Showing posts with label Otto Binder. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Otto Binder. Show all posts

Monday, March 23, 2026

Monday Mecha Madness GRAPHIC STORY MAGAZINE "Adam Link's Vengeance" Part One: the Rebirth of Adam Link

...we presented background information on sci-fi's first robot with his own ongoing series!
...and now, we re-present this graphic tale about him, unseen since since 1971.


This was the chapter break during the story's initial publication in Fantasy Illustrated #1 (1963), so we'll pause here until next Monday.
(The tale's original readers had to wait three months to see the conclusion!)
This is from the complete story reprint in Bill Spicer's Graphic Story Magazine #13 (1971).
Publisher/editor Spicer scripted this adaptation of Otto "Eando" Binder's novella, which was illustrated by long time pulp and comic illustrator D Bruce Berry, best known to most current fans for initially-working as Mike Royer's associate inking Jack Kirby's art during the King's 1970s DC period, eventually taking over entirely when Royer's commitments on other projects forced him to give up working on Kirby's material for a while.
There's a fascinating article about Berry at The Comic Journal HERE!

Monday, March 16, 2026

Monday Mecha Madness ADAM LINK!

This Requires a Little Explanation/Background...

Introduced in Ziff-Davis' sci-fi anthology Amazing Stories (1939), Adam Link was the first ongoing series about a sentient robot!

Though credited to "Eando Binder" (a pen-name used by author brothers Earl and Otto Binder when they worked together), the Adam Link stories were entirely Otto's work!
Adam was no soulless automaton!
From his introduction onward (and Binder used the title "I, Robor" before Isaac Asimov) he was on a quest to become as human as possible!
Though created to be totally-logical, he developed emotions!
In fact, after his second story "Trial of Adam Link" where he was accused of killing his creator (scientist Dr Charles Link, not Otto Binder), though found innocent (he was framed)  he decided he couldn't go on living without his "father", and decided to commit suicide.
That's the basis of the third tale, "Adam Link's Vengeance", where another scientist (of the "mad" variety), prevents his untimely death, and plans to use him as a weapon!
That particular story was adapted by writer/editor Bill Spicer and artist D Bruce Berry into a two-part story in Spicer's prozine Fantasy Illustrated in 1965 and reprinted in Spicer's Graphic Story Magazine (under a new Berry cover) in 1971.
You'll be seeing that over the next two Mondays.
The comic story was done shortly after the Adam Link tales were adapted into a fix-up novel combining all the short stories...
Note the Isaac Asimov quote!
BTW, if the name "Otto Binder"sounds familiar to comics fans, that's because he wrote a lot of DC, Quality, Timely, and Fawcett comics in the Golden and Silver Ages, as well co-creating among others, the Legion of Super Heroes, Black Adam, Braniac, Kid EternityKrypto, Young AlliesMary MarvelBizarro, and Supergirl!
But, for some, he's best-known as the writer of the first Marvel Comics prose novel...

(Dig the Doc Savage-style logo!)
BTW, We'll be running this long OOP & HTF novel this summer during the annual RetroBlogs Summer Blogathon!

Tuesday, January 28, 2025

Reading Room TALES OF THE UNEXPECTED / FROM BEYOND THE UNKNOWN "Cartoon That Came to Life"

Here's an off-beat tale...
Art by Nick Cardy
...that made the cover both times it was published!
Art by Bill Ely
...though I have to admit the original cover (above) is a bit dull compared to the reprint's cover (top)
Written by Otto Binder and illustrated by Bill Ely, it's a nicely-done story with one obvious question?
Why is the Martian called a "dragon-man"?
His wings are feathered and look more like a bird's...or even an angel's!
The new art for the cover of the reprint gives him scales and a beak so it's a little more like a dragon, but still...
Was the original concept much more lizard/dragon-looking, but the Comics Code Authority forced DC to "tone it down" to the rather innocuous-looking alien?
Trivia: This story is one of the few to be the cover feature both for its' original publication (Tales of the Unexpected #1 [1956]) and the reprint (From Beyond the Unknown #24 [1970])
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Saturday, September 7, 2024

Space-Hero Saturdays CAPTAIN MIDNIGHT "Race to Pluto!"

If You Read the Last Chapter....

...You Already Know Jagga Isn't Dead, Though Captain Midnight and Ichabod Mudd Don't Know That!






Is this never-reprinted story from Fawcett's Captain Midnight #57 (1947) really and truly, once and for all, conclusively, cross our hearts and hope to die, the End of Jagga???
Maybe...maybe not!
You'll just heave to keep reading!
(Ain't we stinkers?)

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Captain Midnight Saves the World!
...which does not include this story!
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Saturday, June 22, 2024

Space-Hero Saturdays CAPTAIN MIDNIGHT "Last Rites of Jagga!"

When Last We Left Our Hero (and His Astral Arch-Enemy)...

Jagga the Space Raider has been caught and is now on trial!
Will this truly lead to his execution and "last rites"?

Yeah, you knew he wasn't dead, right?
Writer Otto Binder and illustrator Leonard Frank didn't kill the evil alien in this story from Fawcett's Captain Midnight #56 (1947), but fear not!
His end is closer than you think!

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Monday, April 15, 2024

Monday Mutant Madness MECHANIX ILLUSTRATED "How Nuclear Radiation can Change Our Race"

From Fawcett's Mechanix Illustrated V49N8 (1953)...

...a cautionary tale about mutants produced by exposure to atomic radiation...written by Otto Binder and illustrated by Kurt Schaffenberger!
Did it help inspire Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Werner Roth, and Vince Colletta in creating this sequence in Marvel's X-Men #14 (1965)?
You tell us!

Saturday, November 4, 2023

Space Hero Saturdays CAPTAIN MIDNIGHT "Peril on Venus!"

Alien "space raider" Jagga had already encountered (and lost to) Earth's greatest defender, Captain Midnight...

...now the Sovereign of the Spaceways is about to encounter the Scoundrel of Space again!
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Writer Otto Binder and artist Leonard Frank continue the battle with Jagga (who's gone from Caucasian skin-tone to grey in his second appearance) in this tale from Fawcett's Captain Midnight #53 (1947).
He'll turn green (though not with envy) in later appearances!
Note that the then-current science of 1947 theorized Venus might, in fact, be habitable.
The idea that Atlanteans would've migrated there centuries earlier, when their continent sank beneath the waves, was unique.

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