Is This Thing On? XVIII
Alter Ego Extras
This is 20th Century Refugee, the recently more-frequently published newsletter of Glen Cadigan. That's the way it works -- when I have something to promote, I promote it! Speaking of which...
New This Week
I mentioned this was upcoming in my last newsletter, and now it's here!
More Tall Tales, Fairy Tales, and Bedtime Stories (For Former Children) is available at all the usual retailers. It goes for $11.99 US in paperback and $4.99 US for digital, with an audiobook on the way. If you liked its predecessor, you should enjoy this one. Don't believe me? Mistrustful by nature? Then just check out the free preview on its for sale page to find out for yourself!
Old This Week
This was supposed to be the week that Alter Ego # 187 was released, but apparently the boat from China arrived early because it's been in stores for two weeks now. Here's what people have been saying about it:
"This was my favorite issue of Alter Ego in quite a while. I really loved the insight into the Edmond Hamilton-Leigh Brackett relationship, both personal and professional."
Cliff Biggers, co-founder of Comic Shop News
"Our Highest Recommendation.... This special feature on Hamilton, written by Glen Cadigan, is a real departure for AE. While Hamilton became a very important writer for DC Comics in the late 1940s, into the 50s and 60s… he was already a famous sci-fi writer before editor Julius Schwartz and Mort Weisinger... lured him from low-paying pulp writing to better paying comics writing!! It’s a fascinating story, that harks back to the 1930s and the origins of SF writing in general. And it’s gorgeously illustrated with pulp covers, book covers, and comic book splash pages all featuring the work of Edmond Hamilton."
Bud Plant
"Impressive Alter Ego piece on the great Edmond Hamilton with some nice quotes from him about writing Superman, Batman and, of course, the Legion. But goodness me, SIX pages of footnotes! Who wants that?"
Martin Gray, reviewer/blogger, Too Dangerous For a Girl
I laughed at that last one because when I emailed Roy Thomas to let him know that the article was done, I was also concerned about the number of endnotes. I might've even suggested that they could be printed in teeny, tiny, type (hey, it was four years ago when I submitted it -- my memory is good, but it's not that good!) but he was okay with it. Turns out, Roy likes footnotes. I was also concerned about the length of the science fiction section since it's supposed to be a magazine about comics, but it was also heavy on Mort Weisinger, Julie Schwartz, and (to a lesser extent) Jerry Siegel and Ray Bradbury, so it was at least comic book adjacent.
Turns out, that didn't bother him, either. So that's why, outside of AE's regular features, the whole issue is a biography of Edmond Hamilton. It helps that Roy found it "...thorough and entertaining..." as well as "...masterful..." (which is how he described it in the issue itself), and I say that not to brag, but to try to convince you to buy it! I know there are lots of people out there who tell themselves they'll get around to it later, but then later never comes, so don't be left behind while all the cool kids are talking about Edmond Hamilton! Get your copy of Alter Ego # 187 today!
Bonus Feature
As you might imagine, there were a lot of photos and artwork submitted to accompany the article and not all of them went in. So as an extra to Alter Ego, I present things you've probably never seen before, because a lot of it was new to me!
First up are newspaper clippings submitted by Art Lortie. When I saw these, my jaw kind of dropped. The first one comes from the New Castle Herald (1915-09-15) and you have to read it to see what's interesting about it.
And here’s a blurry picture I found online of Edmond Hamilton at exactly the same age. The paragraph reads: “He completed the ??? ??? ??? school ??? in four years and is now a student at New Castle, Pa. High School. Physically and mentally strong, healthy, a regular boy, with the advantage of the right kind of home training.”
Next up are a pair of articles about the local boy genius...
If I’m reading that right, he had three paper routes! I imagine he spent all that money on magazines!
Then we see young Edmond Hamilton make the news outside of his hometown. The following is cropped from a full-page feature in The Independent (a national magazine) published on April 10th, 1920. If that really is from his college yearbook and not his high school one, he’s actually fifteen in the photo (DOB: October 21st — class photos aren’t taken before that). And that's not him playing chess, by the way: it's eight year old Sammy Reschewski of Berlin, who had been playing since five, and had recently won thirty-two games while only losing one in some kind of competition.)
Here’s a closer look at the text, in case it’s hard to read:
Isn’t he cute in that cap and gown? But if you think graduating from high school at fourteen is impressive, check out Ed's sister, Betty!
I misidentified her in my last newsletter, mixing her up with Leigh Brackett in a photo featuring the brother and sister (and Ray Bradbury). I went back and fixed it, but she was on the left, not the right. Speaking of Betty, here's a photo of the whole Hamilton clan years later, including in-laws:
I found the following picture online, and the quality is too low for print, but that doesn’t mean I can’t run it here!
The caption reads, “Night after night, he sat and bleared his eyes with books.” It’s supposed to be from his college yearbook in 1923, but he would’ve been eighteen that year, and he dropped out when he was seventeen. Either way, that’s what he looked like in college!
And we finish with a picture taken at the 1963 WorldCon. Read the caption to see who's who!
That's it for this edition! The next one will be coming out... whenever. I don't have anything scheduled for a while, so it'll probably be when the audiobooks are ready for Bedlam & Belfry, Intergalactic Attorneys at Law: The 3rd Dozen and More Tall Tales, Fairy Tales, and Bedtime Stories (For Former Children). In the meantime, you could always go back and read Alter Ego again, or The Life & Art of Dave Cockrum, or catch up on the Tall Tales series with the initial volume, now that the second one is out there. Or give Bedlam & Belfry a try!
I'm just sayin'... I've got a lot of stuff out there. If you like some of it, you'll probably like the rest!
'Til then,
Glen
I adored the Hamilton article in ALTER EGO. I also have enjoyed your books about the Legion and the biography of Dave Cockrum. I am glad to have discovered your substack via a Bluesky post you made. I
The first of the "two unidentified men" looks to me a lot like Poul Anderson. Given that I was 2 when that photo was taken, I clearly didn't know him then to be sure. But he's who I'd start with if I made an effort to id that person.