5) The Short Story of the “Canadian Whites,” and “CanPulps”

Join us on ZOOM right now for this story:

During World War II, the Canadian government introduced the War Exchange Conservation Act (WECA), restricting trade in non-essential goods in order that, as much as possible, Canadian dollars be held in reserve within Canada to support the war effort. Among the products barred from importation were the popular American comic books and pulp magazines of the day, prompting Canadian publishers to seize an opportunity and fill suddenly empty newsstand shelves with homegrown alternatives.

Birthed during this period were a cavalcade of Canadian comic book crime-fighting adventurers and superheroes like Canada Jack, Nelvana of the Northern Lights (pre-dating Wonder Woman), Iron Man (pre-dating by more than two decades the Marvel Comics character of the same name), Captain Wonder, Cosmo, and many others.

Most notable of the science fiction and fantasy pulps resulting from this unique Canadian publishing phenomenon was Uncanny Tales, boasting not merely the reprinted stories of American and British writers, but fresh fiction penned by Canadians.

A colourful, Toronto-based middleweight-boxer-turned-scribe named Thomas P. Kelley, who fashioned himself “King of the Canadian Pulp Writers,” was the most prolific of these authors. Under his own name and numerous pseudonyms, he would, aided by his wife, Ethel, regularly pen a couple or more stories per day, some 100,000 words a week! He provided almost all of the content featured in the early issues of Uncanny Tales, but as quickly as he could turn out a story, such was the want of material that even the industrious Kelley could not meet demand.

Uncanny Tales and its contemporaries flourished but their success was short-lived, most of the magazines folding when the trade embargo was lifted after the war ended and American titles returned to newsstands. History has been kind to the Canadian superhero comic books that the WECA era spawned, not so much the pulp magazines, which were not as well regarded. Today, surviving copies of these so-called “CanPulps” are rare and greatly valued among collectors.

1) INTRODUCTION

Welcome to MonSFFA’s March 2023 e-Meeting!

This afternoon, we welcome a special guest speaker, long-time Toronto SF/F fan, ’zine scribe, and now editor of the modern incarnation of Amazing Stories, Lloyd Penney! We’ll also be looking at the brief history of Canada’s wartime comic-book heroes, and this country’s homegrown SF/F pulp magazine, Uncanny Tales.

All of this and more is on the agenda today!

And so, let us begin.

2) JOIN THIS AFTERNOON’S VIDEO-CHAT ON ZOOM!

To join our ZOOM video-chat, which will run throughout the next few hours, simply click here and follow the prompts: This Afternoon’s MonSFFA e-Meeting on ZOOM

If you’re not fully equipped to ZOOM, you can also take part by phone (voice only); in the Montreal area, the toll-free number to call is: 1-438-809-7799. From out of town? No problem; find your ZOOM call-in number here: Call-In Numbers

Also, have this information on hand as you may be asked to enter it:

Meeting ID: 875 9870 4593
Passcode: 552143

3) MEETING AGENDA

Here is the agenda for this afternoon’s get-together:

As always, all scheduled programming is subject to change.

4) PASSINGS

As noted right here on the club’s Website about a week ago, stuntman/actor Ricou Ren Browning passed away last month. He was 93. Browning donned the Gill-Man suit and performed underwater as the iconic Creature from the Black Lagoon in the enduring 1954 monster flick, reprising the role in the movie’s two sequels.

We also recently lost screen siren and movie star Raquel Welch, who came to the attention of film fans in 1966, starring in two SF/F pictures that year.

She played Cora Peterson in Fantasic Voyage, the story of a micro-miniaturized submarine and crew injected into the bloodstream of an important cold-war scientist, injured in an assassination attempt, in order to perform vital, tricky brain surgery not possible by conventional means.

As Loana of the Shell People in Hammer’s One Million Years, B.C., she wore an animal-skin bikini and scrambled about a savage landscape filled with Ray Harryhausen’s marauding stop-motion dinosaurs! A best-selling pin-up poster of her in costume is one of the most famous of the 1960s, and in all of fantasy cinema. The poster was instrumental in making of her an international sex symbol.

Raquel Welch died in Los Angeles at age 82.

Finally, February saw the passing, too, of one of Canada’s greatest thespians, Gordon Pinsent. Not usually associated with the SF/F genre, Pinsent, we will point out, did portray the U.S. president in the 1970 supercomputer-takes-over-the-world cult-classic Colossus: The Forbin Project.

Join us this afternoon at 1:00PM for our March 2023 MonSFFA e-Meeting, right here at MonSFFA.ca!

We welcome guest speaker Lloyd Penney, editor of Amazing Stories for a chat and Q&A!

And, we tell the story of Canada’s wartime comics and pulp magazines!

All this, and more…