[The Australian Panther]

his was Robb's turn, but he was unable to make it, so I'm back again earlier than expected.
Robb should be with us next time, 

Only one book this time but there are 135 pages.
I don't know anything about it, or John Douglas so I will enjoy the read.
Clearly ERB and Alex Raymond inspired, so we should have a good fortnight.
And remember, you are all free to contribute. 
Futura Archive (Planet Comics 43-64)
https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=27143

Enjoy!

[mopee167]

Chester Carlos Martin drew the first six installments of Futura, which appeared in issues #43 through #48.

https://www.pulpartists.com/Martin.html

John Douglas was a house name or a pseudonym for the actual writer.

[Quirky Quokka]

Just went down a rabbit hole and thought I’d share. I started reading the first story and saw that the futuristic policeman used a radia-screen that televises every street. Which made me wonder where this comic book stood in relation to the introduction of CCTV. So the first story is from Planet Stories #43 from 1946. My quick consult with Dr Google indicated that an early system was developed in Russia in 1927 by Leon Theremin. And yes, you’ve heard that surname before. Some years earlier, he had invented the Theremin instrument which you can hear in a number of Sci Fi movies, including ‘Forbidden Planet’. Surveillance systems were introduced into the U.S. in about 1949 though not as widely used until the days of video in the 1970s. Follow me for more tangential info 

Cheers

QQ

[Robb_K]

Hi Folks.  I'm back from a 10-day stint in hospital.  I don't know if I'll be able to devote much time to comment heavily on this thread, but I was always a big Sci-Fi fan, and I love the Golden Age Sci-Fi artwork.  The artwork of Futura is especially great.  I'll somehow squeeze in time to read at least a few of the stories and comment on them and the series.. 

[The Australian Panther]

Futura Archive (Planet Comics 43-64)
https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=27143

Hi Folks.  I'm back from a 10-day stint in hospital.

Robb, good to hear from you. Here is hoping you well be well enough to post monday week.
We are rooting for you. (in the American sense, not the Australian!)

So this book.
If 64 pages was an average size in the early golden age, this one as 135 pages, is more than twice that.
That's some chunk of Comic. Takes a while to read and then to have something to say about it.
So, I think I will break it into three posts.
Panel I is great, and used for the cover of the anthology. Just the right hint of menace.
There never is any explanation as to why Marcia Reynolds, specifically, was chosen for 'project survival'
The Aliens and their environment are clearly out of Alex Raymond's Flash Gordon, and well done too.
'Futrua' is in the ERB tradition of strong individuals who are just suddenly picked up and dumped on an Alien planet where the first order is survival.     

Interesting that, in contrast to current expectations, Planet comics had more than one female headliner.
There was Gale Allen, Mysta of the Moon and Futura. Futura is not the kind of girl that constantly needs rescuing. She can do it herself, thank you very much.

  On earth she was nobody, a mere B- retrograde on the pan-utilatarian scale, here she was Futura, chance-chosen leader of a lost cause, rallying her chosen few against the science-lords of the universe.

 
Flash who?
More later. Called away.
cheers.

       

[Quirky Quokka]

Hi Folks.  I'm back from a 10-day stint in hospital.  I don't know if I'll be able to devote much time to comment heavily on this thread, but I was always a big Sci-Fi fan, and I love the Golden Age Sci-Fi artwork.  The artwork of Futura is especially great.  I'll somehow squeeze in time to read at least a few of the stories and comment on them and the series..

Hi Robb

Wow, that was quite a stint in hospital. I hope all went well and that you make a speedy recovery.

Take care

QQ

[Quirky Quokka]

Hi everyone

As Panther said, this is a fairly long volume, so I thought I'd at least comment on the first few stories for now. I haven't come across Futura before, so I was interested to see what she was like.

