Alfred Bester
| Alfred Bester | |
| |
| Biographical information | |
| Born: | December 18, 1913 |
|---|---|
| Died: | September 30, 1987 |
| Nationality: |  American
|
| Occupation: | Writer |
| Website: | N/A |
Alfred Bester was an American science fiction author, TV and radio scriptwriter, magazine editor and scripter for comic strips and comic books.
Comic Books
Spring 1941, Mort Weisinger and Jack Schiff start working for Detective Comics (DC). From Standard Magazines they brought with them Alfred Bester. Bester, who knew absolutely nothing about comics, told that Bill Finger (with help from Mort, Jack and Murray Boltinoff) learned him about comic books and comic book writing.
Bester wrote[1] scripts for various figures, like: "Starman", "Genius Jones", "Hourman and Thorndyke", "Captain Marvel" and "Green Lantern".
-
Starman -
Genius Jones -
Hourman and Thorndyke -
Captain Marvel -
Green Lantern
Late 1946, Bester left the comics industry and turned his attention to radio scripts.
Ghosting for Lee Falk
The oldest known mention[2] of Alfred Bester in connection with "Mandrake", "the Phantom" and "Superman" is from 1961, in an advertisement in the magazine "Advertising Age".
The first thing that's a bit odd about this ad is that Bester was not credited as the writer of the comic stories he wrote. So how can readers remember him from these stories?
Secondly, "Superman" is mentioned, but Bester has never subsequently been mentioned as the author of stories featuring "Superman". But Bester wrote some stories featuring "Starman", another hero who also flew around and fought villains. Bester also wrote stories about the "Green Lantern", a masked hero with an oat and a mysterious ring who fought villains. "The Phantom", also masked with an oat and a mysterious ring, did the same.
Early 70’s Lee Falk was to write a series of The Phantom novels for Avon Publications in the U.S. As later remarked[3] by Ron Goulart:
Lee Falk didn’t keep up with things and was looking for a writer who could adapt old strip continuities into novels. During WWII Alfred Bester had ghosted Falk’s strip and without being aware that Bester had become a successful writer, Lee Falk first asked him to write a few novels.
Later on Bester confirmed[4] that he had worked on both The Phantom and Mandrake during WWII with the anecdote:
I had one funny experience during that time that I was writing comics. I also ghosted Mandrake and The Phantom for Lee Falk. Lee and I got together and he was telling me how one of the Sunday pages from Mandrake sold at auction in Paris for three hundred dollars. I told him, when we moved into our brownstone at 68th Street, the old Stephen Vincent Benét house we managed to get, I papered one entire wall of my workshop with the silver prints from Green Lantern. And he said, "My God, they're worth a fortune today, do you still have them?" I said "No, when we moved out I just left'em behind; I just put'em up with carpet tacks." I had no idea then that there would be this tremendous nostalgia vogue for the old comics. Had I but known ..
A somewhat strange coincidence is that in the Starman story "The Time-Machine Crime!" (Adventure Comics 080, November 1942) the villains use a time machine to kidnap William Shakespeare. They trick him into helping with the plan to rob the wealthy audience during a performance at the Cambridge Summer Theatre. A theatre co-sponsored by John Huntington and Lee Falk at that time.
The ghost period
Neither Lee Falk nor Alfred Bester told more detailed about the period, or which stories, Bester ghosted Lee Falk. Reading the non-dated anecdote by Bester he said (to Lee Falk) he had moved out of the Stephen Vincent Benét house, where he had a wall of silver prints of Green Lantern.
Stephen Vincent Benét died on March 13, 1943. And according to GCD Bester’s first Green Lantern story was in the shops fall 1943. The anecdote then must have taken place after fall 1943 and before March 7, 1944, when Lee Falk was enlisted as private at Fort Devens.
The ghost stories
Two periods can be listed with possible ghosted stories:
- Lee Falk as Chief of Radio of the Foreign-Language Division of the OWI: About spring 1942 to about September 1943.
- Lee Falk in the army: March 1944 to about July 1945.
Neither the dailies or Sundays with "Mandrake" or "The Phantom" shows some clear literary characteristics which may indicate that they are written by Bester. One would think that the Sunday was more equal to writing stories for comic book, but even in these stories nobody yet have found any clues indicating Bester as writer.
There is also another possible explanation for stories ghosted by Bester. A situation similar to the Avon novels, adapting newspaper strips into novels. Like the "Better Little Book" series with "Mandrake" and "The Phantom", or the book "The Son of the Phantom" by Dale Robertson.
References
- ↑ Grand Comics Database: Alfred Bester
- ↑ "Perhaps you remember him from the Phantom?", Advertising Age, vol. 32 nr. 21 (22 May 1961), p 96
- ↑ Goulart, Ron, "Ron Goulart on The Phantom, mostly", mysteryfile.com, October 1, 2007
- ↑ Lillian III, Guy. 2007. What's it All About, Alfie? An interview with Alfred Bester. Challenger 25, Winter 2007. Site accessed 17 June 2015. (from fall 1974)