Ewu Shows Off Its Huge Sci-Fi Treasure Trove
Gonzaga University may have cornered the market on culture and social conscience this month with the traveling Anne Frank exhibit.
But my alma mater, Eastern Washington University, has a definite lock on wacky and weird.
“Enslaved Brains,” “The Overlords of Maxus” and “Invasion of the Plant Men” are just a few of the actual headlines to be seen at “Those Amazing Pulps,” an exhibit of vintage science fiction being displayed to the public through May 31 at the university’s JFK Library.
It’s a little-known fact that Eastern is home to one of the biggest sci-fi treasure troves around - some 6,000 books and magazines from the pulp heydays of the 1930s through the 1960s.
Averaging 128 pages, the booklet-sized pulps once commanded the newsstands. For many, they were the entertainment of choice before TV sent them into extinction.
Eastern’s Star Drek includes long-gone magazines, such as “Fantastic Universe,” “Fantastic Story,” “Other Worlds,” “Marvel Science Stories,” “Future,” “Thrilling Wonder Stories,” “Planet Stories” and “Out of This World.”
You cosmic monkeys will want to beam to Cheney and take a look at this.
Much of the pulp writing was of the “hack” variety (contributors were paid by the word, after all). But there are some familiar names as well. Mainstream successes such as Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, John D. MacDonald and Kurt Vonnegut all cut their literary teeth in the pedestrian pulps.
Before he started his Scientology malarkey, L. Ron Hubbard was a frequent pulp contributor. Science fiction is probably where the religion came from.
The sci-fi mags sold for a quarter back then and targeted an audience of teenage boys and men under 25.
This may explain why so many of the eye-popping covers featured: A) busty bikini-clad space babes being grabbed at by Martians; B) busty bikini-clad space babes being experimented on by mad scientists; and C) busty bikini-clad space babes being grabbed at by robots.
Phallic-shaped rocket ships and ray guns were quite common, too.
“What this says about gender roles and society is hard to miss,” says Charles Mutschler with a laugh. The university’s archivist, Mutschler decided to exhibit some of the sci-fi for the first time since Eastern obtained the collection from Dr. Almeron T. Perry.
That happened about 25 years ago, and it may be one of the more amazing tales of all.
Perry, who died in 1981, was a distinguished physician who served as a captain in the Army Medical Corps during World War II. He interned at Deaconess and practiced medicine in Spokane for 33 years.
For many of those years, Perry was team doctor for the Spokane Flyers and Jets hockey clubs, as well as the Spokane Indians baseball team.
Not as well-known, however, was Perry’s passion for science fiction. He began reading pulp sci-fi in the 1930s, perhaps as a way to escape the stress of medicine.
Nearing the end of his days, Perry began looking for a final resting place for his galactic library.
His first choice was Gonzaga University, where he had worked as student health physician. When the school turned him down, Perry tried Whitworth. No soap there, either.
Snubbed by the private schools, he turned to good ol’ state-run Eastern Washington University.
The third choice was the charm.
Acquisitions librarian William Barr gladly accepted Perry’s offer. It didn’t hurt that Barr had been a science fiction fan during most of his college years.
Barr, who has since retired, made a couple of trips to Perry’s home to pick up what he calls “some real goodies.”
The only downside to the Perry Collection is that it is too fragile to be handled by the general public. The acid in the cheap paper (made from wood pulp) causes the magazines to slowly self-destruct from exposure to light.
As a result, the collection is only available for hands-on use by students and faculty members who are conducting legitimate research.
Such as the effects of gamma rays on busty bikini-clad space babes.
Now there’s a doctoral thesis just waiting to be explored.