#43

Some of the art in those first few pages made me think it was going to verge into horror, and there are a few scenes that bend that way, but I was relieved it seemed to be more sci-fi. Though I had to smile right from the first page. The policeman couldn't be wearing more clothing. Poor Marcia couldn't be wearing less. There's clearly a shortage of suitable fabric in the future!  I found there was a bit of a perceptual illusion in some frames such that she sometimes looked like she was topless when she wasn't. For example, in the very first frame (and the cover pic for the compilation), the curves on the yellow belt buckle could be mistaken for the lower curves of her breasts, so you have to look twice to realise that her breasts are actually (sort of) covered by the skimpy bikini top.

The premise is a bit different in that she is unwittingly part of an experiment. She thinks she's escaped, not realising that the mentor is still monitoring her. But you have to admire someone who is 'a second-grade technical secretary' with only a 'norm-plus' rating' and yet manages to master the controls of a spaceship she's never seen before. How hard could it be?

It's an interesting origin story that sets up future stories. It got me in.


#44

I won't keep commenting on the skimpiness of the costume, but it's ludicrous in some scenes. For example, in the second-last frame on p. 3, her mini skirt is high enough to reveal ... well, lucky they didn't try to draw more detail! Interesting that the story then verges into a crossover between sci-fi and prehistoric tropes. If only the Arborotes could speak Trans-Cosmo, things may have been different! But our heroine lives to fight another day.

Last page - Okay I know I promised not to keep mentioning her costume, but she seems to have lost the strap on the back of her bikini as she ballet-kicks her way out of danger and dives into the water. Will she surface only to find her top has drifted off somewhere?


#45

She firmly plants herself in the 'noble superhero' camp by saving Jarl Nord, even though he had tried to kill her. Though this may not have been entirely altrusitic, as she needs to form an alliance with his tribe in order to survive. (Actually this sounds just like an episode of Survivor!')

Best line comes at the bottom of the last page: 'Yesterday an earth bound secretary - tomorrow a Warrior Queen.' Isn't that what all women want? What a gal?

When I looked at the start of the next story, I wasn't sure if they were out of chronological order, so I went back to check the original issue. Turns out they are in order. But in the process of checking, I discovered that they had introducted a letters column that appears straight after this story and it was interesting to read the letters people had written about Futura. You can find it on p. 19 at the link below:

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=82564

I was especially interested that three of the letters are from girls, as a lot of these comics seem to print mainly letters from boys. Mary Loy from Sacramento likes Futura, but doesn't like 'continuing' stories on the whole and will 'discontinue' reading Planet Comics if they persist.  Charlene from Bath, NY, likes Futura because she has dark hair like her own. Um .. okay. Alas, Gail from Fairfax, Oklahoma doesn't like Futura because it looks like they dumped Gail Allen to make space for her. But did she like Gail because they share the same name??? The editors needn't be too worried, though, because John from Philadelphia loves this 'new, very alluring and feminine young woman' and thinks Futura is 'well and especially expressionally drawn.' I love reading these old letters. I have a growing collection of old comics (a few originals and the rest facsimile issues of the originals) and I always read the letters pages. A great comment on the pop culture of the times. But I digress!


#46

As promised, I will no longer comment on Futura's clothing. Instead, I will comment on how they managed to get away with a naked woman tied to a slab? Okay, this is before the Comics Code, but even still, those thin straps don't leave much to the imagination, not to mention the sadistic overtones. And we see her several times more in other frames throughout. I wonder if Mary Lou, Charlene and Gail are still reading?

But on with the story. I did get a bit confused here because I thought she'd defeated the mentor in the previous story, but now it appears he's alive and well. Though there is mention that he's incapable of dying.

I did smile at her bird disguise. It would only be a disguise if someone was directly overhead.

Overall

So based on what I've read so far, it's an interesting concept with Futura being tested almost as though she was a competitor in one of our modern reality TV shows, especially Survivor. Though I did find some of the story elements confusing. The art is good on the whole. I'm not such a fan of the prehistoric crossover elements, but there's enough interest to keep reading.

