Our first author Russell Robert Winterbothamwas born on August 1st, 1904 in Salina, Kansas, population 6,000 or so when he was born. He began writing short fiction in 1935 and continued until 1958 with a short break from the mid 40s to the early 50s. In all he wrote almost 60 short stories that were published in If Worlds of Science Fiction, Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy, Planet Stories and others.

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He published stories as Russ Winterbotham and R. R. Winterbotham. His next to last novel Planet Big Zeroreleased in 1964 is the only known work using the name Franklin Hadley.

If you are old enough you may remember the Big Little Books which began in 1935. By the time Russ Winterbotham started writing for Racine, Wisconsin based Whitman publishing they had changed the name to Better Little Books.

Winterbotham’s first Better Little Book was 1940s Maximo the Amazing Superman which can be purchased for $50 on Abebooks.com. He also wroteMaximo the Amazing Superman and the Crystals of Doom, Maximo the Amazing Superman and the Supermachine, Captain Midnight and the Secret Squadron and Captain Midnight and the Secret Squadron vs the Terror of the Orient.

Like last weeks author Joseph Samachson, also known as William Morrison, Winterbotham was a comic strip writer. Chris Welkin, Planeteer was distributed by the Newspaper Enterprise Association from 1952 to 1964. It was created by Winterbotham along with cartoonist Art Sansom. Two TV pilot episodes were created for Chris Welkin, Planeteer but it was never picked up, however, you’ll find both episodes on YouTube. Quite the career!

From Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy in September 1954 Three Spacemen Left To Die! by Russ Winterbotham...

Winterbotham’s writing career came to an end with the 1966 release of his last novel “The Lord of Nardos”. He passed away 5 years later on June 9th, 1971 in Bay Village, Ohio. He was 66 years old.

We’ve already heard from our second author, Alan E. Nourse. You can hear his short sci-fi story The Fifty-Fourth Of July on Episode 5 of The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast. From the pages of Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy in October 1952 Wanderlust by Alan. E. Nourse...

Next week on The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast, Personnel Incorporated bragged that they could supply a man for any job. Maxwell doubted this, needing a space pilot for the first Lunar trip. Now, if he had just asked for a lunatic...

That’s next week on The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast.

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