Bradbury 31, Day 30: "The Emissary"

"The Emissary" is a Ray Bradbury short story which combines the love he had for learning, knowledge and experiencing life all through his writing with the twisted, weird, supernatural horror he was also known for. First appearing in 1947, it tells of a bed-ridden boy whose dog brings the outside world to him through the scents caught in its fur. The dog even brings a teacher to the boy to expand his comprehension of existence, but the woman dies; then, the dog fetches her once again.

Al Feldstein & Jack Kamen once wrote an unofficial adaptation of this story for EC Comics in 1952 titled "What the Dog Dragged In," back before the authorized versions of Brabdury's stories began appearing in their publications. This version diverges significantly from the text which is kind of a shame as the story already had all the elements for a good EC horror yarn. In 1988 a reasonably faithful version of "The Emissary" appeared on The Ray Bradbury Theater but it kind of fudges the climax - it keeps a consistent tone throughout its retelling and that's kind of a problem when the story as Bradbury told it is wonder and whimsy for the first 75% and horror for the last 25%. Shame.

Tomorrow: I draw Ray Bradbury month to a close!

Bradbury 31, Day 26: "Zero Hour"

As with yesterday's entry, we have a story in which adults are betrayed by their own brood. Ray Bradbury's "Zero Hour" was printed first in 1947 at the dawn of the Cold War and I can only imagine it must have been a reflection of the anxieties of the time. In this story, Martian invaders gather intelligence and aid in their invasion from Earth children; the children's scheming is believed to be mere playing by their unconcerned parents until the titular Zero Hour arrives.

It's been adapted to radio a few times - on Dimension X in 1950 as a double-feature with "There Will Come Soft Rains" (listen to it at archive.org here), on Escape in 1953 (listen to it at archive.org here) and on Suspense in 1955 (listen to it at archive.org here). They're all very good, but I feel the Dimension X version hits the climax with the most force.

In 1953, Al Feldstein and Jack Kamen adapted the tale for EC Comics and did a pretty great job. In 1992 it was adapted for television's Ray Bradbury Theater, but I can't really recommend this version. The acting is not only inferior compared to the radio versions, it's just not very good, full stop. The terrifying climax is particularly underwhelming, considering the potency of the radio adaptations.

More horror from Bradbury tomorrow!

Bradbury 31, Day 24: "The Small Assassin"

There are only eight more days until Halloween and I'll be featuring a Ray Bradbury story which is season-appropriate up 'til then! How about "The Small Assassin," a story best summed up as "killer baby." Bradbury published it in 1946 and it's perhaps the most primordial example of Bradbury's recurring "children are terrible" theme. You can't go much further back than infancy! Now, some people will tell you a child only a few months old couldn't possibly plot murder against it's own parents. Well, I kinda like the story's explanation:

"What is more at peace, more dreamfully content, at ease, at rest, fed, comforted, unbothered, than an unborn child? Nothing. It floats in a sleepy, timeless wonder of nourishment and silence. Then, suddenly, it is asked to give up its berth, is forced to vacate, rushed out into a noisy, uncaring, selfish world where it is asked to shift for itself, to hunt, to feed from the hunting, to seek after a vanishing love that once was its unquestionable right, to meet confusion instead of inner silence and conservative slumber! And the child resents it! Resents the cold air, the huge spaces, the sudden departure from familiar things. And in the tiny filament of brain the only thing the child knows is selfishness and hatred because the spell has been ruddely shattered. Who is responsible for this disenchantment, this rude breaking of the spell? The mother. So here the new child has someone to hate with all its unreasoning mind. The mother has cast it out, rejected it. And the father is no better, kill him, too! He's responsible in his way!"

This was a popular tale to imitate; I've certainly found a few imitators in Atlas Comics of the 1950s such as John Romita's "It!" in Strange Tales #4. EC Comics used their relationship with Bradbury to print an authorized version by Al Feldstein & George Evans and did it expertly, in my opinion.

The first place I heard of "The Small Assassin" was actually the television adaptation on The Ray Bradbury Theater. It was dramatized pretty well, and while I've complained that this series frequently spoiled the conclusions of horror stories, this time they did it just right. "A scalpel."

Another ghoulish Ray Bradbury tale tomorrow!

