Ahh! She’s hideous!

The title of the magazine apparently isn’t Future Science Fiction (isn’t science fiction almost always about the future…or is it perhaps science fiction that will be published in the future?) bur rather a merger of two magazines, Future and Science Fiction which together had a decent run from 1939 to 1960. The cover illustration by Ed Emshwiller inverts the general principal that a female human is the most attractive thing to all sentient beings. (That makes good evolutionary sense. If you’re a member of a sexually reproducing species, shouldn’t you be attracted to entities showing characteristics of your own species?)

Interior art is a little thin, but this full-page illustration by Paul Orban (1896-1974) for Jay Leache’s story “The Pity of the Wood” isn’t bad.

Paul Orban illustration in Future Science Fiction, February 1959.

This issue is available to be read and downloaded from the Internet Archive.

Learning from Elders: Chapter 2, Page 8

There was some strange digging going on behind the Gnosis College Museum of Art in the 1930s...

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Aprender español VII: Carnada 006

¡La hermosa jovencita indígena se entrega en sacrificio a un monstruo marino!

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PAGE 6 (Four panels)

(Note: These panels should be in sepia)

Panel 1: View of the Bride in the water, swimming upright but entirely below the surface (we can just see her as blurry outlines).

CAPTION – PSEUDO-NARRATION (1): The Scelleratini brothers’ film technology might have been primitive, but it captured something remarkable.

Translation (1): Por más primitiva que fuera la tecnología cinematográfica de los hermanos Scelleratini, logró capturar algo extraordinario.

Panel 2: View of the Bride, still in the water, with a few tentacles reaching out from the depths to touch her.

CAPTION – PSEUDO-NARRATION (2): It was something like an alien encounter…

Translation (2): Fue algo así como un encuentro con un extraterrestre…

Panel 3: The Bride now enmeshed in a roiling mass of tentacles.

CAPTION – PSEUDO-NARRATION (3): …or even a mating.

Translation (3): … o incluso un apareamiento.

Panel 4; The surface of the waters. The Bride is no longer visible. A few bubbles are breaking through the surface.

CAPTION – PSEUDO-NARRATION (4): It was an encounter from which one of the parties would never return.

Translation (4): Fue un encuentro del que una de las partes no regresaría jamás.

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Carnada (Español/Versión deslizante)

Women creators

As long as we’re doing some role reversals here…

A lady scientist (mad I hope!) graces the October 1943 cover of Fantastic Adventures. She was painted by Robert Gibson Jones (1889-1969). The story which I believe it is illustrating, Frank Patton’s “Jewels of the Toad,” has an interior illustration by Virgil Finaly, which is typically exquisite.

Women creating seems to have been a theme for this issue. Florence Magarian was called upon to do an illustration for Don Wilcox’s “World of Paper Dolls,” about a girl who makes people. (The image below is my composite across two pages).

Mrs. Magarian also illustrated William P. McGiven’s “Tink fights the Gremlins,” a story that has (apparently) painting fairies.

This issue is available for reading and download at the Internet Archive.

Be warned, however, that this issue contains a story titled “Mystery of the Creeping Underwear.” No joke.

Learning from Elders: Chapter 2, Page 7

Chiara digs up the fact that there was a Mary Kerr once resident in her dormitory -- but that she was with the Royal Navy.

Aprender español VI: Carnada 005

Una bella mujer desnuda salta a las profundidades misteriosas.

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PAGE 5 (Four panels)

(Note: Still in sepia)

Panel 1: A long Polynesian outrigger canoe, being rowed through the surf by muscular young men. Standing implausibly in the middle of the canoe is Enzo, his movie camera rigged on a tripod somehow, cranking away and filming some scene he can see from the canoe.

CAPTION – PSEUDO-NARRATION (1): The Scelleratini brothers were even invited along to film the “wedding.”

Translation (1): Los indígenas incluso invitaron a los hermanos Scelleratini a filmar la “boda”.

Panel 2: View of another outrigger canoe, also rowed by strong young men. The Bride sits in the bow of the canoe, gazing out to sea.

CAPTION – PSEUDO-NARRATION (2): The people rowed out to a spot of ocean known to be over a deep oceanic trench.

Translation (2): Los habitantes remaron hasta a un lugar del océano conocido por estar sobre una profunda fosa oceánica.

Panel 3: The Bride now stands in the bow of the canoe. She has removed her muumuu and is naked, holding her muumuu over her head so that it trails behind her in the wind. She is wearing a beatific expression.

CAPTION – PSEUDO-NARRATION (3): Those involved seemed to regard the entire proceeding as a blessed occasion.

