue of Startling Stories (it happened to feature one my dad's novels) which sports a space scene with spaceships, men in spacesuits, and a woman, who's not in a spacesuit of course; what fun would that be?

Thanks to your link above I found that things have changed, web-site wise, in the last few years so I've updated my own links.

Here's the link to the Hall of Fame permanent exhibits:

http://www.empsfm.org/exhibitions/index.asp?categoryID=203

I thought I was quite the scienficionado, but I had never heard of Imaginative Tales before. What delightfully cheesecakey covers. I'm guessing the one with the little elephant and the monkey in a non-monkey suit illustrates "Jerry Is a Man" (or is it "Jerry Was a Man"?) by Robert Heinlein, using the pseudonym Lyle Monroe (or maybe Caleb Saunders?).

Campbell probably shouldn't have been allowed to run for President, either, being an early shill for Dianetics and all that followed. But his encouragement of the wet-behind-the-ears Isaac Asimov, and his purchase of "Life-Line," Heinlein's first published story, merit secular canonization.

I love all science fiction! Well, except stupidities like Transformers.

I find that sf is the one genre that can really scare me. Horror scares while watching, but sf can scare me for the rest of my life, because it's a projection of what can be.
What can be is scary.
First serious sf novels I read (Stephen Baxter's Time and Asimov's Nightfall scared me so much that I haven't been able to start a proper sf novel to date; I just make do with short stories, but a couple have been even scarier).

The only sf I've ever had good access to is mythology (it was sf back then), with series like 'Amar Chitra Katha' (Immortal Picture Stories) and Chandamama (a crappy magazine that had one section for obscure mythological episodes; I won't translate it because you have a page about the original song).

Lovely covers by the way.

A great thread about sf/f. Stuff like "If it's got women with big breasts on the cover, it's a space opera." (not exact quotation.)

I have that special Sturgeon issue of F&SF! I picked it out just because the cover caught my eye at the Paperback Shack in Van Nuys, California sometime in the early to mid 70s. Half-price (or less) paperbacks, off cover prices that ranged from 50 to 95 cents. Glory days. And wonderful stacks of old issues of Astounding, Amazing, F&SF, and Galaxy.

The Golden Age of Science Fiction, I've heard, is 13. And it was right about then that I started reading SF books at libraries, and then somehow convinced my poor father to pay for my membership in the Science Fiction Book Club, but it was the magazines that issued forth a siren call every month. And the glorious covers! Thanks for sharing.

Roger I caught your post on twitter and came here. Who is the most influential Sci-fi writer in modern times? I'm not sure anyone could answer that. There were the Giants in the field like Asimov, Heinlein, Poul Anderson, I can go on and on. I discovered sci-fi and fantasy about the same time and would go home from the library with andre Norton and Heinlein. I discovered the local Baltimore science fiction club BSFS and was introduced to the cons and the gorgeous art and books for sale there. Years later I still catch a sci-fi show and curl up with a good book at night. Thank you for the memories.
p.s I too have boxes of the old mags sitting in the shed which need to come in and regain their place in my home

Ebert: Not most popular or best, but most influential? L. Ron Hubbard. Heh, heh.

What do you think of Larry Niven? He was kind of in this vein, but not in the pulps.

For that matter, do you think that Avatar catches some of these magazines' sense of splendor? (I didn't get to read the magazines, but I cut my own teeth on Asimov to a large extent. Never really read Heinlein, though.)

My grandfather told me when he read about the Dianetics stuff in these magazines his response was "If this works, that's great! It's probably harmless to try out, and if he's right, in a couple of years we'll be seeing Clears and everything will just be swell."

Of course, we know how that went, but from the perspective of the early 1950s it seemed quite reasonable.

Roger were you a fan of The Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits as well? I think they were great shows and you must've watched them as a kid..or are you just a movie and comic book kind of guy?

Come to think of it, do you have time for TV shows nowadays?

What great covers! Although I loved the pulp covers, I ended up collecting the digest SF magazines for the better stories: Astounding/Analog, F&SF, etc. In a way, I even prefer the digest cover art to the older pulp covers, but that's purely a preference on my part. For more great covers, visit my Yahoo Groups at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SF_Digest_Mags/?yguid=321995096
Wonderful article, Roger!
Tom Johnson

You left out Virgil Finlay from your list of artists--I will never forget his illustrations for "A Planet Called Shayol" by Cordwainer Smith.

That is a great collection of covers.

These are some of my all-time favorites ... and some we never see. Thanks!

The science-fiction cover tradition goes back to the days of Hugo Gernsback, and before. But look at some of his early tech magazines, like ELECTRICAL EXPERIMENTER 1915-17:

http://www.magazineart.org/main.php/v/technical/electricalexperimenter/?g2_page=2

http://www.magazineart.org/main.php/v/technical/electricalexperimenter/?g2_page=3

Heavy on the tech and light on the emotion; but that's what the magazines themselves were about.

I always found the "Tales From the Crypt" covers very interesting and cool to look at.

I bought most of these magazines fresh off the newsstands and found the rest in second-hand bookstores. Devoured them all cover-to-cover. I imagined that the authors of the stories weren't just making them up, they were reporting back from the worlds they'd visited and the adventures they'd personally experienced.

