CAPTAIN FLASHBACK A fanzine composed for the 413th distribution of Mercury in the Shadows: the Turbo-Charged Party-Animal Amateur Press Orson Welles, Frank Readick Jr. Association, from the joint membership of Andy and The Shadow Hooper and Carrie Root, residing at 11032 30th Ave. NE Seattle, WA 98125. E-mail Andy at This time, my fanzine-reading and my old-time [email protected], and you may reach Carrie at media research have collided. [email protected]. This is a Drag Bunt Press Production, completed on 11/20/2020. It is perhaps futile to explain why I found myself reading Volume 79, Issue #10 of THE CAPTAIN FLASHBACK is devoted to old fanzines, NATIONAL FANTASY FAN, one of several monster movie hosts, old-time radio stars and official organs of the National Fantasy Fan other fascinating phenomena of the 20th Century. Federation; after all, at this writing, American All material by Andy Hooper unless indicated. fen have been in COVID-19 isolation for more Contents of Issue #24: than 200 days, and I might be at the point of Page 1: Mercury in the Shadows reading Robots and Quarantine or Battlefield Page 2: A Key to Interlineations in Issue #23 Fauci, as soon as someone can finish them. Page 16: Comments on Turbo-Apa #412 (John Scalzi, I’m using you for a cheap laugh). Page 21: Horror Host of the Month: There is certainly a lot of club furniture and Keeping America Strong with Bob Wilkins ballots – with rules – padding out most issues Page 23: I Remember Entropy Department: of TNFF, but there are also interesting “Your Friendly Neighborhood BEM Dealer:” historical surveys of authors, characters and by Cleve Cartmill, originally published by series by Jon Swartz PhD, who has co- Alva Rogers in BIXEL #1, September 1962. authored a big book about old time radio, and Page 25: Fanmail from some Flounder Dept: really digs in to that pulp stuff that NFFF Letters to CAPTAIN FLASHBACK. members all seem to love. The latest emailed issue had a message from Editor/President George Phillies asking if we would be willing to go get new issues of TNFF from some unnamed location “in the cloud.” “Jesus, no,” thought I, then clicked on the .pdf thinking… well, I don’t know what I was thinking. But I opened the file and started skimming. I glanced very quickly at news of a new NFFF Treasurer, officers, elections, announcements – the things an out-of-towner always ignores in a club fanzine. The art in the issue is not very good and has no relationship to anything else in the fanzine. And I am unlikely to submit an entry in the NFFF amateur short story contest. So this left me working my way through Dr. Orson Welles and poet Carl Sandburg practice a card Swartz’s overview of the 20th Century mystery trick before a war bond rally in 1942. & action hero The Shadow. [Continued on Page 3] --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Issue #24, November 2020 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A Key to Interlineations published in October in CAPTAIN FLASHBACK #23: Page 3: “I would rather believe that two Yankee professors have lied than believe that stones fall from the sky.” Thomas Jefferson commenting on the nascent identification of meteorites as extraterrestrial in origin. Page 4: “Barking dogs occasionally bite, but laughing men hardly ever shoot.” Attributed to Nobel prize-winning behaviorist Konrad Lorenz (1903-1989). Page 5: “Perhaps we are where we are because we have no more unicorns.” Attributed to author Avram Davidson (1923-1993) Page 6: “Reality is always so obstructive” Line from the 1938 novel Epitaph for a Spy by Eric Ambler (1909-1998). Page 7: “If you have enough book space, I don’t want to talk to you.” Attributed to author Sir Terry Pratchett (1948-2015). Page 8: “New York is not as big a city as it pretends to be.” Michael O’Hara (Orson Welles), The Lady from Shanghai (1947). Page 9: “I was taught to think about love in Chinese.” Elsa Bannister (Rita Hayworth), The Lady from Shanghai (1947). Page 10: “All the best of the monsters played for sympathy.” Attributed to actor Creighton Tull “Lon” Chaney Jr. (1906-1973). Page 11: “But generally, after I was fully encased in bandages, I preferred to go into Peter’s dressing room and harass him.” Actor Christopher Lee (1922-2015) describes the experience of making The Mummy in 1959. Page 12: “I must say that it’s easy to write nice things about Chicago because it’s that kind of town.” Attributed to songwriter Sammy Cahn (1913-1993). Page 13: “If you can’t be good, be colorful.” Attributed to Astronaut Pete Conrad (1930-1999). Page 14: “I prefer a real villain to a false hero.” Statement by Rap musician and activist