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I have just seen news that Titan Books will reprint the original “Mandrake the Magician” Sunday comic strips. The first collection will be released in February, 2012, and cover the first two years of publication, 1935–1937.
As the release says:
From the very beginning in 1934, these are the original adventures of the famous comic strip detective — collected in full for the very first time!
Mandrake is a master of hypnosis, whose ability causes his opponents to encounter wild illusions, giving the heroes the upper hand in a fight. His enemies cover a broad spectrum, including gangsters, mad scientists, alien creatures, and characters from other adventures. His greatest ally is Lothar, “Prince of the Seven Nations” who gave up his crown to join Mandrake in his globe-trotting adventures. They are accompanied by the beautiful Narda, princess of a European nation and Mandrake’s romantic interest.
Mandrake was created by Lee Falk, who is also the creator of The Phantom, and is the classic example of the stage magician hero. He has the ability to hypnotize his opponents which adds to his mystic aura, yet he is also capable of actual feats of magic and mysticism, making him a superheroic character before the acknowledged first superhero, Superman, was published. This is something I am seriously looking forward to seeing
[amtap book:isbn=1568658044]
[amtap book:isbn=0739402625]
Description: The “Lensman” series by ‘Doc’ E E Smith is one of the classics of the pulp era of science fiction. A battle between Impossible opposites, with whole civilizations as pawns and counters in the game. There are battles in space between fleets so large they dwarf whole solar systems, weapons so immense as to stagger the imagination, and criminal conspiracies that covered galaxies.
Yet at the center of the series was the battle between the supportive mental giants of the planet Arisia and the conquering Eddorians from another universe. The Arisians find the Eddorians too tough to take on themselves, but find their relentless philosophy of conquest unpalatible, and resolve to oppose them. To that end, the Arisians began a slow, millions of years long project to produce the mental power needed to finally eliminate the Eddorians.That tale, told in various stages, makes up the story line.
⇒ Continue reading “The “Lensman” Series by ‘Doc’ E E Smith”
John Meredith Swift was only 14 years old and he was quite impressed by the hypnotist he’d seen. It wasn’t surprising that he tried to imitate the man, but, as he discovered with young Nancy next door, he had to give his voice time to mature a little.
He never lost his fascination for the art, however, and much later … in his last year at college, he had the opportunity for an interesting experiment. One which caused a young virgin to turn up pregnant, almost costing her life and sanity … and John’s as well …
⇒ Continue reading ““The Hypnotist” by Jack Kahler (1966)”
“Favorite Stories of Hypnotism” is a classic collection of, of course, stories that involve hypnotism. However, that book was published in 1965 and was dated even then. I think it would be interesting to try to put the sequel together. But what would be included?
I would start with the following: about every one of these I listed below are either SF or fantasy, but, as in the original collection, they do not have to be so limited. Even though some of the SF stories are mysteries, too, I would like some regular mystery stories, as well, maybe even a romance story, too, just to cover the range.
- ‘Crisis: 1999’ by Fredric Brown — Police discover a strange phenomenon: criminals are getting fewer in number and they can’t figture out why.
- ‘Daymare’ by Fredric Brown — An investigator discovers a mind controller quickly moving up the in poltical world, taking complete control as he goes.
- ‘Eight O’Clock in the Morning’ by Ray Nelson
- ‘The Key to the Temple of Heaven’ by Sax Rohmer — One of Sax Rohmer’s Madame de Medici stories. Madame de Medici was one of Rohmer’s stock hypnotically seductive women who used her hypnotic wiles and powers to influence men into doing her bidding. I also feel that Sax Rohmer should be represented here and the rest of his writing is novel length and too long for the collection. I am including this one because I have not been able to find a copy of any of the other de Medici stories.
- ‘Looking for Something’ by Frank Herbert
- ‘Mesmerica’ by Eric Frank Russell — Explorers on an alien world see things differently as they are mentally influenced by the alien ecology
- ‘Mission: Hypnosis’ by Harlan Ellison — A spy is hypnotized to aid his covert activity.
- ‘Poor Superman’ by Fritz Leiber — A mind controller gets his comeuppance.
- ‘Rogue Psi’ by James Schmitz — Telepathic hypnosis, by one of the masters of stories with telepathy and telepathic mind control themes. Here a master psychic has been stifling the space program because it would allow people to escape his world-wide control.
- ‘The Servant Problem’ by William Tenn — In a future society, who is controlling whom?
- ‘The Telzey Toy’ by James Schmitz — I should also include a Schmitz story involving Telzey Amberdon.
Any further suggestions?
I discovered a couple of images of stage hypnotist Pat Collins that I want to pass along here.
The first (above) is a publicity photo of Pat Collins: you can see her signature on the right.
The second (above) is a shot from her appearance on “What’s My Line?” before she became the sensation she was. She appeared on the program on May 7, 1961, Season 12 Episode 36 EPISODE #563, as a contestant. However, I have not been able to determine whether she stumped the panel or not.
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