Translation (3): Las personas involucradas parecían considerar todo ese proceso una ocasión bendecida.

Panel 4: The Bride in mid-dive off the bow of the canoe into the ocean.

CAPTION – PSEUDO-NARRATION (4): The “bride” seemed to be acting of her own free will.

Translation (4): La “novia” parecía actuar por su propia voluntad.

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Liquid Man

We’ve done a lot of liquid girls here at Erotic Mad Science, so why not some liquid man? Especially if there’s some imperiled dame tied up in the background? This cover of the September 1941 issue is by Robert Fuqua. Interior art could be a bit thin in some issues of Fantastic Adventures, but this illustration to John Broome’s story “The Pulsating Planet” is pretty dynamic:

This is work (probably) by Albert Magarian (unk.-1991), the husband of the unfortunate Florence Magarian whom we met a few posts back. My “probably” in attribution is because husband and wife were very close collaborators, so this work might reflect contributions by Florence as well. (And I must reflect that Albert lived on for 31 years after Florence died in a mental institution. I…)

This issue is available to be read and downloaded at the Internet Archive.

Learning from Elders: Chapter 2, Page 6

When you need help with information, get help from a roboticist, with a bribe if necessary.

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Aprender español V: Carnada 004

Los hermanos Scelleratini viajan a los mares del sur para filmar un rito pagano obsceno.

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PAGE 4 (Four panels)

(Note: The panels on this page should be sepia-toned, a visual indicator of the age of the photographic and cinematic material they are meant to represent.)

Panel 1: Two Italian men, ENZO SCELLERATINI (“Enzo”) and GUIDO SCELLERATINI (“Guido”) absurdly overdressed for their environment stand in coats, bow-ties, and bowler hats, posed on a beach with an old-fashioned, crank-operated movie camera. (Note: Both men have somewhat silly handlebar mustaches.)

CAPTION – PSEUDO-NARRATION (1): In 1905, Italian brothers Enzo and Guido Scelleratini, following up on sailors’ rumors of a strange native cult on the South Seas island of Motofupo, went there with a movie camera in hopes of finding something unusual.

Translation (1): En 1905, los hermanos italianos Enzo y Guido Scelleratini, siguiendo los rumores de los marineros sobre un extraño culto indígena de la isla de Motofupo, en los mares del sur, fueron hasta allí con una cámara de cine con la esperanza de encontrar algo raro.

Panel 2: A group of attractive young Polynesian-looking women dressed in muumuuu-like garments reaching into a sack together to draw something out.

CAPTION – PSEUDO-NARRATION (2): In spite of the fact that their rituals were rumored to include human sacrifice, the indigenous people proved friendly and allowed the Scelleratini brothers to film them and one of those very rituals.

Translation (2): Aunque se rumoreaba que sus rituales incluían sacrificios humanos, los habitantes indígenas demostraron ser amigables y permitieron que los hermanos Scelleratini los filmaran a ellos y a uno de esos rituales.

Panel 3: Close up of two hands of different young women in the panel. One holds a white stone, another a black stone.

CAPTION – PSEUDO-NARRATION (3): The first part of the ritual was a selection process to pick specific young women to be given to a “God of the Deeps” in marriage.

Translation (3): La primera parte del ritual fue un proceso de selección de ciertas jóvenes mujeres para darlas en matrimonio a un “dios de las profundidades”.

Panel 4: One young woman of the Motofupo people (“the Bride”), cradling a stone, a beatific expression.

CAPTION – PSEUDO-NARRATION (4): According to observers and apparent on the film was that the young women so selected did not seem distressed. They instead seemed pleased and honored.

Translation (4): Según los observadores y lo que se puede ver en la película, las jóvenes elegidas no parecían estar afligidas. Al contrario, parecían sentirse contentas y honradas.

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Carnada (Español/Versión deslizante)

Girls versus ray guns

In November 1952, Science Fiction Publications, Inc. started a short-lived magazine called Science Fiction Adventures, commissioning H.R. Van Dongen (1920-2010) to do a “girl stalked by ray-gun” theme.

Well, not bad, but not enough to keep the magazine going for more than nine issues (until May 1954).

Then when Royal Publications tried launching another magazine with the same title in 1956, they decided to push the girl-versus-ray-gun thing, and this time hired Ed Emshwiller to go all-out and really light up those nipples this time.

In spite of also having a short story (“Hadj”) by Harlan Ellison in the first issue, this one didn’t last all that long either, eleven issues folding after June 1958.

The first issues of both the first version and the second version of Science Fiction Adventures are available to read and download at the Internet Archive.