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Portland-based Paul Guinan and Anina Bennett are a husband-and-wife team of multimedia artists who have produced a variety of work from comics (the science fiction romance Heartbreakers and the superhero Chronos, among others) to the website and book about Boilerplate, a robot. Their new book, Frank Reade: Adventures in the Age of Invention, is their best work yet. More »
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Edgar Rice Burroughs published his first story, "Under the Moons of Mars," a hundred years ago this month. And even forty years ago, nobody would have predicted that Burroughs' creations, like Tarzan and John Carter of Mars, would still be shaping the entertainment landscape. Why does Burroughs continue to cast such a long shadow over pop culture? More »
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In 1966, famed pulp artist Norman Saunders — who illustrated the 1962 Mars Attacks cards — produced a series of magical paintings for Topps' Batman trading card line. More »
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Yours truly recently discovered a treasure trove of art from 1970s Mexican horror pulps, none of which I've ever laid my eyes upon. Nonetheless, I shall attempt to relay these thrilling story beats using nothing but context clues. For example, that illustration above is from a story called The Time Santo Glued His Hands To The Sliding Door (And His Wife Was Embarrassed On His Behalf). Boom — we're off to the races.

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Until recently, Patrick Hamilton was a mainstay of "forgotten novelists" lists. Thanks to clamorous support by a distinguished group including J.B. Priestly, Doris Lessing, and Nick Hornby, many of his best books have slipped back into print over the last few years. Thankfully, this includes Hangover Square, perhaps the perfect antidote for the Christmas season. More »
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The origin of science fiction stories is well-known to both critics and the public: by consensus, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818) was the first SF novel. But the origins of "science fiction" as a concept are neither well-known nor agreed-upon. The phrase "science fiction," meaning the genre of scientifically-oriented fantastic fiction, was popularized in 1929 by Hugo Gernsback. But "science fiction" had a 19th century predecessor: "scientific romance," a term used by H.G. Wells. However, as we'll see, science fiction started decades before that, as did many of the terms describing science fiction. More »
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The Hugo Awards are given to the best science fiction or fantasy works of the previous year. Unfortunately, they've only been awarded since 1953. That's where this column comes in — Jess Nevins will be awarding honorary Hugo Awards to the best novels of the Victorian era... and beyond. More »
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In many ways the science fiction pulps and the science fiction novels of the pulp era were conservative when it came to gender matters. Women – if they appeared at all – were usually relegated to the roles of girlfriends or victims, and sex was never mentioned. Compared to the romance, detective, and especially the spicy pulps, the science fiction pulps were incredibly chaste. But in one respect the science fiction pulps were progressive even by current standards: sex change stories. More »
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The Hugo Awards are given to the best science fiction or fantasy works of the previous year. Unfortunately, they've only been awarded since 1953. That's where this column comes in — Jess Nevins will be awarding honorary Hugo Awards to the best novels of the Victorian era... and beyond. More »
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The Hugo Awards are given to the best science fiction or fantasy works of the previous year. Unfortunately, they've only been awarded since 1953. That's where this column comes in — Jess Nevins will be awarding honorary Hugo Awards to the best novels of the Victorian era... and beyond. More »
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The "shared universe" is one of the mainstays of science fiction. It's what happens when a number of characters from a wide range of texts — whether books, comic books, or movies — co-exist under the umbrella of one company, and wind up sharing a fictional world too. Many of us grew up with the shared universes of Marvel and DC superhero comics, where Superman and Batman could team up — or the Avengers could be formed. But Americans didn't invent the concept: Germans did. More »
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Last week, we talked about how science fiction cover art evolved into the colorful, pulpy art we love today. Now, here's our look at the evolution of cover art from 1930 to 1955, as pulp styles exploded into awesomeness. More »
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For most of us, the crossover is an established part of the landscape of popular culture. We've seen it all before, whether it's the Avengers, Eureka's Fargo visiting Warehouse 13, or members of Star Trek meeting the Legion of Superheroes. But you'll be surprised to learn just how old the crossover really is, and how many varieties of the crossover there have been — even Sherlock Holmes got in on the action. More »
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We all love the colorful richness of science fiction pulp cover art. But pulp art didn't spring into the world fully formed, full of beautiful women adventurers and marauding robots. More »
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Victor von Frankenstein was the iconic mad scientist of the 19th century, but he had competition for that role. Here is the bizarre and uncanny history of the greatest mad scientists of the industrial age. More »
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The mad scientist is one of the standard archetypes of modern popular culture. Widespread in the pulps of the 1920s and 1930s, its modern inception dates back to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818). But the roots of the mad scientist go much farther back than Shelley, as we'll see. More »
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The pulps of the world were full of tough men. The iconic pulp characters — the Shadow, Doc Savage, Tarzan — are all men, and the common perception of the pulps is that they were written by male writers, about male characters, for male readers. More »
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The task of defining "steampunk" has become surprisingly difficult. Wildly differing definitions are currently in use, from the strictly traditional (late 19th century London-based alternate history science fiction) to the Lewis Carrollian (steampunk means whatever a person wants it to mean). More »
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io9's intrepid art intern Daniel Spitzer just discovered an old trunk of Atomic Glory pulps from back when humans were first colonizing the solar system. Check out this gallery of covers - they're a glimpse at scifi of the future. More »
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The Spirit may fight comic book crime, but he always preferred a fedora and suit to spandex. We look at the other heroes who’ve paired their masks with suits and hats instead of tights. More »
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85 years old this month, Weird Tales is the magazine of the "bizarre and unusual" that sustained the career of H.P. Lovecraft and his scifi-horror pals back in the 1920s when it first launched. In its early days, Weird Tales set itself apart from other pulps by always going one step deeper into the freak zone. Stories dealt with aliens, witches, and mutants. Covers often featured devils making love to ladies, monsters menacing beleaguered ingenues, and (my personal favorite, above) devilish monster ladies making love to scantily clad lovelies. Now the venerable, perverted, brilliant magazine is celebrating its 85th birthday in style. More »
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