Interesting choice, Panther. I just hope Futura can manage to find some more fabric in the rest of the stories.

Cheers

QQ

[Robb_K]

Hi Folks.  I'm back from a 10-day stint in hospital.  I don't know if I'll be able to devote much time to comment heavily on this thread, but I was always a big Sci-Fi fan, and I love the Golden Age Sci-Fi artwork.  The artwork of Futura is especially great.  I'll somehow squeeze in time to read at least a few of the stories and comment on them and the series..

Hi Robb

Wow, that was quite a stint in hospital. I hope all went well and that you make a speedy recovery.

Take care

QQ

Thanks, QQ.  I'm lucky to be alive, as my newly-placed pacemaker got infected, and it entered my blood stream and nearly got to my heart.  So, not long after the surgery to put it in, they had to cut me open again and remove it.  After my antibiotic intervenous period is over, in 4-8 weeks, I'll have to have another surgery to place a new one on the opposite side of my chest (heart). So it'll be some more months of that and recovery.  Then they can give me electric shock treatments to shock my heartbeat rhythm back to normal. 

So I won't be hosting soon and will probably only do limited reading and short comments when I get the chance between all the medical treatments.  I'll read a couple of the Futura stories tomorrow, if I can.  I really like the Flash Gordon-style artwork and late 1930s/early 40s story style.  I loved to look at the Sci-Fi books from that era that my older cousins (who lived with us) had in their stash (stockpile) of comic books.  We had no television back then, so they had a massive amount of comics.

[Quirky Quokka]

Thanks, QQ.  I'm lucky to be alive, as my newly-placed pacemaker got infected, and it entered my blood stream and nearly got to my heart.  So, not long after the surgery to put it in, they had to cut me open again and remove it.  After my antibiotic intervenous period is over, in 4-8 weeks, I'll have to have another surgery to place a new one on the opposite side of my chest (heart). So it'll be some more months of that and recovery.  Then they can give me electric shock treatments to shock my heartbeat rhythm back to normal. 

So I won't be hosting soon and will probably only do limited reading and short comments when I get the chance between all the medical treatments.  I'll read a couple of the Futura stories tomorrow, if I can.  I really like the Flash Gordon-style artwork and late 1930s/early 40s story style.  I loved to look at the Sci-Fi books from that erta that my older cousins (who lived with us) had in their stash (stockpile) of comic books.  We had no television back then, so they had a massive amount of comics.

Oh Robb, what a dramatic turn of events, better than any drama we've been reading here. I'm glad you were able to get treatment in time. You'll be just like Ironman after all those rounds of surgery. Praying your next stage of recovery goes well and that there are no more cliffhangers in your story.

Take care

QQ

[Robb_K]

Thanks for the good wishes.  That was my first time staying in hospital, it took me 80 years to get there.  If I don't get infected in the next round, I should be okay for maybe a good while.  I know several people who lived 20+ years after getting a pacemaker.  Most of my grandparents, and great uncles and aunts on both sides of my family lived into their very late 80s and 90s, and a few passed 100.  So, I hope to get to 100 with the latest medical knowledge extending the human average life spans.   

[SuperScrounge]

Hope you get better Robb!

Futura Archive

1st Story
She feels like someone's following her? Why would anyone follow a cute girl in a skimpy outfit? 

So this is an overly elaborate job interview? 

4th Story
Funny how in these stories there are those perfectly spaced bars so the reader can't see the naughty bits. 
Although given how thin the bars are drawn it's almost not enough. 

7th Story
The Earth raid of 2023. Anyone remember that? 

9th Story
I would guess this is a different writer from the previous stories. The narration has changed, a new character has entered the overall story, and the use of sci-fi words to sound like science fiction seems to have been dropped.

11th Story
Bit of a depressing ending here with the death of all the slaves. Guess the new writer wanted a clean sweep of the old plot threads.

