Isaac Asimov, RIP: The Starlog Project, Starlog #181, August 1992

According to Wikipedia, the exact date of legendary writer Isaac Asimov's birth is unknown; he chose to celebrate his birthday on January 2. What is known is the exact day he died: April 6, 1992. At least that's what it says in Wikipedia and in the feature article in this issue of Starlog, where his life is appreciated. Though Asimov's longtime pal Kerry O'Quinn, the magazine's former publisher, mistakenly writes in his column that the good doctor died on April 7.

Actually, I think O'Quinn was making a point about the media coverage on the day after Asimov passed away, but it's confusingly worded. That is all of little matter. Another, more fascinating, misrepresentation about Asimov is repeated in this issue: He died of "heart and kidney failure."

Years later, his widow Janet revealed in an edition of his autobiography that the heart and kidney problems weren't from out of nowhere. As Asimovonline.com notes: "Asimov died on April 6, 1992 of heart and kidney failure, which were complications of the HIV infection he contracted from a transfusion of tainted blood during his December 1983 triple-bypass operation. (The revelation that AIDS was the cause of his death was not made until It's Been a Good Life was published in 2002). His body was cremated and his ashes were not interred." The HIV aspect was apparently (if you believe Wikipedia's report) so explosive at the time that the family and doctors kept the secret for 10 years.

Starlog #181
84 pages (including covers)
Cover price: $4.95

Asimov's death reminds us that it has been a season of losing giants of the genre. Gene Roddenberry and Irwin Allen both passed away in late 1991, and a few months later we lost the most prolific writer the genre has ever known (Asimov wrote or edited more than 500 books). Starlog highlighted all of these (and other) deaths, focusing of course on the lives of the people lost.

The rundown: To go from the sublime to the ridiculous, for the first time in four issues, Batman Returns is not on the cover of Starlog; instead, the cover is given over to Honey, I Blew Up the Kid, the sequel to the surprise hit Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (the screenplay for which was co-written by former Starlog editorial staffer Ed Naha, who does not appear to be involved in the sequel). The contents page features a costume sketch from Land of the Giants (I guess they were sticking to the theme of size-shifting people). David McDonnell's Medialog column reports that the new Sci Fi Channel has purchased a bevy of episodes to air from old shows, ranging from the original Battlestar Galactica to Kolchak the Night Stalker to The Incredible Hulk; and in his Gamelog column, Michael McAvennie highlights Nintendo's Star Trek, GURPS Robin Hood, Acclaim's Super Smash TV, and others.

The Communications pages include – surprise, surprise – letters about Star Trek (including this sentence out of context: "Best of all, it showed Wesley does have the potential to be used effectively as a recurring character"), Hook, Young Indiana Jones, and others, plus Mike Fisher's Creature Profile features the Amazing Colossal Man; the Fan Network pages include the convention listings and Lia Pelosi's compendium of fan clubs and publications; David Hutchison's Videolog column announces Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country and other genre releases; a shortened Booklog section reviews Reality Is What You Can Get Away With, Shadows of Dawn, and Art Liberty; the obituaries continue, with Bill Warren's two-page Tribute to director Jack Arnold (The Incredible Shrinking Man, Creature from the Black Lagoon, and many others); and in "Farewell, Isaac," Kerry O'Quinn devotes his column to remembering his friend (including: "He was not known for his modesty, but his positive self-image was only honesty. Isaac Asimov knew more things about more things than any other human.").

Kyle Counts sits down with actress Deanna Lund in her living room to talk about her career, including the cult TV series Land of the Giants; David A. Kyle provides a long tribute to Isaac Asimov, full of neat insights into the man and his friends, such as the friendly rivalry he had with fellow legend Arthur C. Clarke, about whom he said: "[L]et us talk about science fiction, which, after all, is what we both do – I, because I'm a great writer, and Arthur, because he's a stubborn writer"; Kim Howard Johnson interviews actor Dolph Lundgren about his role in Universal Soldier, though they also talk about The Punisher; Bill Warren interviews Randal Kleiser, director of Honey, I Blew Up the Kid; Batman Returns producer Larry Franco is profiled by Marc Shapiro, to whom he explains his disinterest in the Batman character: "I was never a Batman fan. ... I never read the comics. Quite frankly, when Batman came out, I didn't care." As for Batman Returns, Franco says, "I co-produced it, and that's why I'm going to see it. I'm not going to see it because of Batman."