Bradbury 31, Day 19: "There Will Come Soft Rains"

Yet again, I'm looking back on a Ray Bradbury short story which is best-known for comprising part of The Martian Chronicles. "There Will Come Soft Rains" debuted on its own in 1950 just ahead of the book itself. It is a very well-regarded Bradbury tale; I have one friend who a great fan of science fiction throughout the 20th century and while he's not much of a Bradbury fan, he believes this story is among sci-fi's finest.

In 1950 the radio show Dimension X adapted the story as a double feature alongside Bradbury's "Zero Hour" - a rather different tale of Mars. The computer voice in this version has a staccato rhythm which really sticks in the memory ("Today is October 6, 2026..."). You can listen to the show at archive.org here.

Al Feldstein and Wally Wood adapted it to EC comics in 1953 and did a fine job. Comic book versions also include the 1992 Topps version by Lebbeus Woods (which was published side-by-side with a reprint of the Feldstein/Wood version) and as part of Dennis Calero's The Martian Chronicles graphic novel. It is also one of the rare Bradbury tales to be animated; the animated version was made in 1984 by a Soviet animation studio and it is, if anything, more grim than Bradbury's text. In all, "There Will Come Soft Rains" is a fine representation of nuclear anxiety, the fear of the cataclysmic effects nuclear war would have on civilian populations. "Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree, if mankind perished utterly; and spring herself as she woke at dawn would scarcely know that we were gone - that we were gone - that we were gone - that we were gone..."

Another Ray Bradbury tale tomorrow!

Bradbury 31, Day 17: "Mars Is Heaven!"

Ah, here we go. "Mars Is Heaven!" is one my personal favourite Ray Bradbury stories. Although it was first printed as a short story in 1948, it's best known for appearing as a chapter of The Martian Chronicles and has also been adapted there, both in the TV movie and the Dennis Calero comic book version.

1950 was a hot year for Bradbury; The Martian Chronicles became renowned, granting him prestige he'd previously lacked. Radio loved Bradbury and they adapted "Mars Is Heaven!" twice that year on different network programs: Escape (listen to it at archive.org here) and Dimension X (at archive.org here). The two versions are rather different, with Escape being very faithful. Both tell the story of a human expedition to Mars which discovers a homey U.S. town (from Illinois because it's Bradbury) transplanted to Mars and all the beloved dead ones of the crew residing there. In the climax, the ship's captain realizes the "loved ones" are actually Martians in human form.

Although I normally like adaptations to be as close to the original text as possible, the Dimension X adaptation adds something which I rather like; a new character is added to the crew - a physician who had survived the Dachau concentration camp. A lonely and traumatized man who can no longer recall his family, he finds no one on Mars waiting for him amongst the "dead" - and thus he comes to the realization of what the people truly are.

In other adaptations, such as the 1953 EC comic by Al Feldstein & Wally Wood, the captain comes to the conclusion of the Martians' identity on his own, which renders it something of a solliloquy. The revelation of the Martians' identity is followed by a macabre scene in which the Martians bury the dead humans, which EC and the Escape version kept.

However, the 1989 Ray Bradbury Theater version ends at the moment of the captain realizing what the Martians are. That program had a distinct problem with depicting action - so many episodes would climax at the very moment of the twist, rather than playing any of it out (namely, the death of the captain).

Show up tomorrow for another look at Ray Bradbury!

Bradbury 31, Day 15: "The Lake"

"The Lake" comes from the early part of Bradbury's career, the time in which he became a teller of weird tales (often for Weird Tales), the time of shocking climaxes and malevolent forces of horror. However, even in that period he was telling personal, poignant tales of loss; such a tale is 1944's "The Lake," the story of a little girl's death and its haunting after effect.

In 1953 Al Feldstein & Joe Orlando adapted it perfectly for EC Comics. The imagery of that adaptation is burned into my recollections of this story, particularly the image of the lifeguard carrying the girl's body and of the man building a sandcastle.

In 1989, The Ray Bradbury Theater produced its own adaptation and did a fine job with the morose material. On the occasion of Ray Bradbury's death when I wondered how to put into words my sense of loss - losing an author whose work meant so much to me - I was instantly drawn back to "The Lake," a story of those who have gone and what they have left behind for us.

Tomorrow: Somewhat less morose Bradbury!

Bradbury 31, Day 10: "A Sound of Thunder"

Perhaps of all Ray Bradbury's fiction, there is no tale which has been better absorbed into popular culture than "A Sound of Thunder," the tale of a time travel safari agency wher men go back in time to hunt dinosaurs and how stepping on a single insect alters the course of history. Although the Butterfly Effect was conceived of indepdently, it is frequently explained through the prism of Bradbury's earlier 1952 story.