12th Story
Far East Galaxy? Is that a different galaxy or just the far east of the Milky Way? Does the writer even know what a galaxy is?

Seems like we're back to sci-fi words for the sake of passing itself off as sci-fi.

13th Story
Blonde vs. brunette. Now they just need a man to fight over. 

Geeze another group of people who put their faith in Futura helping them getting wiped out. This gal is a bad luck charm.

14th Story
Attention all UNIVERSES??? Oh, boy!

15th Story
Futura's perils seem to be more brutal then when Mentor was her big bad. I wonder if she thinks of the 'good old days' on Cimradia? 

18th Story
I really haven't commented on her changing clothes, but since last issue her outfit was two pieces and this issue it's a one piece with a lot more fabric, that's a big enough change.

Not very bright of her to try to save Blargo just because he claimed he would set her free. Leaders of pirate bands are not very trustworthy fellows.

22nd Story
“Futura in every issue of Planet Comics!” Except every one that follows this issue. 

Did they think she would continue or did they know she'd been cancelled? Were there future installments ready to go, that just ended up as inventory? Perhaps printed under a different name?

More importantly has her secretary job already been filled? All that adventure and if she ever got home and cleared her name, she'd probably have to go on the unemployment line.

Overall it's an interesting series, although the amount of disposable settings and villains is interesting. The literary trashcans behind the Fiction House offices are just plumb overfull. Did they not think of recycling to help the literary environment. Tsk, tsk, tsk... 

[crashryan]

FUTURA ARCHIVE

I've sampled a lot of Futura in the past and anticipated a great time reading this compilation. I'm sad to say that I burnt out after reading the first ten or so episodes. After that I sampled a chapter here and there before being roped in by Enrico Bagnoli's stunning art on the last few episodes. At least Futura went out with a bang!

The trouble with this and other Fiction House serials is that they feel like the writer had only a vague idea of the storyline and made up everything else as he went along. I get the feeling the author never sat down for a few minutes to nail down the characters' abilities or motivations, or the nature of the world they lived in. Adding to the confusion is a flood of ridiculous pseudo-scientific jargon. Proton guns and Silvon rays can be fun for a while, but a little of that stuff goes a long way.

The high point of the series is the artwork at the beginning and end of the run. Chester Martin, who worked for Fiction House's pulps, does a fine job on his handful of chapters. After that the art falls back toward middling Fiction House quality until Bagnoli sends it through the roof. Bagnoli was an amazing artist. He started working in Italy at age 17. After some years in comics he became an editor in the Corriere della Sera organization. In the 80s he went back to comics and drew some Martin Mystere stories.

There's one truly bizarre sidelight to the Futura / Bagnoli saga. The original art survived and was put up for sale by Heritage Auctions in 2023. Sometime between 1950 and 2023 someone had massively retouched the art. They whited out most of Futura's clothes so that she appears bare-breasted throughout the story. The retoucher also whited out the blue-pencil color notes which deface almost all Fiction House originals, and added shading film in seemingly random places. Heritage's item description decries the overhaul as "an amateurish job of vandalism." An act of vandalism it is, but in fact the redrawing isn't that bad though the shading film work is clumsy. The presence of the film makes me wonder if this was more than the personal project of an independent wanker. Could the art have been reworked with the intent of publishing it in some sex mag or another? At any rate, vandalism or no, the lot sold for $6600.

If you're curious you can see it at:

https://comics.ha.com/itm/original-comic-art/complete-story/enrico-bagnoli-and-antonio-canale-planet-comics-51-complete-6-page-story-futura-original-art-fiction-house-/a/322352-49007.s?ic4=GalleryView-Thumbnail-071515&viewAdult=1#

Because of the nudity you'll need to create a (free) account to view the stuff.

[The Australian Panther]

I'm sad to say that I burnt out after reading the first ten or so episodes. After that I sampled a chapter here and there before being roped in by Enrico Bagnoli's stunning art on the last few episodes. At least Futura went out with a bang!