Pat Jankiewicz talks with filmmaker Stuart Gordon, who was one of the creators of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids and who discusses that film as well as his Robot Jox, Re-Animator, From Beyond, and more; Ian Spelling profiles actor Michael Murphy about Batman Returns, Shocker, and other works; RoboCop 3 director Fred Dekker tells Kim Howard Johnson about his approach to doing that sequel, which he says isn't really a sequel for him because he's never done a RoboCop before; in part one of a multi-part article, Mark Phillips talks to the writers of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea; Marc Shapiro previews the new film Stay Tuned, starring John Ritter; and editor David McDonnell wraps it all up in his Liner Notes column, in which he notes classic TV series revisited and classic actors interviewed.

"[Isaac Asimov] wrote what he wanted to write, and his works were invariably published, all with varying degrees of success. One big regret that his longtime friends had was that he virtually abandoned SF for so much of his writing life. However, of all his many varied and serious works, some of his most delightful writings in the 1980s were for young people. In this, he truly enjoyed the collaboration of his wife Janet in a pleasant series of books concerning a robot named Norby."

–David A. Kyle, writer, "In Memories Yet Green"

For more Starlog, click on Starlog Internet Archive Project below or visit the Starlog Project's permanent site.

Discovered at Last! UK Editions of Fantastic Films Magazine

Okay, this isn't like finding the Titanic or a first edition of Action Comics. But while doing my usual online surfing, I (to quote Weird Al Yankovic) "learned a few things I never knew before." Specifically, I learned that the late Chicago-based science-fiction film magazine Fantastic Films published a foreign edition in the very early 1980s in the United Kingdom.

I have no idea if the content inside the magazine is different from the American edition, but the covers appear to be distinguishable from each other only by the numbering. (The confusion over some numbering made me suddenly realize, Hey, the Star Wars droids weren't on the cover of Fantastic Films #8 ....) Check out what I'm talking about; notice USA FF #21 and UK FF#12 below.

Longtime readers of this blog know that I'm more a Starlog fan than a Fantastic Films fan. But I do have  a warm spot in my heart for FF, which I first purchased at a Red Owl grocery store in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. It was issue #19, or at least that's what the American edition was numbered. The UK edition of Fantastic Films for that exact same issue was #10.

Anyway, I'm trying to track down some copies of the UK edition of this magazine. I'm sure you share my anticipation.

In the meantime, below is a gallery of all of the covers I was able to find of the UK edition. Does anyone know if Fantastic Films published editions in any other countries? Was there a German or French edition? A Hong Kong edition? Do let me know.

 

 

 

David Brooks and the Real Lessons from the Tucson Tragedy

Amidst all of the heated rhetoric following the tragedy in Tucson, conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks offers an important grounding in reason and compassion. While running through his January 14, 2011, speech to The Commonwealth Club in San Francisco (as research for my next column in Northside), I came across this great passage:

The most important thing is to look at the evidence first. There’s been a lot of punditry and commentary around what happened in Tucson, but I think if we start with the evidence, and we start with what little we know about Jared Loughner, the kid who allegedly committed this thing, we know that he has had – from his online writings – an obsession with mind control. You see in the writings the struggle of a man trying to control his mind. He created these videos, and the last video he created is called ‘My Final Thoughts.’ If you watch those videos, you see a man who is trying to create what he calls a ‘currency,’ which is a language for controlling thoughts. You see him sort of vaguely understanding that he is having trouble controlling his own thoughts, and then making accusations about the government controlling our grammar. They’re all about the struggle to control thoughts.

Then we know from testimony from his friends, that his friends more or less cut him off for the last several months because they found his behavior too disturbing. But he went to this town hall with Congresswoman Gifford, and he asked her an extremely bizarre question, having to do with how can government function when words have no meaning? He was dissatisfied with her answer.

So we see from all of the evidence that the root cause of this was a young man possibly suffering from mental illness and possibly schizophrenia, and not practicing politics as it’s normally understood.

