abcd Amazing Stories, the July, 1947 issue was the first Science Fiction magazine I ever saw. On the cover, two men, one, a brilliant engineer, the other, a very rich man, are approaching the Moon in the first spaceship ever to leave the Earth. We are looking down on them from the side. They are in a large bubble canopy. One is tapping the other on the shoulder and pointing. Rising from inside the base of a huge crater there is a beautiful, futuristic city. This cover painting illustrated the novel “Hidden City” featured in this issue. To me that painting perfectly embodied the spirit of adventure, traveling to some far, exotic location and discovering a place of beauty, mystery and wonder! Others must agree with me because this painting has been reproduced in many books on Science Fiction art. I will always remember it!
Another favorite of mine appeared in an archeological book “Incidents of Travels in Yucatan”. This classic 19th century travel book relates an 1844 expedition to Yucatan which uncovered and explored the then little known ruins of Mayan civilization. They didn’t have a photographer but they did have a first rate artist who did a wonderful job of picturing everything. The drawing I always remember shows two men on horseback coming out of the dense jungle into a clearing. Right in front of them is a big, square stone with a face carved on it. This captures the awesomeness of uncovering a lost civilization!
Of course, it also brings to mind my sardonic view of the absurdity of the evolution myth. If they were good, orthodox evolutionists these men would have exclaimed “Isn’t it marvelous what wind and water has done over millions of years!”
Other examples of the spirit of adventure are found in the wonderful pulp fiction of the first half of the 20th century. The Shadow comes to mind. He achieved an amazing media saturation through magazines, comic books and radio. He has experienced two revivals, one in the 60’s and another in this decade. Early in his life he studied the esoteric wisdom of the East and returned to the U.S. a sort of superman resolved to right wrongs and fight crime. He did not so much journey to far places to have his adventures, far places tended to come to him.
What comes to my mind especially is “Serpents of Siva” introduced with “The Shadow is ensnared by the mystic power of the East, when serpents of Siva entangle him in their deadly coils.” The marvelous, two page illustration by Edd Cartier shows a cloaked Shadow meeting out justice with his 45 automatic to two turbaned, half naked assassins in the act of strangling a victim. These malefactors were more or less based on the Cult of Thuggee, worshipers of Shiva, the Hindu goddess of destruction. They had the quaint and charming practice of ceremonially strangling those who came across their path. Walter Gibson, the author and originator of the Shadow also had a career as a magician. In 1979, the Academy of Magical Arts awarded him a Masters Fellowship in recognition of his lifetime of magical works. Gibson knew all the great magicians of his time, Houdini, Thurston, Dunninger and Blackstone. Gibson often employed his knowledge of magical tricks in the Shadow novels.
Still another example of a pulp hero comes to mind who has also had two revivals at he same time as the Shadow. This is Doc Savage, subject of over 100 adventure novels. Doc and his five sidekicks roamed all over the U.S., the world and the occasional alien planet. Typical of his adventures is “The Stone Man” introduced with “Young, white haired supermen in a land beyond the mists”. The illustration by Paul Orban shows Doc confronting three thugs, one grappling with a beautiful young lady, the others somewhat obscured in the mist. Lester Dent who wrote these novels was, himself something of an adventurer who roamed far and wide throughout the U.S. and other parts of the world.
Last of all, I just want to mention Indiana Jones whose movies are loosely based on this earlier pulp fiction. While they are a lot of fun to watch, they lack the sense of wonder and mystery in the earlier fiction. Of course, I shall always feel I owe a debt of gratitude to him for revealing us Indiana males to the world as daring, resourceful, adventurous, intrepid, two fisted and Sooo fatally attractive to the opposite sex! We should really build him a monument. Seriously