The trouble with this and other Fiction House serials is that they feel like the writer had only a vague idea of the storyline and made up everything else as he went along. I get the feeling the author never sat down for a few minutes to nail down the characters' abilities or motivaMartin's worktions, or the nature of the world they lived in. Adding to the confusion is a flood of ridiculous pseudo-scientific jargon. Proton guns and Silvon rays can be fun for a while, but a little of that stuff goes a long way. 

I don't disagree with most of that. 
I think a lot of that has to do with the way the 'industry' worked at the time. If there were two creators, writer and artist, the artist doesn't always know what the script is going to give him to draw.

I get the feeling the author never sat down for a few minutes to nail down the characters' abilities or motivations, or the nature of the world they lived in.

For mine, that is true of most comic series to some extent. Early Marvel series are good examples. I've been reading comics since 1960, believe it or not, and most of the series currently have almost no detailed connection to their original constructions. The DC characters are completely redone nearly every 12 months.
I've long realized that you have to take every published episode separately on its own merits. 
Futura is of course a more extreme example.
I don't know what an average would be, but most series didn't last 12 months, and this one comes to a dead-stop as well. So, why would you waste your time thinking ahead?   
Crash, unlike yourself, I find  Martin's work more interesting than Enrico Bagnoli's. And not because of the quality of  the art.
Martin's work puts me in mind of Burne Hogarth (born Spinoza Bernard Ginsburg) and Hal Foster and some of the early British artists.
In fact there seem to have been 3 separate artists on the feature.
From page 39 to page 68, even though the work is credited to 'John Douglas' and Martin's designs are still used, this is not the same artist.
And at the end of that we get 'A New life begins for Futura in the next issue.'
Enrico Bagnoli is clearly, in any technical sense, a superb artist. In my estimation, that doesn't make an artist a good story-teller, a narrative artist. That makes him or her an illustrator. The Britsh annuals that are currently being uploaded have many illustrations, but they add nothing  to the narrative. Good as thouse artist's are, they just illustrate certain events within it. With Martin's work, I don't need to read the dialogue to follow the action. The Art moves, it flows. Words and Pictures work in harmony. 
With Bagnoli's work, I need the dialogue because without it we just have pictures on the page. Which are otherwise difficult to decipher.
I chose this because it was new to me and the kind of work I enjoy and I thought lets work with one big book instead of 2 or 3.
QQ should be here tomorrow.
Cheers!     
         

[Quirky Quokka]

Hi everyone

SuperScrounge said:

11th Story
Bit of a depressing ending here with the death of all the slaves. Guess the new writer wanted a clean sweep of the old plot threads.

Ah, the standard soap opera trope. If you run out of ideas, or just want to get rid of some pesky cast members, have some kind of disaster at the end of a season and let the viewers/readers sweat while you work out who's still alive next season. Or in this case, no-one. 'Crisis on Infinite Earths' anyone?

22nd Story
“Futura in every issue of Planet Comics!” Except every one that follows this issue. 

I guess they couldn't see into the future 


Crashryan said:

There's one truly bizarre sidelight to the Futura / Bagnoli saga. The original art survived and was put up for sale by Heritage Auctions in 2023. Sometime between 1950 and 2023 someone had massively retouched the art. They whited out most of Futura's clothes so that she appears bare-breasted throughout the story. The retoucher also whited out the blue-pencil color notes which deface almost all Fiction House originals, and added shading film in seemingly random places. Heritage's item description decries the overhaul as "an amateurish job of vandalism." An act of vandalism it is, but in fact the redrawing isn't that bad though the shading film work is clumsy. The presence of the film makes me wonder if this was more than the personal project of an independent wanker. Could the art have been reworked with the intent of publishing it in some sex mag or another? At any rate, vandalism or no, the lot sold for $6600.