Yet I think so much of the commentary in the past few days has not been following that evidence. It has gone off in a different direction, talking about civil discourse in our politics. I’m all for civil discourse in our politics. I’m all for sensible politics. But there’s no evidence that was germane to this kid.

I’m not sure there’s a larger political meaning to this horrible thing. But if there is, I think it's a function that we in the media have to pay much greater attention to psychology and psychological issues, and less to politics; not everything is explicable by the normal political logic.

But the second thing is that we as a society have to pay greater attention to the treatment of the mentally ill. We have a system – and part of the system was created here in California during the Reagan governorship and has spread outward – giving people suffering from severe mental illnesses the choice to control their own destiny. Often that means they end up on the streets; a large number of them end up in jails; 99 percent of them are not violent in any way, but 1 percent or so are violent.

I think we have to ask some fundamental questions. The most important question is, How do we allow a kid, who is widely perceived as mentally troubled, to get access to guns? The second is, How do we think about involuntary commitments and involuntary treatment? Have we erred too much on the side of giving those people individual choice, and do we need to shift more to protect community safety?

I think that is well said, and it is a more adult conversation than most of the country has been having, at least publicly and in the media, on this topic.

My Latest Northside Column: Interviewing Kiva.org's Premal Shah

The latest issue of Northside San Francisco is out, and the editors have just posted it on their web site, too. Here's my latest column, which is an interview with Premal Shah, the president of online micro-finance site kiva.org.

Common Knowledge

Be the Bank

By John Zipperer

Would you rather destroy a bank or become one? A financial industry blogger using the pseudonym “Edmundo Braverman” has been peddling his plan to take down one of the big U.S. banks in retribution for the recent financial panic. It’s a far-fetched plan that is arguably unworkable, but it has been receiving a lot of attention, including from The New York Times and other national media.

But as alluring as Braverman’s caper might be to some angry citizens, another option exists: become a banker yourself. No, not in the sense of accepting deposits and giving away toasters. Rather, you can be the lender to small business people near and afar, even successfully lending money to people who wouldn’t qualify for a loan from the drunkest bank loan officer.

Read more ...

The Julian Assange Coloring Book

Forget cat videos. THIS is what the internet was invented for! The Julian Assange Coloring Book, an online place to go and create your own colored Assange images.

Here's mine:

And here are my past thoughts on Wikileaks.

Ellison, Rogue, & Sleazy SF Paperbacks: How Are They Connected?

Those of you who are fans of Harlan Ellison's work over the decades might already know this, but in the very late 1950s and very early 1960s, author Harlan Ellison worked as an editor at Rogue magazine in Chicago. Rogue was a Playboy-wannabe whose only claim to fame was that it briefly had Harlan Ellison as a staff editor. That might be putting it a bit strongly, because it made its mark in other ways, including as the publisher of many short stories by leading science-fiction authors. Another editor was Frank M. Robinson, a writer whose works include a favorite book of mine, The Dark Beyond the Stars. (Just to overload you with trivia: Robinson, who is gay, later wrote the Playboy Advisor column in Playboy before moving to San Francisco, where he worked with Harvey Milk at one point.)

Where was I? Oh, yes.

Over at Germany's Nerdcore web site, I stumbled across a short note about a paperback line that was produced by Rogue's publisher and was apparently (according to that site's source, Earl Kemp) started by Harlan Ellison. Apparently, Rogue publisher William Hamling produced a series of books that evolved into a mix of science-fiction (and other fantastic genres) with sex.

Says Kemp:

[T]there was a constant attempt to insert some science fiction elements into some of the novels, or something at least a bit on the fantastic side. And, with each of these attempts, whenever Hamling would discover it, he would object and reinform us that our books were about real people doing real things and nothing fantastic or otherworldly could ever be allowed to interfere with that.

Did that stop us? No.

As time passed and things began to change, Hamling relaxed his hold on the covers and then, eventually, turned their production over exclusively to the art department. ... And sales took off.

So, consider this your R-rated (I assume; I've never seen any of these books) science-fiction story of the day. Kemp's own web site has a small gallery of some of the classic cheesy covers.

