It’s no secret that comic-book “fandom” more or less grew directly out of the earlier organized fan traditions of science fiction. (In fact, if you didn’t mind significantly overstating things, you could even say that the modern comic book industry itself originated from sf fandom, seeing as Siegel and Shuster debuted an early version of Superman in the science fiction fanzine Siegel published as a teen.)

Comics fans didn’t just model themselves after the sf fan world in terms of mimeographed magazines, letter columns, societies, and conventions, but also in terms of attitudes. Consider the “Statement of Policy” printed in 1964, as an opening salvo in the first issue of the excellent (but extremely short-lived) fanzine SF Horizons, edited by Brian Aldiss and Harry Harrison. (Incidentally, Harrison once worked in comic books himself, most famously as an artist for EC, and Wally Wood fans will remember him as half of the Harrison-Wood team.) In the editorial, Aldiss and Harrison declare the following:

Critics, teachers, editors, writers — all people who should know better — remain remarkably ignorant about the realities of sf, while at the same time feeling free to condemn or brush it aside. Their attitude has long served to bolster the reactionaries inside sf itself who greatly desire to continue their existence as outcasts, a term they translate to mean superior beings. These are the people whose contention that sf is a special medium which must be treated by special standards has created one of the major stumbling blocks in the path of intelligent criticism of sf.

In reality we need no special pleaders; the long-flickering spark of sf existence has finally burst into a hearty flame that is fed by a continuous supply of books. During the year 1962, at least 160 sf books were published in the English language. The attitude once widely held within sf that any sf book was a good one, and was best not panned in public, produced a flock of reviewers and no critics. Whether this pose was necessary at the time to ensure the survival of sf is unimportant now. Sf may still be suffering from a number of deforming, and at times repellant, diseases, but none of them are fatal.

With a little bit of pruning and reworking, you could replace “sf” with “comics,” and almost get away with this as a recent statement describing the current state of comic books.

Later in the same issue, SF Horizons includes an amusing but almost unbearably chummy* dual-interview with eminent SF boosters C.S. Lewis and Kingsley Amis, recorded by Aldiss “in Professor Lewis’s rooms in Magdalene College.” It’s a fun read. (Though I personally admire the writings of Aldiss far more than those of the other two. Maybe I haven’t read the right books.) Mostly Lewis and Amis congratulate each other on their superior tastes, and bemoan the fact that so few in respectable society take science fiction seriously. Then the subject of comics comes up.

Lewis: One thing in sf that weighs against us very heavily is the horrible shadow of comics.

Aldiss: I don’t know about that. Titbits Romantic Library doesn’t really weigh against the serious writer.

Lewis: That’s a very fair analogy. All the novelettes didn’t kill the ordinary legitimate novel of courtship and love.

Aldiss: There might have been a time when sf and comics were weighed together and found wanting, but that at least we’ve got past.

Amis: I see the comic books that my sons read, and you have there a terribly vulgar reworking of some of the themes that sf goes in for.

Lewis: Quite harmless, mind you. This chatter about the moral danger of the comics is absolute nonsense. The real objection is against the appalling draughtsmanship. Yet you’ll find the same boy who reads them also reads Shakespeare or Spenser. Children are so terribly catholic. That’s my experience with my stepchildren.

Aldiss: This is an English habit, to categorise: that if you read Shakespeare you can’t read comics, that if you read sf you can’t be serious.

I’m not sure that many children these days read both comic books and Spenser, but then Spenser seems to be a British thing mostly. Otherwise, it’s remarkable (and salutary) how quickly Lewis backs down from his early blanket dismissal of comics as a form, declares that the Wertham argument against them is worthless, and says the real problem lies in the low level of craft.

Anyway, nothing of major importance here, just a window into a cultural moment ostensibly, but perhaps not actually, much different from today’s.

*For example, the frequent alcoholic interludes sprinkled throughout the interview.

Such as:

Lewis: [Interrupted from a discussion of Abbott’s Flatland.] Are you looking for an ashtray? Use the carpet.

Amis: I was looking for the Scotch, actually.

Lewis: Oh, yes, do, I beg your pardon….

And then later:

Amis: More Scotch?

Lewis: Not for me, thank you, help yourself. (Liquid noises).

Amis: I think all this ought to stay in, you know — all these remarks about drink.

Lewis. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t have a drink.

Those were the days, I guess.

Labels: Brian Aldiss, C.S. Lewis, fanzines, Harry Harrison, Kingsley Amis, science fiction