Blast Off!

I got distracted from writing scienfornication stories while doing research, which unfortunately happens more than it should. First was the Lensman series which was a little more "ehh" than I expected, then I found the first seven Tom Corbett juvenile novels on Gutenberg (and bought some originals on eBay). From there I slipped into watching the Rocky Jones series on YouTube, listening to the Tom Corbett radio show and digging up what little there is of the kinescoped TV series. Once I'm done with the last of those there's the Space Patrol TV and radio series to suck away what little of my porn-writing brain is left.

Dammit. But I have gotten some more goofy 1950s space slang and outlined two more plots. I just need to sit down and write the goddamn things.

I got way more into this show than I expected and I think listening to the radio show at work while the boss was out is what did it. Nobody at work wants to hear the inappropriate organ music so it's been a furtive, secretive exercise.

See, this is how all old-timey radio was done, back in the day.

The TV series was shuffled around all four networks from 1950-55, the radio show (using the same actors) was on for the first half of 1952 and the books were originally published from 1952-56. There was also a comic strip and comic book series I'm not even going near since I have enough goddamn magazines around here already.

The Tom Corbett book series made the characters a little more gee-whiz boy genius cadets than the vaguely 30-ish adults on the TV show. They've made Tom Corbett a super-duper spaceship commander-in-training, Venusian Astro (a colonial rather than an alien) can rebuild any rocket engine blindfolded and they've filed the points off jerk-with-a-heart-of-jerk Roger Manning making him more of a sarcastic Eddie Haskell who's a whiz at astronavigation.

I'm just pretending the guys on TV are the same ones in the books but a few years later--a little crankier, slacker and more likely to paste somebody.

"Aren't you men a little old to be cadets?" Really, how many years did these guys get left back anyway?

Seems the Solar Guard doesn't pay very well since it looks like Commander Arkwright has to sell shoes on the side.

But I guess somebody has to pay for that rocketship the cadets shot with a torpedo.

Twice.

"He did it."

What color do you think these spacesuits are? For some reason I was picturing a gross yellowish beige, like an old rubber glove.

Nope, a gross shade of pink. I guess they were out of yellowish beige.
TV and Radio Mirror October 1952.

And since I like to find a little what-the-fuckery in every old magazine I buy, here's some boxing kitties.

F-N Ads

No humiliating laxative ads in Startling Stories Fall 1946 to clear the palate after that cringe-worthy Captain Future novel but there are a few things to poke around at.

I noticed they left off the more popular choices of "cry like a baby," "be eaten by badgers" and "die of exposure ten minutes' walk from a ranger station."

Don't yachts automatically negate any personality flaws? Otherwise total douches who own yachts would never be able to fill them with half dressed barely legal bikini models.

Again with the F-N test. Apparently Wildroot Cream Oil turns a fun guy with messy hair into a stodgy Sunday school teacher. Here's a fun thing to do; try to guess which guy gets laid first.

Ugh.

I've been putting off dealing with this particular awful, awful Captain Future and distracting myself with Rocky Jones, Space Ranger and Tom Corbett, Space Cadet (book, TV and radio shows) plus publishing a few non-erotica needlework patterns. I could've skipped it altogether but I've got a couple too many zingers aimed right at its black little heart.

The Solar Invasion, Startling Stories Fall 1946. This is the only one written by Manly Wade Wellman who although he's a pretty good writer otherwise he didn't really have much of a grasp of the Captain Future character. It looked as though he'd read The Magician of Mars and maybe the first Cap Future novel (or an early style sheet) where Curt was an unbearable  two-dimensional swashbuckling douche, poured himself a couple bourbons, sat down at his typewriter and just rolled with it.

The plot doesn't matter in this colossal mountain of suck, at least not to me. Inter-dimensional aliens kind of led by Ul Quorn steal the Moon and, I dunno, turn it into a jungle. I don't remember why, only that Ul Quorn was wasted as a character and sort of drops into the background while these aliens shove the Moon into their dimension like they collect moons or they lost theirs in a poker game or something. Maybe they want the monopoly on moons.

This annoys Captain Future because that's where all his cool Moon stuff is so he goes running to the System President. For some reason President Carthew has either been reanimated after having his skull crushed in by evil mine owner out to get the monopoly on radium (Outlaws of the Moon) or the story takes place in an earlier time, back when Curt was a jerky, muscle-bound vigilante scientist bent on strong-arming some kind of peace in the solar system. Curt doesn't run into his office and scream that Carthew should be dead because he saw his brains splattered all over the rug so I guess it's Option 2.

Here's that muscle-bound douche on the 1960s paperback reprint of The Solar Invasion, as envisioned by Frank Frazetta. Fun fact: I hate Frank Frazetta.

Ugh. That isn't the Man of Tomorrow promised by Captain Future magazine; that's the guy who'd give the Man of Tomorrow an atomic wedgie and shove his head down the toilet. Edmond Hamilton had stopped describing Curt as "big" and had switched to "rangy" by the third novel making him more a space cowboy than some weirdo who got super-strength by wrestling robots.

Maybe Joan should start dressing like a robot. What with all the spanking and wrestling Grag has gotten way more action with Curt than his own almost girlfriend.

Ahhh, can it, ya big jerkass.

Simon also seems to be inexplicably impressed by pretty girls, something he's never done before. If he liked any humans other than Curt Newton he would have had his brain stuck in another body instead of a transparent box. His whole reason for that was so he wouldn't have to deal with some stupid body wasting energy he could be using to think about science stuff.

Stop lying, Simon. Women just annoy you. You only tolerate Joan because Curt almost sort of maybe likes her.

Ha-ha! Caught you in your web of lies, you brainy bastard!

Here's Curt stuck with Joan and N'rala on the jungle-ized Moon and not looking happy about it. He's probably annoyed that Frank Frazetta is hiding in the bushes painting this very scene and making a complete crapfest of it.

N'rala isn't written at all well, definitely not the sexy pistol-packin' femme fatale from The Seven Space Stones. She's even described as Ul Quorn's slave which tells me Wellman didn't read Space Stones otherwise he would've seen she was an opportunist who was happy to screw around with Ul Quorn so long as he had some sort of power. The first chance she got she was rubbing up against Captain Future as Plan B in case Ul Quorn failed in his little project to take over the solar system. Really, she's no fun at all in this novel and even more wasted than Ul Quorn.

Mondo gripe-a-roony: Otho's pet meteor mimic Oog--instead of randomly turning into whatever is around for camouflage or things that Otho or Curt think really hard about, he thinks about what he could turn into. He also shifts into smaller versions of people, which he's never done. The first scene in the story he's a tiny Joan for no fucking reason, and later when he's abandoned somewhere I don't care about he turns into a tiny Otho to take a bad guy's atom pistol out of the holster, then he climbs into the holster and mimics the pistol so he can get a ride on the guy's spaceship. All he's ever done in the previous novels is waddle around like a fucking Shmoo and randomly turn into stuff. Once Otho was being held prisoner and thought really hard about an atomic bomb to convince Oog to turn into one. Otho then used him to threaten the guards--until he thought of calling Grag a tin can and Oog suddenly became a tin can.

I'm pretty sure I forgot something in the weeks since I read this thing. Whatever. It's done. My brain hurts.