Batman Returns, and Returns, and Returns: The Starlog Project, Starlog #180, July 1992

For a record-breaking third issue in a row, the same movie is featured on the cover of Starlog: Batman Returns. And so he does.

A problem I've always had with superhero movies is that they often start out with one villain in the initial film; then in the second, they have two villains, and in the third, three, and so on. For a case in point, see the Spider-Man movies (if you count Harry in the second and third movies as a villain). It's a development that normally annoys me, because it always strikes me that the writers and producers don't have enough faith in their star character to continue to carry the films, as if we all are going to tune in merely to see a parade of disposable super-villains get vanquished (which, of course, they are).

Batman Returns is both a part of and a subverter of this form. There are indeed two villains: the Penguin and Catwoman. They are indeed both vanquished (oh, you knew that by now, didn't you?). But this movie is a better movie than the first, and the villains aren't your typical Batman and Robin-type villain teamup; they are complex and they're portrayed by top-flight actors. (Danny DeVito is particularly amazing and creepy.)

Does it deserve three consecutive covers in a row? Well, few movies do; but Batman Returns was the giant film of the time, and Starlog clearly knew what would get people to pick up a copy at the magazine racks. Like most magazines, they'd put a picture of a puppy licking Zac Efron's face on the cover every single issue if that's what would ensure big sales. (That is of course the reason Barack Obama showed up on so many magazine covers in 2008; he was newsstand gold. The closest to Efron-puppiness that the political world gets.)

Starlog #180
84 pages (including covers)
Cover price: $4.95

I've lost count. This is either the third or fourth issue of Starlog that includes a letter from yours truly. What got me to put pen to paper (or slip paper into typewriter, which for you kids was a mechanical device for creating documents that was not connected to the internet; sort of like a keyboard to nowhere) was actually more sequel concerns. Specifically, it was concern over the increasing trend of novelists to write series of books based in one world, multi-part books that never seemed to end, merely stringing you along to buy the next in the series. I certainly understood (and understand) the income-need by the writers and the publishers that fed this trend, and in many cases I understand the readers' needs to continue exploring a world they've come to love. But I thought the trend had gotten so far out of hand that readers were being fed never-ending pablum, and writers were sacrificing their role to tell an honest story. We all have to pay our bills, but it isn't out of bounds to occasionally remind ourselves that just because NCIS has been renewed for yet another season that we're not contractually bound to watch it.

The rundown: Michelle Pfeiffer and Danny DeVito share this month's cover, which also notes that it's the 16th anniversary issue of the magazine, though there are precious few reminders inside the issue that it's a special edition; heralding the return of former editorial staffer David Hirsch as a music correspondent, Star Trek VI's Valeris (Kim Cattrall) is featured on the contents page, which references Hirsch's interview with Trek VI's composer, Cliff Eidelman. In a shortened Medialog column, David McDonnell notes that George Lucas received the Irving G. Thalberg Award during the Oscars, and Marc Shapiro reports on an attempt to bring Robert Heinlein's classic Stranger in a Strange Land (which is mis-labeled Stranger in a Stranger Land) to the screen. This issue sees the return of another former Starlog editorial staffer, Michael McAvennie, who kicks off a new column called Gamelog, which reviews new video game releases; this issue, he reviews some Terminator games, among others.

The Communications section includes still more Trek-vs-Space: 1999 infighting, a vehement anti-Gene Roddenberry letter, memories of Irwin Allen, an absolutely brilliant letter critiquing multi-book novels, and more; David Hutchison's Videolog column warns us that Freejack has been released, among other genre titles; Booklog reviews Illusion, Gifts of Blood, Dragon Death, and The Missing Matter; Fan Network includes Lia Pelosi's fan club and publications directory, plus the convention listings; and in his From the Bridge column, former publisher Kerry O'Quinn actually references Starlog's 16th anniversary while sharing the story of a fan who made his professional science-fiction dreams come true.

Ed Henderson contributes his first article to the magazine, a look at the history of Godzilla on the big screen (with illustrations by Kevin Brockschmidt); Kyle Counts interviews actor and director James Darren, who discusses working on The Time Tunnel, Quantum Leap, and more; Marriette Hartley is called "one of TV's classiest actresses" as she's profiled by Lee Goldberg (after all, she didn't give the magazine the Terri Garr treatment); Batman Returns director Tim Burton is interviewed by Marc Shapiro, and he discusses how to assemble the best villainous roles for his superhero films; and Ian Spelling talks with genre favorite actor Lance Henriksen about his roles in Aliens and Alien3, Pumpkinhead, and other films.