And here was me thinking her outfit was already laughably skimpy! Holy moly! (or as we say in Australia, 'Holy dooley!)

Panther said:

The DC characters are completely redone nearly every 12 months.
I've long realized that you have to take every published episode separately on its own merits.

Yes, DC continuity is a nightmare. I'm still a fan, but most of the DC I own is pre 'Crisis on Infinite Earths', when the continuity was better, though not perfect. If I buy post-1980s DC comics, I usually look for one-shot stories or a limited series, and just approach it as a new story. They like to reimagine their characters and settings and parallel universes and team-ups etc etc.

QQ should be here tomorrow.

I will indeed, with one of my favourite comic book writers.

Cheers

QQ

[Robb_K]

In read The first 5 Futura stories.  I love the artwork, and its early '40s style.  The stories held my interest.  Funny that the city on a planet amid an "atmospheric sea" that is similarly difficult to seeb through, is so similar to nThe Sargasso Sea's murkiness due to it thick seaweed forests.  It's sort of similar to the situation of people with Arab names living on a desert planet in The "Dune" series of books and films.  I don't mind most of the sentient non-earthlings having similar body shapes to Humans, with only minor differences in facial characteristics (ears, head size, number of eyes, etc.).  That is the case when making films, because Humans are, basically, the only animals that could play a sentient part in a film.  Even Chimpanzees would have a difficult time playing a part on cue.  The non-sentient animals, especially the dragon and dinosaur-like beasts are drawn well, and interesting to view.

All-in-all, these stories are enjoyable both to read and view, as entertainment.  And it's interesting how little about the science involved was known back then.  Growing up in the 1950s, and, especially the '60s, were times of a great increase in knowledge, especially scientific, comparable to the leaps made in those areas during beginning of The Renaissance.  I prefer artwork from The 1940s, but Sci-Fi story content from the 1960s and '70s, as plots involved a lot more knowledge of the way Our Universe works, that can lead ton a broader range of story plot types, dealing with issues that we wonder about today (Including the potential dangers of the connection between robots and AI) which has been worrying me for over 50 years, and I'm still working on finishing my dark humour novel series on that subject.

[Quirky Quokka]

All-in-all, these stories are enjoyable both to read and view, as entertainment.  And it's interesting how little about the science involved was known back then.  Growing up in the 1950s, and, especially the '60s, were times of a great increase in knowledge, especially scientific, comparable to the leaps made in those areas during beginning of The Renaissance.  In prefer artwork from The 1940s, but Sci-Fi story content from the 1960s and '70s, as plots involved a lot more knowledge of the way Our Universe works, that can lead ton a broader range of story plot types, dealing with issues that we wonder about today (Including the potential dangers of the connection between robots and AI) which has been worrying me for over 50 years, and I'm still working on finishing my dark humour novel series on that subject.

Yes, indeed. It's amazing how so many of the things that were imagined in older sci-fi stories have come to pass, especially regarding robotics and AI. I remember watching the Jetsons cartoon as a kid and thinking how amazing it was that they could talk to each other on video screens instead of phones. As a little kid, I couldn't imagine a world in which we could actually do that. Now of course, it's everyday life. And with increasing knowledge of science, writers and illustrators have been able to make the fantastic at least sound plausible (like the transporter and tractor beam in 'Star Trek' and wormholes in 'Stargate').

Cheers

QQ

[Robb_K]

All-in-all, these stories are enjoyable both to read and view, as entertainment.  And it's interesting how little about the science involved was known back then.  Growing up in the 1950s, and, especially the '60s, were times of a great increase in knowledge, especially scientific, comparable to the leaps made in those areas during beginning of The Renaissance.  In prefer artwork from The 1940s, but Sci-Fi story content from the 1960s and '70s, as plots involved a lot more knowledge of the way Our Universe works, that can lead ton a broader range of story plot types, dealing with issues that we wonder about today (Including the potential dangers of the connection between robots and AI) which has been worrying me for over 50 years, and I'm still working on finishing my dark humour novel series on that subject.

