Manly Wade Wellman

Wellman’s occult detectives and investigators such as John the Balladeer, John Thunstone and Judge Pursuivant were an inspiration to Mike Mignola when developing the Hellboy universe.

From Thrilling Tales in 1927 through Weird Tales, Wonder Stories and into the late 1980s, Wellman had a long career. originally Amazing Stories Wonder Stories became Thrilling Wonder Stories and it was edited by Mort Weisinger.

He wrote science fiction in Wonder Tales and would return to the genre in later decades. It’s notable that some of those later stories were set in the 30th century.

Wellman would also write one of the Captain Future books. Future was created by Mort Weisinger and primarily written by Edmund Hamilton. Otto Binder would also participate in plotting sessions. Hamilton had also written for Weird Tales under Farnsworth Wright. Weisinger and Wellman would attend the same science fiction authors lunches, along with Binder and Hamilton.

Wellman also wrote for the comics. His work included Captain Marvel and Captain Marvel Jr. for Fawcett. The person who was the regular writer there was Otto Binder.

While Wellman would create The Phantom Stranger for DC, he also wrote back up stories in the early Mystery in Space titles, as would Hamilton. The main feature in Mystery in Space were the Knights of the Galaxy, set in the 30th century.

Considering the connections between Wellman, Binder, Weisinger and Hamilton I’m quite curious to read some of his work. Has anyone read any of it?

It seems like I've read some of his stuff, but I can't think what it would be.

Reading about him, though, he definitely seems like someone I should check out more, though!

Didn't know his name at all, but the bibliography looks rich - and some of his books are very inexpensive through Kindle. Unfortunately, I didn't see that Tales of the 30th Century was ever published - some of those stories may be incorporated in other collections?

From the book description at the Wellman website:

The main difference between these proto-30th Century stories and the others is the appearance of the Martians themselves. In these early stories they appear as lean mahogany-skinned humanoids and not the flower-headed speech-slurring blobs of fun we will read about as the series progresses.

Flower-headed speech-slurring blobs of fun - now that's tough to resist.

It's a shame about that Tales of the 30th Century book. I thought that was going to be a really quick way of getting the stories.

The Devil's Asteroid seems to be on Gutenberg at this link That might give a taste for his sci-fi work, and it has Martians.




The real reason the Martian Manhunter came to Earth was that he was exiled as being an utter bore at parties. He just made up all that stuff about White Martians to appear cooler to the Earthlings.

I downloaded the audio book of the Silver John stories and listened to the first one last night. I absolutely loved it.

Good stuff. I've read nothing but compliments for his work, by prominent authors. I'm looking forward to taking a peek. I dug out my Hamilton Starwolf stories too.

The very next article I read refers to Strange Adventures #11. It contains a story by Wellman with art by Jim Mooney. Another Legion connection!

I read a couple of stories obtained from archive.org, The Devil's Asteroid and Devil's Planet (is there a theme here?). Good reads, both had Martians, good in one story, enemies in the other. Female characters not as subservient/useless as one might expect for the era. One's set on an asteroid which is essentially a gas station, the other is a prison planet in which inhabitants suffer reverse evolution, from man to ape to blob (or glorp...). Of course, the hero/human wins in the end. I'll be happy to read more - also downloaded Space Station #1 but haven't got to it yet.

I finished up the Silver John short stories a few days ago. Some of my favorite things I've read (or listened to) in awhile. Strongly rooted in the Appalachian storytelling tradition (Jack Tales, etc.), but with definite elements of 20th century pulp literature.

John is your archetypal wandering hero, walking the hills in search of songs and stories, and regularly encountering some malevolent supernatural (or at least weird) force, which he overcomes through nobility of character, ingenuity, song, and the magic of the silver strings on his guitar. He's an interesting figure, with his folksy roots supplemented by wider experience of having been in the Korean War and apparently having attended a fair number of scientific lectures in his day. There are five novels featuring the character as well, which I look forward to reading. There was also a movie loosely based on the character, but I only made it through about ten minutes of it before I realized the liberties taken with the character were too much for me.

Super-cheesy tv adaptation of one of Wellman's John Thunstone stories:

"The Devil is not Mocked": Nazis camp at a castle in Transylvania and the inevitable happens. But, oh, it's so satisfying...

Cool. I have to wonder if it inspired F. Paul Wilson to write his classic novel "The Keep." (Great book, and the Michael Mann film adaptation is better than its abysmal reputation claims.)

Possibly. The story was also made into an episode of Night Gallery.

Aha. I've only ever seen a couple eps of Night Gallery. I vaguely recall the title sequence scaring me as a four-year-old.

Given the pedigree of the cast and crew on that show, I imagine it was a good adaptation.