The Star Trek interview marathon continues with Pat Jankiewicz's chat with director Gene Nelson, who discusses his episode "The Gamesters of Triskelon" (which Jankiewicz rightly calls "Star Trek as its most glorious and notorious"); Jean Airey interviews actress Judi Trott about her role in Robin of Sherwood; Tom Weaver and Paul Parla tag-team on a long Q&A with actor Ben Chapman, who portrayed the title role in Creature from the Black Lagoon; David Hirsch returns to the Starlog fold with his interview with composer Cliff Eidelman, who talks about working on Star Trek VI; and in his Liner Notes column, editor David McDonnell relates where former staffers have gone after leaving Starlog during its 16 years of publication (James Elrod is an electrician for the Metropolitan Opera, David Hirsch is an optometrist and a music journalist, Ira Friedman is producing a comics line for Topps, and so on).

"If you'll recall, the adventure of the original Star Trek is that the plots always led them to other planets. The surprise was, 'Who were they and what did they look like?' That was always fun, like in ["Gamesters"] – the alien characters were brains! We didn't show that until well after the middle of the episode, and all these other people involved weren't weird faces, like Angelique. Now [with Next Generation], there are no surprises. Whenever they come up with a new face, it either has one eye, two eyes or horns! It lacks the wonderful element of surprise the original had. Where their adventures led them was where the surprises came."

– Gene Nelson, director, interviewed by Pat Jankiewicz: "The Gamesters People Play"

For more Starlog, click on Starlog Internet Archive Project below or visit the Starlog Project's permanent site.

New York Post Exposes ... Obama's Vacation Clothes

Wow. Talk about a slow news day at the right-wing New York Post. Check out its cover below, which was assembled by editors who thought this was the most significant news of the day.

And no, I don't think there's anything wrong with what Obama is wearing. And I'm 99 percent certain that neither you nor anyone else thought that, either, and this is another of those entirely manufactured controversies that certain media players concoct to give their talking (and writing) heads something to blather on about.

Star Wars in German! Trailer for Das Imperium Schlägt Zurück

(Re)Discovering Steranko's Mediascene

When I first got into buying magazines in 1980, I soon began seeing a magazine called Mediascene Prevue, which was published out of Pennsylvania by artist Jim Steranko. I bought a copy here and there, but it never became a regular thing for me – far too many of the pages were taken up with cheesecake shots of actresses and ads for cheesecake shots of actresses. Not my thing, but if it helped Steranko pay the bills, then so be it. Over the years, that aspect of the magazine seemed to take over the book to the extent that it sorta became Femme Fatales before Cinefantastique started that magazine.


But I'm wandering. The reason I'm posting this is that I've begun to find images of the earlier issues of the magazine, when it was just called Mediascene. Some of the covers were really great; fantastic images with beautiful type treatment.

There aren't a lot of these magazines for sale (at least at reasonable prices) on eBay or Amazon, but I'll keep looking, because I've got to get some of them. Look at these covers. Fantastic, both artistically and from a fannish point of view.

Frankly, I thought the covers were better in the Mediascene version, which apparently was published in a newspaper tabloid format, than when Steranko reformatted the publication into traditional magazine style and changed the name to Mediascene Prevue.

Fun fact: One of Steranko's staffers was David McDonnell, who eventually got a job in New York at Starlog magazine, which he edited for a quarter century.

UPDATE Feb. 11, 2011: You'll note in the comments below to this post that there exists a web site on which Steranko supposedly sells back issues of his magazine (and other products). Just an FYI that I ordered a number of Mediascenes from that web site in early January; I received a confirmation e-mail, but never received the magazines. My credit card was not charged for the purchase, but a follow-up e-mail from me to the company has gone unanswered, and when I tried both phone numbers listed on the site (as per one commenter's suggestion), I learned that one number is out of service and the other apparently is being used by some questionable telemarketing firm. So caveat emptor.