A good, albeit outdated, article on the history of Perry Rhodan in English

Wendayne and Forrest J. Ackerman (sitting,
with Ray Bradbury at the podium), 1967 [source]

It's hard to believe it's been well over a year since I updated this blog.  I keep thinking about thinking about trying to get back into it.  Maybe this year I will.

In the meantime, however, this article, "Peacelord of the Universe: Perry Rhodan in English" [link], being as far as I can tell via an Internet search originally from ca. 2011, gives a very thorough overview of the history of the German-born Perry Rhodan pulp science-fiction series in English.

An excerpt:

"That Rhodan came to be published in English at all is due to [German co-creator Walter] Ernsting’s recognition of its potential in that market and his friendship with the man who was to become the series’ ‘English language representative’ and managing editor during its 1969-1978 English run. Forrest J Ackerman was still an active contributor to SF fandom rather than prodom back in the 1950s when he helped found the Science Fiction Club Deutschland alongside Ernsting, then still trying to break into the German market as an author. Because the only SF being published in Germany in the fifties came from American and British writers, Ernsting wrote his first novel under the American-sounding pseudonym ‘Clark Darlton’ and pretended he had merely translated it from English; consequently he was saddled with the pen name throughout the rest of his career.

"In 1965 Ackerman and his German-born wife Wendayne met Ernsting in person for the first time at a book fair in Europe and spent a few days as his houseguests. During their visit Ernsting made Forry a present of a complete set of the Perry Rhodan series he had created in 1961 with noted German author KH Scheer (Ernsting was responsible for the name, supposedly from a combination of Perry Mason and Japanese movie monster Rodan, ‘Americanized’ with the addition of the H). He also suggested that Ackerman could introduce Rhodan to the US market and, in a famously oft-to-be-repeated quote, that 'Wendy could translate it in her spare time'. By 1975, when the series was appearing in English three times a month, Wendy was perhaps wondering what she had let herself in for...."

Read more here [link].

Cheers!, and Ad Astra!

The Art of Gray Morrow

Gray Morrow's iconic painting for
Perry Rhodan #50

Happy New Year!

I spent a couple of hours today exploring various of my favorite bloggers' blogrolls, just to see what new and interesting blogs I might come across, and I found one which, I'm sure, will be of interest to all fans of the American ACE editions of Perry Rhodan.  One of the most attractive features I remember drawing my eye to those paperbacks nigh on forty years ago was the striking art of Gray Morrow.  While, regrettably, very seldom having any specific relevance to the story contained within the pages of the Perry Rhodan volume which cover it graced, a Gray Morrow painting was guaranteed to grab the casual browser's attention and thus fulfill its primary purpose of selling the book.  His renditions of the main characters, Perry Rhodan (at left), Thora (from #70), and Khrest (from #91), to this day dominate my own mental images as I read through the early volumes of the saga.

Although I have not fully explored it, Shades of Gray:  An Internet Celebration of the Illustrative Art of Gray Morrow is, according to the opening post, "The Importance of Being Gray," devoted to maintaining a web presence for one of the truly great illustrators of both book covers and comic books during the the mid to later decades of the 20th century.  This it does by posting a variety of examples at the rate of one every few days over the past three years.

I do not have a wide enough historical and artistic perspective to properly assess the statement in that opening post that Morrow "toiled virtually unheralded in the industry for more than fifty years."  I do have a memory that Gray Morrow's distinctive, realistic style made him one of the earliest comic book artists whom I recognized, probably from work on various of the DC "mystery" titles that still thrived in the late 1960s to early 1970s.  The character -- besides Perry -- with whom I most identified Morrow was the western hero Vigilante based on a couple of short-lived back-up features in Adventure Comics #417 and #422 from 1972 and World's Finest Comics #245-248 from 1977, as celebrated here and here.

I have added Shades of Gray to my list of "Sources of Images and Other Information" at right.  I hope you find as much enjoyment browsing it as I have.

Cheers, and Ad Astra!