''Beyond Mars'' is a

science fiction Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...

comic strip A comic strip is a Comics, sequence of cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often Serial (literature), serialized, with text in Speech balloon, balloons and Glossary of comics terminology#Captio ...

written by

Jack Williamson John Stewart Williamson (April 29, 1908 – November 10, 2006) was an American list of science fiction authors, science fiction writer, one of several called the "Dean of Science Fiction". He is also credited with one of the first uses of the t ...

and drawn by

Lee Elias Lee Elias (May 21, 1920 – April 8, 1998) was a British- American comics artist. He was best known for his work on the '' Black Cat'' comic book published by Harvey Comics in the 1940s. Biography Emigrating to the United States from Manches ...

. The

Sunday strip The Sunday comics or Sunday strip is the comic strip section carried in some Western newspapers. Compared to weekday comics, Sunday comics tend to be full pages and are in color. Many newspaper readers called this section the Sunday funnies, t ...

ran in the ''

New York Daily News The ''Daily News'' is an American newspaper based in Jersey City, New Jersey. It was founded in 1919 by Joseph Medill Patterson in New York City as the ''Illustrated Daily News''. It was the first U.S. daily printed in Tabloid (newspaper format ...

'' from February 17, 1952, to March 13, 1955, initially as a full tabloid page and, near the end, as a

half tab Comic strip formats vary widely from publication to publication, so that the same newspaper comic strip may appear in a half-dozen different formats with different numbers of panels, different sizes of panels and different arrangement of panels. ...

. It is set in the same universe as the Williamson novels '' Seetee Ship'' and ''Seetee Shock''.

Background and creation

Writer

reminisced about how ''Beyond Mars'' was started: "That was when TV had just begun to hurt the circulation of Sunday papers. Somebody at the ew York DailyNews noticed that all the competing papers had the same comics and that the News might gain a competitive edge by developing some original strips of its own." A review in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' of Williamson's novel '' Seetee Ship'' stated that his writing "ranks only slightly above that of comic strip adventures." Reading this comment, ''Daily News'' editor Ana Barker concluded that Williamson was the right person to write a new adventure strip for them. Williamson said his plot formula was heavily inspired by the strip ''

Dick Tracy ''Dick Tracy'' is an American comic strip featuring Dick Tracy, a tough and intelligent police detective created by Chester Gould. It made its debut on Sunday, October 4, 1931, in the '' Detroit Mirror'', and was distributed by the Chicago T ...

'', in that each episode involved a conflict with a new villain and a new group of colorful characters.

Characters and story

The strip's storyline was loosely based on ''Seetee Ship'': in the year 2191, freelance pilot and "spatial engineer" Mike Flint carried out odd jobs - usually on behalf of beautiful women - across the wild frontier of the asteroid belt. Flint had a base on the small habitable asteroid of Brooklyn Rock, from where he and his alien partner/sidekick Tham Thmith (a Venusian with metal-based biology and a speech impediment) operated a classic Art-Deco rocketship powered by antimatter. As the product of a notable SF writer, the strip was somewhat more scientifically accurate than most of its contemporaries, at least by period standards. According to Williamson, the editorial staff often altered his copy to remove scientific concepts that they believed were too advanced for their readership. The pre-

Mariner A sailor, seaman, mariner, or seafarer is a person who works aboard a watercraft as part of its crew, and may work in any one of a number of different fields that are related to the operation and maintenance of a ship. While the term ''sailor' ...

Venus and Mars were depicted as the homes of intelligent species (the Martians being essentially sentient

bivalves Bivalvia () or bivalves, in previous centuries referred to as the Lamellibranchiata and Pelecypoda, is a class of aquatic molluscs (marine and freshwater) that have laterally compressed soft bodies enclosed by a calcified exoskeleton consis ...

), and even very small asteroids could be made to retain a habitable biosphere via gravitational manipulation.

Comics historian Comics studies (also comic art studies, sequential art studies or graphic narrative studies) is an academic field that focuses on comics and sequential art. Although comics and graphic novels have been generally dismissed as less relevant popular ...

Dave Karlen reviewed: :In 1952 the New York ''News'' wanted to celebrate their success from a steady increase in newspaper circulation and decided an exclusive feature created for their publication would be just the ticket... It is said

Chester Gould Chester Gould (; November 20, 1900 – May 11, 1985) was an American cartoonist, best known as the creator of the ''Dick Tracy'' comic strip, which he wrote and drew from 1931 to 1977, incorporating numerous colorful and monstrous villains. Ear ...

suggested many of the story lines and helped Williamson from time to time on a proper way to present a comic strip plot. This colorful space-opera drama with a stellar ''

'' feel was beautifully rendered in the "

Noel Sickles Noel Douglas Sickles (January 24, 1910 – October 3, 1982) was an American commercial illustrator and cartoonist, best known for the comic strip ''Scorchy Smith''. Sickles was born in Chillicothe, Ohio. Largely self-taught, his career began ...

School" by Elias with its amazingly detailed exotic locals, amusing alien creatures, beautiful women and lots of two-fisted action. But as with many strips over time, the New York ''News'' believed their creation did not live up to its expectations and cut the size to a half-page in late 1954, which probably contributed to its untimely demise on March 13, 1955 as the creative team wrapped up some final loose ends in the last Sunday."My Greatest Adventure: Beyond Mars," June 1, 2009.
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Reprints

In 1987, the entire strip was reprinted in two

Blackthorne ''Blackthorne'' (released as ''Blackhawk'' in some European countries) is a cinematic platform game developed by Blizzard Entertainment. It was released for the Super NES and MS-DOS in 1994. The cover art for the SNES version was drawn by Jim Le ...

trade paperbacks. Blackthorne also reprinted it as series of

comic book A comic book, comic-magazine, or simply comic is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panel (comics), panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are often accompanied by descriptive prose and wri ...

s.''Beyond Mars''
at

Don Markstein's Toonopedia Don Markstein's Toonopedia (subtitled A Vast Repository of Toonological Knowledge) is an online encyclopedia of print cartoons, comic strips and animation, initiated February 13, 2001. Donald D. Markstein, the sole writer and editor of Toonopedi ...

Archived
from the original on August 27, 2015.

IDW Publishing IDW Publishing is an American publisher of comic books, graphic novels, art books, and comic strip collections. It was founded in 1999 as the publishing division of Idea and Design Works, LLC (IDW) and is recognized as the fifth-largest comic ...

reprinted the entire strip in an oversized hardback book in October 2015.

References

Sources

*''Daily News'' Sunday comics section (1952–55) *John Clute and Peter Nicholls, editor, ''The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction'' (Jack Williamson entry), St. Martin's Press, 1993. *Jack Williamson and Lee Elias, Shel Dorf (editor), ''Beyond Mars'' (two volumes), Blackthorne, 1987.

External links

Jack Williamson and anti-matter
{{Tribune Content Agency comics American comic strips Science fiction comic strips Blackthorne Publishing titles 1952 comics debuts 1955 comics endings Fiction about asteroid mining Fiction about main-belt asteroids Comic strips formerly syndicated by Tribune Content Agency Works by Jack Williamson