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Fantasy Commentator, v. 1, issue 11, Summer 1946

Page 300

300     FANTASY COMMENTATOR

Thumbing the Munsey Files

with William H. Evans

     The August, 1906 Argosy printed one of the earliest superman stories. In "Samson the Second," a two-part serial by Lawrence G. Byrd, an unexplained device bestows preternatural strength on the hero. His various adventures until the abnormality disappears are well told. In September, our inventing friend is on hand again; he decides to catch a cyclone, concentrate it, and sell pieces of it for cooling purposes. "Bagley's Coagulated cyclone" by Howard Dwight Smiley tells what happened when the cyclone broke loose. The story is average.
     All-Story for July, 1906 brings a repeat performance, with "Bagley's Automatic Grasshopper" relating of how a giant automatic jumping-machine got out of control on a trial run, wrecking itself at the North Pole. Rating: fair. In August Don Mark Lemon (of "The Scarlet Planet" fame) offers a powerful if brief tale, "?". An artist paints a picture of an imaginary German officer. Later he is amazed to sight the man himself on the open street. And on returning to his studio, he finds that the picture has disappeared from the canvas! Several horrible murders are committed, the attacker's description fitting the officer's. When the picture as mysteriously reappears on the canvas the artist attempts to burn it; only the background is destroyed, however, and the figure steps from the flames and kills the artist himself. A more conventional ghost story appears in the next issue of the magazine: G. D. Goodwin's "Great Green Wave." The body of a murdered seaman is to be buried at sea---but the corpse cannot be thrown overboard. At last, each member of the crew is made to touch the body in turn. When the killer's turn arrives a great wave suddenly sweeps the murderer and victim away.
     The Scrap Book for August, 1906 reprinted Marcel Prevost's "Woman and the Cat." It is an excellent tale; if you can find it, read it.
     Skipping ahead ten years, we find All-Story Weekly publishing fantasy quite regularly. The August 5 number has Owen Oliver's "Platinum," an interesting tale of castaways on an island inhabited by beasts of living metal, platinum tentacled; the castaways eventually escape after many intriguing adventures. A week later the three-part serial to "Polaris---of the Snows" began. In Stilson's "Mines[[?]] of Sardanes" we visit again that little Greek colony in the far Antarctic whose existence is made possible by the warmth from surrounding volcanoes. But when the fire in them expires the tribal priests blame king Minos and the girl he loves; bloodshed follows, and finally war and cold kill all but these two, who are themselves near death when Polaris returns and rescues them. In the same issue is Elmer B. Mason's "Red Tree-Frogs," an early example of the "screwy animal" yarn, laid in the Eastern jungles.
     August 19 Brings Mary Keegan with an excellent little weird tale, "Twilight Zone." It tells of a woman bringing her husband back from death to a sort of half-life, whither she too must go to meet him. Of an entirely different nature is the four-part serial of C. MacLean Savage which begins in the September 2 number. "The Courtship Superlative" takes place in the year 2016, and is a story of a chemist, a physicist and a baseball player vying for the love of one girl. She decides to marry the one who accomplishes within a year something more remarkable than he has ever done before. The chemist invents a germ-bullet, the physicist a new type of submarine, and the ball player successfully trains a team of apes. Enraged when his chemist-rival wins the girl, the physicist sells his submarine to Brazil, which then attacks the United States. Finally the chemist's invention defeats the enemy[[?]]. September 23 brings a story that is literally indescribable; it must be read to be fully appreciated. The best I can say is that E. E. Kel's "Patched Reels" is certainly worth your time.
     During the same period Argosy's fantasy doldrums were broken but a single tale. "The Demon of the Whirling Disks" by James Grayson (September 1916)

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300 FANTASY COMMENTATOR Thumbing the Munsey Files with William H. Evans The August, 1906 Argosy printed one of the earliest superman stories. In "Samson the Second," a two-part serial by Lawrence G. Byrd, an unexplained device bestows preternatural strength on the hero. His various adventures until the abnormality disappears are well told. In September, our inventing friend is on hand again; he decides to catch a cyclone, concentrate it, and sell pieces of it for cooling purposes. "Bagley's Coagulated cyclone" by Howard Dwight Smiley tells what happened when the cyclone broke loose. The story is average. All-Story for July, 1906 brings a repeat performance, with "Bagley's Automatic Grasshopper" relating of how a giant automatic jumping-machine got out of control on a trial run, wrecking itself at the North Pole. Rating: fair. In August Don Mark Lemon (of "The Scarlet Planet" fame) offers a powerful if brief tale, "?". An artist paints a picture of an imaginary German officer. Later he is amazed to sight the man himself on the open street. And on returning to his studio, he finds that the picture has disappeared from the canvas! Several horrible murders are committed, the attacker's description fitting the officer's. When the picture as mysteriously reappears on the canvas the artist attempts to burn it; only the background is destroyed, however, and the figure steps from the flames and kills the artist himself. A more conventional ghost story appears in the next issue of the magazine: G. D. Goodwin's "Great Green Wave." The body of a murdered seaman is to be buried at sea---but the corpse cannot be thrown overboard. At last, each member of the crew is made to touch the body in turn. When the killer's turn arrives a great wave suddenly sweeps the murderer and victim away. The Scrap Book for August, 1906 reprinted Marcel Prevost's "Woman and the Cat." It is an excellent tale; if you can find it, read it. Skipping ahead ten years, we find All-Story Weekly publishing fantasy quite regularly. The August 5 number has Owen Oliver's "Platinum," an interesting tale of castaways on an island inhabited by beasts of living metal, platinum tentacled; the castaways eventually escape after many intriguing adventures. A week later the three-part serial to "Polaris---of the Snows" began. In Stilson's "Mines[[?]] of Sardanes" we visit again that little Greek colony in the far Antarctic whose existence is made possible by the warmth from surrounding volcanoes. But when the fire in them expires the tribal priests blame king Minos and the girl he loves; bloodshed follows, and finally war and cold kill all but these two, who are themselves near death when Polaris returns and rescues them. In the same issue is Elmer B. Mason's "Red Tree-Frogs," an early example of the "screwy animal" yarn, laid in the Eastern jungles. August 19 Brings Mary Keegan with an excellent little weird tale, "Twilight Zone." It tells of a woman bringing her husband back from death to a sort of half-life, whither she too must go to meet him. Of an entirely different nature is the four-part serial of C. MacLean Savage which begins in the September 2 number. "The Courtship Superlative" takes place in the year 2016, and is a story of a chemist, a physicist and a baseball player vying for the love of one girl. She decides to marry the one who accomplishes within a year something more remarkable than he has ever done before. The chemist invents a germ-bullet, the physicist a new type of submarine, and the ball player successfully trains a team of apes. Enraged when his chemist-rival wins the girl, the physicist sells his submarine to Brazil, which then attacks the United States. Finally the chemist's invention defeats the enemy[[?]]. September 23 brings a story that is literally indescribable; it must be read to be fully appreciated. The best I can say is that E. E. Kel's "Patched Reels" is certainly worth your time. During the same period Argosy's fantasy doldrums were broken but a single tale. "The Demon of the Whirling Disks" by James Grayson (September 1916)