Yes, indeed. It's amazing how so many of the things that were imagined in older sci-fi stories have come to pass, especially regarding robotics and AI. I remember watching the Jetsons cartoon as a kid and thinking how amazing it was that they could talk to each other on video screens instead of phones. As a little kid, I couldn't imagine a world in which we could actually do that. Now of course, it's everyday life. And with increasing knowledge of science, writers and illustrators have been able to make the fantastic at least sound plausible (like the transporter and tractor beam in 'Star Trek' and wormholes in 'Stargate').
Cheers
QQ

I'm MUCH more impressed by predictions made by Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, from the late 1800s and the turn of that century, than people being able to look at a screen and see the person with whom they are speaking.  We had the basic technology for that in the 1920s, when Television was in its infancy.  To get that to everyday use by much of the population was much more a matter of economics than "predicting technological breakthroughs. 

Verne and Wells were much better at predicting the future than "The Jetsons' writers. 

Verne predicted submarines, helicopters, rockets to travel through space to other planets, and auxiliary smaller landing vehicles, solar powered sails, video conferencing (e.g. TV), a Global news network, and communication system like The Internet, and military armoured tank-like vehicles, and sophisticated automatically-triggered defence systems. 

Wells predicted, nuclear weapons and nuclear wars, a World-wide communication system (Internet), a permanent World Encyclopedia (Wikipedia), a microprocessor (computer), heat rays used as weapons (laser weapons), Air Warfare (Airplanes flying over cities with bombardiers dropping bombs on them, genetic engineering and the ethical aspects, automatic-opening doors, Space travel with rockets, and wireless communication using different sound-carrying frequencies.

To me, predicting between the 1880s and 1910 those things eventually happening is MUCH, much more impressive than predicting in 1962, that most people will eventually look at images of the person with whom  they communicate.

[Quirky Quokka]

I'm MUCH more impressed by predictions made by Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, from the late 1800s and the turn of that century, than people being able to look at a screen and see the person with whom they are speaking.  We had the basic technology for that in the 1920s, when Television was in its infancy.  To get that to everyday use by much of the population was much more a matter of economics than "predicting technological breakthroughs. 

Verne and Wells were much better at predicting the future than "The Jetsons' writers. 

Verne predicted submarines, helicopters, rockets to travel through space to other planets, and auxiliary smaller landing vehicles, solar powered sails, video conferencing (e.g. TV), a Global news network, and communication system like The Internet, and military armoured tank-like vehicles, and sophisticated automatically-triggered defence systems. 

Wells predicted, nuclear weapons and nuclear wars, a World-wide communication system (Internet), a permanent World Encyclopedia (Wikipedia), a microprocessor (computer), heat rays used as weapons (laser weapons), Air Warfare (Airplanes flying over cities with bombardiers dropping bombs on them, genetic engineering and the ethical aspects, automatic-opening doors, Space travel with rockets, and wireless communication using different sound-carrying frequencies.

To me, predicting between the 1880s and 1910 those things eventually happening is MUCH, much more impressive than predicting in 1962, that most people will eventually look at images of the person with whom  they communicate.

Hi Robb

Yes, of course you're right. Those predictions are much more impressive. But I was relating what I felt like as a child. I was only a little kid when I watched the Jetsons. Of all the futuristic things they showed in that cartoon, for some reason I was most impressed with the video phone. We didn't even have a phone in our house until I was 12. So when I was watching the Jetsons at maybe round the 8-10 year-old range, I was thinking how wonderful it would be to call your friend from home and actually see them on the screen when I was talking to them. When Skype first came in for home use, I immediately thought of the Jetsons and I even made Jetsons part of my Skype password back then. I have a Jetsons picture hanging in my study, and just in the last month, I have bought a Jetsons T-shirt. So that show has happy memories for me.

Cheers

QQ