Killer Mike, half of the duo “Run the Jewels.” Page 15: “I was obsessed with Philip K. Dick.” Admission by Rap musician/activist El-P of “Run the Jewels.” Page 16: “No science is more adventurous than archeology, if adventure is thought of as a mixture of word and deed.” C. W. Ceram, writing in Gods, Graves and Scholars (1949). Page 17: “An archeologist is a ghoul with credentials.” Attributed to author Robert Shea (1933-1994) Page 18: “We’ll see if I have anything to say. If I don’t, I will nonetheless write something.” Don C. Thompson, writing in FAPA mailing #202, as quoted by Ben Indick in BEN’S BEAT #10a Page 19: “All in all, I must say I’ve read much better sensationalistic trash.” Arthur Hlavaty, writing in FAPA mailing #202, as quoted by Ben Indick in BEN’S BEAT #10a Page 20: “The human spirit is like a knife that sharpens, rather than dulls, with age.” Bernadette Bosky, writing in FAPA mailing #202, as quoted by Ben Indick in BEN’S BEAT #10a Page 21: “Good writing requires good readers.” Eric Lindsay, as quoted by Ben Indick in BEN’S BEAT #10a Page 22: “Harry J. Hacker, you’ve been a fan for 30 years…writing, publishing and saying deathless things since 1931.” Word balloon, cartoon by J. Les Piper, CRY OF THE NAMELESS #155, December 1961. Page 23: “Capitalism is the legitimate racket of the ruling class.” Attributed to Al Capone (1899-1947), Page 24: A few shots of anti-traumatic serum might have saved him, but he was an unlisted and unwanted passenger. “Land of the Burning Sea” by Malcolm Routh Jameson, THRILLING WONDER STORIES, April 1942. Page 25: “To the privileged, equality feels like oppression.” Mallory O’Meara, writing in The Lady From the Black Lagoon (2018). Page 26: “What are you shooting at, fool? I want him alive!” Dr. William Barton (Jeff Morrow) struggles to find good henchmen, The Creature Walks Among Us (1956) Page 28 & 29: “An archeologist is the best husband a woman can have. The older she gets, the more interested he is in her.” Attributed to Dame Agatha Christie (1890-1976). Page 30: “Ain’t nothin’ organized about our crime, because our crime is freedom.” Karen Aldridge as Zelmare Roulette, Fargo S. 4, Ep. 5, “The Birthplace of Civilization,” Page 31: “Friendship, connections, family ties, trust, loyalty, obedience – that was the glue that held us together.” Attributed to American mob figure Joseph Bonano (1905-2002). Page 32: “The Seattle Theater censor has closed down the “Girls of the Galaxy” show at the World’s Fair.” & Page 32: “Wally Weber has embarked on a campaign to close down the censorship board.” Horrible Old Roy Tackett (1925-2003) writing in DYNATRON #10, March, 1962. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2 Mercury in the Shadows the “creator of Batman” was heavily Continued from Page 1 influenced by the 1937 radio version of The Shadow, which brought us his secret identity, This had some solid information, with a wealthy young playboy Lamont Cranston. I particular slant toward Walter Gibson, and his think Bob Kane acknowledged that the whole role in creating the pulp magazine hero that idea of the Batman was influenced by the was the main evolutionary branch in the arresting covers of Street & Smith’s character’s complicated taxonomy. But he magazines, on which The Shadow was also lists appearances of the character on concealed under a broad-brimmed hat, face radio, on film, in comics, on television and wrapped in an incongruously red scarf and even in “Big Little Books”! Did you know there illuminated only by the flash of his twin was a series published by Archie Comics in the automatic pistols. But I think he would also 1960s that recast The Shadow as a borderline contend that the success of the radio superhero in tights and jet pack, armed with a character forced him to find ways to make “sleep gun?” Psychedelic! What a shame it Bruce Wayne and his night-time vigilante differ lasted only 8 issues. from Lamont Cranston. The Batman has very I found it an oddly difficult read. Swartz seldom used a gun, for just one example. doesn’t provide any description of what the One has to concede that Swartz wants to write stories were like in the Street & Smith a brisk summary of The Shadow’s media magazines or give any clue as to why the radio history and doesn’t intend to explore such show starring the character was so popular complexities. But the elements which are and persisted so long. It became in some essentially lists of actors might be better sense an exemplar of the medium – overviews served if presented as such, with bullets or of radio drama always feature the program’s boxes to pull them apart from the main text.