Otto O. Binder, as described in t
he introduction to the Inventory of the Science Fiction Archive of Otto Binder housed at Texas A&M University’s Cushing Memorial Library:“Otto Oscar Binder (1911-1974) began writing science
fiction with his brother Earl under the pen name Eando Binder and was first
published in 1932. … by 1938, according to S-F authority Sam Moskowitz,’Eando
Binder had become one of the three most popular writers in the field.’ ... [Otto]
Binder had a talent for plotting, and was credited with being one of the more
imaginative writers of the period. He largely left the S-F field in the 1940s
to write continuities for the Captain Marvel comic book series, which he did
for 17 years. … Binder also wrote more than 300 nonfiction articles, and wrote
extensively on unidentified flying objects.”
 |
| Binder wrote a saucer story in Captain Marvel Adventures # 98 from 1949 |
Binder wrote about UFOs in both science fiction and
nonfiction over the years in many books and magazines. His chief nonfiction books
on the topic were Flying Saucers Are Watching Us in 1967, and What We
Really Know About Flying Saucers in 1968.
Our Space Age
In 1960, Otto
Binder launched Our Space
Age (originally), a daily feature syndicated by Bell-McClure. It was illustrated
by Carl Pfeufer (1910 – 1980), an artist who had drawn comics for Dell,
Centaur, Fawcett, Marvel and other publishers.
Our Space Age focused
on rockets, satellites, and space exploration, and The Fabulous Fifties
blog has a sampling of early panels from 1961 – 1962.
 |
| March 22, 1962 |
 |
| Jan 5, 1963 |
Binder combined his interest in flying saucers and
comics in several of his Captain Marvel stories, but in 1965, he did it again
as nonfiction for Our Space Age. In
1966 UFOs became the sole focus of the series, as seen below in the advertisement for the series. Binder frequently urged readers to send in their own sighting reports, and also directed them to contact Ray Palmer of Flying Saucers magazine and Jim Moseley of Saucer News for further information on UFOs.
Our Space Age covered a
mixture of classic cases, profiles of UFO witnesses, and recent sighting reports.
We’ve assembled a sampling of the episodes from across the run of the series.
 |
| Sept. 28, 1965 |
 |
| Oct. 1, 1965 |
 |
| Oct. 4, 1965 |
 |
| Oct. 27, 1965 |
 |
| Sept. 28, 1965 |
 |
| Jan. 24, 1966 |
 |
| Feb 19, 1966 |
 |
Feb 23, 1966
 | Feb 28, 1966
|
|
 |
| Aug. 5, 1966 |
 |
| March 24, 1966 |
 |
June 1, 1966 |
 |
June 14, 1966 |
 |
June 23, 1966 |
 |
| Aug. 6, 1966 |
 |
July 7, 1966 |
 |
July 8, 1966 |
 |
| Aug 17, 1966 |
Binder's series featured all aspects of the UFO experience: contact, abductions, humanoids, UFO performance, ancient astronauts, hoaxes, and more.
 |
| Sept. 6, 1966 |
 |
| Sept. 29, 1966 |
 |
| Oct 31, 1966 |
 |
| Nov. 1, 1966 |
 |
| Sept. 28, 1967 |
 |
| Dec. 3, 1966 |
 |
| July 20, 1967 |
 |
| Oct. 16, 1967 |
 |
| Oct. 10, 1968 |
 |
| Oct. 14, 1968 |
 |
| Oct. 14, 1968 |
 |
| Sept. 25, 1969 |
The Human Flying Saucer
In 1966, Binder
reunited with C. C. Beck hoping to recapture the magic of their Captain Marvel
success. What we got instead was Fatman, the Human Flying Saucer. It
only lasted three issues. Deliberately silly in the wake of the campy Batman TV
series, we mention it here chiefly for presenting a panel from Our Space Age in
color in each issue, as seen in the collection above.
Otto Binder's Legacy
Our Space Age ran from 1960 - 1969. Binder died in 1974 at the age of 63, but he left the world with a wealth of fantastic characters and stories. For more information on
the life and work of Otto Binder see, “Before the Golden Age-Eando Binder,”
from the site, Tellers of Weird Tales.
Bill Schelly wrote Words of Wonder, the biography of Otto Binder, which was reviewed by UFO researcher Martin S. Kottmeyer. Since then, the book was
re-released in 2016 as: Otto Binder: The Life and Work of a Comic Book and Science Fiction Visionary by Bill Schelly.
As a Spanish UFO comic collector and ufologist myself, I already knew about Otto Binder involvement with Captain Marvel and Fatman, but those beautiful daily strips were new to me. Have they been collected somewhere?
ReplyDeleteNot as far as I can find! I'd love to see such a collection. We are planning to another few articles on special episodes from the series in the future.
DeleteThanks for the unique access to material! Otto was often referred to as a 'NASA scientist' revealing astronaut stories. Wasn't he also involved in 'Space World' magazine before Ray Palmer took over? jamesEoberg@comcast.net
ReplyDeleteYes, that's him. As far as I know, Binder didn't represent himself as a NASA scientist, but there are a lot of charlatans and sloppy researchers did and still do.
DeleteThe "Roadblock Riddle" UFO looks remarkably similar to the "kerosene lamp on end" UFO from the Indrid Cold encounter in West Virginia. I always search for these repetitions because they tend to occur (usually) close together in time, as though it really was a solid (or temporarily solid) object genuinely flying around and being encountered.
ReplyDeleteAfter a lot of work, I've managed to pull together all but ten panels of the "Our Ever Changing World/Our Space Age" series in three large binders. When I find the other ten, I'll be scanning the lot.
ReplyDelete