Sir Arthur C Clarke

Clarke in Pulps
and Comics

I must have seen Amazing Stories for November 1928 about a year after it had been shipped across to England- so rumour has it, as ship’s “ballast”- and sold at Woolworth’s for 3p. How I used to haunt that once-famous store during my lunch hour, in search of issues of Amazing, Wonder, and Astounding, buried like jewels in the junk-pile of detective and western pulps! ”

– Arthur C Clarke

I must have seen Amazing Stories for November 1928 about a year after it had been shipped across to England- so rumour has it, as ship’s “ballast”- and sold at Woolworth’s for 3p. How I used to haunt that once-famous store during my lunch hour, in search of issues of Amazing, Wonder, and Astounding, buried like jewels in the junk-pile of detective and western pulps! ”

– Arthur C Clarke

In his younger days, Arthur C Clarke was associated with science fiction related comics as well as pulps.

Pulps

During the first half the 20th century, science fiction was popularised largely by pulp magazines. Arthur C Clarke became an avid pulp reader from the age of 11, and had his first letter to the editor published when 15. His first short story was published in Astounding Science Fiction in April 1946. Over the next few years his stories appeared regularly in leading pulps, and he always acknowledged them as his ‘launch pad’ to become a writer.

Clarke later expanded into novels some of his short stories that originally appeared in pulps. One of them, ‘Sentinel of Eternity’ that was first published in 10 Story Fantasy Spring 1951 issue became the basis of the acclaimed 1968 movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Comics

For a short while in the 1950s, Clarke served as expert advisor to Dan Dare – Pilot of the Future, a British science fiction comic created by illustrator Frank Hampson who also wrote the first stories. Dan Dare appeared in the Eagle comic magazine from 1950 to 1967 (and subsequently in reprints).

As a brief history noted in 2001: “Hampson was a stickler for detail and had all his stories vetted for scientific accuracy by the young science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke. (“I kept Dan on the straight and narrow.”). One issue was nearly withdrawn by the Ministry of Defence, after illustrator Ashwell Wood’s speculative, centre-spread recreation of the top-secret new Polaris submarine proved uncannily close to the real thing. It was decided, though, that Soviet intelligence probably didn’t pay too much attention to English boys’ comics…”