Of course, there's no question that John W. Campbell had the greatest influence on the field throughout the thirties and forties and well into the fifties, but I don't think SF really began to mature until Astounding had genuine competition from Galaxy and F&SF. We have to give credit to Anthony Boucher and H.L. Gold, and later Fred Pohl for pushing SF out of its adolescence into a much more worldly (and not always as much fun) perspective.

Just my own not-so-humble opinion, but I think it was the liveliness of the magazines that made the forties and fifties the Golden Age of science fiction.

I believe there was a time in this country when you could tell who the SciFi authors were. They were the guys with goatees. The only other guys with goatees were Peter and Paul, who sang with Mary.

Roger, I am bringing up the subject of video games in a discussion completely unrelated to them because you did first. As someone who grew up with them I can assure you wholeheartedly that there were video games that did inspire my adolescent imagination greatly. If video games are lacking in any areas as a medium, imagination is not one of those areas. I do not expect you to become a fan of video games, all I am asking is that you acknowledge that they are worthy enough not to be attacked cheaply in an article about an unrelated subject such as science fiction magazines. (Unless you consider the many science fiction video games a relation)

A bit late to the party, but:

"A few readers will understand that these rocket ships and Bug-Eyed Monsters awaken faint memories of pre-erotic stirrings -- not of sex, but of...something...some promise...some not-yet-experienced world...some possibility..."

Yes; that's exactly the sense I have looking at these covers. Many of them are from a bit before my time, but I can still feel the call to wonder that the artwork entails.

Thanks for passing these along.

Love that you have a story on one of these covers. ;) If you like these covers, there is usually some pretty cool artwork on the Intergalactic Medicine Show, although not quote so pulpy as most of these.

IGMS

Mr. Ebert,

I was so lucky to have met the famous collector and "patron saint of Science Fiction" Forrest J. Ackerman just over 10 years ago when he was a guest at our local convention, CONvergence, here in Minneapolis/Saint Paul. His tales of the classics and the era you hold so dear (as do I) were simply marvelous!

I must say that while that time of classic covers (and, indeed, many print magazines) have faded, there are -through the advent of RSS feeds and podcasts- some remarkable new audio sources of excellent Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror fiction. In many ways, they remind me of when I would listen to the radio to some of the thrillers and radio dramas once-upon-a-time...

If you are interested (or any readers of your blog) I suggest they look into the podcasts "Escape Pod" (http://www.escapepod.org/) for Science Fiction, "PseudoPod" (http://www.pseudopod.org/) for Horror, and "PodCastle" (http://www.podcastle.org/) for Fantasy. They're all weekly and all wonderful!

Yours,
Dave

Hey Roger!

Couldn't help seeing your name on the cover of that mag from the 70's..

What was your story about, anyways?

Best,
d2

The recently-departed Martin Gardner, another idol of mine, had a chapter in his "Fads and Fallacies" about Dianetics, in which John Campbell comes off looking very foolish indeed.

Wow, Roger, thanks for refreshing my youthful memories! I read almost every story that was worth reading in those stories, but in anthologies or "best of" collections published years after these.

And, regarding the Dianetics angle, if you want to hear the TRUE STORY of how it all started, you need to listen to Robin Williams (yes, THAT Robin Williams!) interviewing Robert Silverberg about the history of JW Campbell's bullpen in those early, early days.

I used to subscribe to the Audible.com series "Robin WIlliams on Audible.com" waaaaay back in the late '90s… back when people didn't know what this Internet stuff was. If you don't know about it, There are over 25 hours of interviews in the series, all one-on-one with people that Mr. Williams has worked with, enjoys reading, or just wants to to talk to, especially good friends of his like Whoopi Goldberg, Billy Crystal, Bobcat Goldthwait, etc. I don't think you can find this stuff anywhere else, and it's totally unscripted, off-the-cuff discussions. Highly, highly recommended.

Oh, and the real stinker? When I subscribed to this series on Audible, it cost me USD12. Per year! That was 50 weeks, I think…

... Memory is never erotic, or gains its charge by the promise of something happening again, or by the fantasy that it is happening now...

...ask yourself which better inspires the adolescent imagination: Science fiction magazines, or video games?

Next time you're down at the drug store, check out the book/magazine rack.

How many science fiction titles are available? How many magazines continue to publish (nevermind whether they can still be located).

Videogames kind of win that one by default, through lack of competition.

I love SF. There is no better way to spend a Saturday than curled up with a good SF book and a cup of tea, reading until the sun goes down. I own multiple copies of all my favorites so that I can press them into my friends hands and say "this book will change your life" as they look at me incredulously.

I agree that more children have been inspired by SF books than video games, but you're criticizing an art form still in it's infancy. Your expecting video games to do back flips when they are still learning to walk.

If you really take a look back at all these pulp magazines you'll see that for every one amazing inspiring story there are ten ignorant boring tales with nothing remotely worthwhile.

Lay of the video games. Right now they are still sucking at the teat of movies and books, they have not found their place. When video games have found their niche within the world of storytelling or entertainment, have at them. For now though, criticizing the baby is getting boring.

I have a couple of boxes of Sf mags from the early 60's, that I had read and re-read. Too loved to tatters to be collectible, I think, but possible treasures for the reading and the artwork. Analog, including the larger format that they tried for awhile, Galaxy, If, Amazing, F&SF, etc. Pretty musty-smelling.
Anyone interested in them, just let me know.

Thanks! Pat, in Gold Bar, WA