Weisinger, Mort
Entry updated 23 December 2023. Tagged: Author, Comics, Editor, Fan.
(1915-1978) US editor, actively involved in sf Fandom from the early 1930s, editing Fantasy Magazine, the leading Fanzine of its day; he also sold a few sf stories, starting with The Price of Peace (1933 chap), this, according to Science Fiction Bibliography (1935 chap) by William Crawford and D R Welch, being a chapbook edition from Solar Publications, an imprint of Conrad H Ruppert's The ARRA Printers – see Small Presses and Limited Editions; the tale's magazine publication (November 1933 Amazing) has in error been listed as preceding the booklet. In 1931, at a meeting of the Scienceers sf group, Weisinger met Julius Schwartz, who would become a lifelong colleague, co-founding with Weisinger, Allen Glasser and Forrest J Ackerman what may have been the first Fanzine devoted solely to sf, The Time Traveller (1932-1937).
In 1936 Weisinger became editor of Thrilling Wonder Stories; later he also edited its companion magazines Startling Stories and Captain Future, the latter being probably his own conception. Under his direction Thrilling Wonder was openly juvenile in appeal, its garish covers giving rise to the term "bug-eyed monsters" (see BEMS). In 1941 he became editor of the Comic book Superman, and subsequently editorial director of the whole range of National Periodical Publications (DC Comics), to which he recruited many sf writers, including Alfred Bester, Otto Binder (see Eando Binder), H L Gold, Edmond Hamilton and Manly Wade Wellman. His career is outlined in "Superman" in Seekers of Tomorrow (1965) by Sam Moskowitz. After Weisinger's eventual retirement in 1970, Schwartz took over his position at DC. [MJE/JC]
see also: Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame.
Mortimer Weisinger
born New York: 25 April 1915
died Great Neck, New York: 7 May 1978
works
- The Price of Peace (Jamaica, New York: The ARRA Printers/Solar Publications, 1933) as Mortimer Weisinger [chap: Mortimore Weisinger has been given: pb/]
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