In 1954, Al Feldstein and Al Williamson adapted the story with EC Comics. Al Williamson was one of the greatest photorealistic artists in all of comics (the best, by my money) and he could draw a mean-lookin' dinosaur. The one element from the short story which was not maintained in this adaptation was the titular "sound of thunder" - the gunshot which concludes the story. Once again, we see EC exercising restraint. They printed more than just stories about baseball games with human organs, kids!

Although many Bradbury tales were adapted to the 1950s radio program X Minus One, "A Sound of Thunder" wasn't one of them. However, fellow sci-fi author L. Sprague DeCamp wrote a response to Bradbury's tale (as he didn't entirely like it) called "A Gun for Dinosaur" which was adapted to X Minus One, but that tale has fallen into obscurity. "A Sound of Thunder" even spawned its own official spin-off series with the "Ray Bradbury Presents" moniker.

In 1984 Bradbury 13 faithfully adapted the story to radio (listen to it at Youtube here). The television series Ray Bradbury Theater adapted it in 1989. As the TV show did not have a large budget it usually kept away from elaborate special effects. The dinosaur in that episode is clearly a puppet, but I think it's a convincing puppet; man, give me monster puppets every day instead of those drab CGI things.

Topps comics created a more faithful comic adaptation of "A Sound of Thunder" in 1993 with the great Richard Corben adapting. I would normally choose Williamson over just about every comics artist imaginable, but as Corben has the more faithful adaptation, I have to give him props; while Williamson mastered realism, Corben has a gift for starting out from a realistic perspective, then branching into utterly mad, wild imagery. Happily, Topps chose to reprint the Williamson story in the same issue as the new Corben version so everyone can choose their favourite.

Lastly, I am required by law to mention the 2005 film adaptation. That should do. Go read the Agony Booth review.

...Well... no, I have more to say than that.

It's a disaster; if you want a bad, cheesy sci-fi flick with lousy special effects and miserable performances, this is your baby. The story of the film's making is one of those great Hollywood disasters where studios are toppled and careers ruined. Edward Burns gives a bland lead performance while Sir Ben Kingsley, always a pro, hams it up and, as usual, makes you question his career choices. Bradbury's simple tale is expanded into feature length by discarding most of the short story itself, which is an odd way to expand the concept. In this version, time travelers don't return to the present to find everything changed - instead, time begins to slowly alter itself. For some reason, rather than history being changed so that the English language and political results are altered, these changes are somehow wiping out all of humanity (to raise the stakes) and reverting the Earth to a semi-prehistoric state (???). The film's would-be setpiece, the baboon-saurus is one of the lamest yet funniest movie monsters in all of cinema. They don't appear until very late in the film but if you can last that far, you'll be rewarded with some belly laughs.

More Bradbury tomorrow!

Bradbury 31, Day 8: "The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl"

First published in 1948, "The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl" is an interesting short story by Ray Bradbury first printed as "Touch and Go." In this tale, a man commits a crime of passion, angrily killing his rival. Desperate to keep himself from being connected with the murder, the killer begins obsessively cleaning everything he touched in the house - but quickly loses track of what he did or did not touch.

As "Touch and Go" it was published in EC Comics' Crime SuspenStories by Al Feldstein and Johnny Craig; Craig did an excellent job of depicting the killer's confusion and madness. Under the story's later title, "The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl," it appeared on a 1988 episode of The Ray Bradbury Theater with Michael Ironside as the killer. Ironside is an actor beloved by film buffs but not exactly renowned; in this program he's absolutely riveting as the rattled killer. It's one of the best episodes of that series and a very fine adaptation.

Tomorrow: another Ray Bradbury tale!

Bradbury 31, Day 4: "The October Game"

To some eyes, Ray Bradbury stories mean something warm, heartfelt and nostalgic; the wonders of childhood, the simplicity of rural living, the vistas of the imagination. Of course, he could also write stories which were just plain demented. Such a tale was 1948's short story "The October Game." It plays on a familiar Halloween game where children are gathered in a dark room and handed what their host claims are the body parts of a dead witch. Except in Bradbury's tale...

In 1953, Al Feldstein and Jack Kamen adapted the story for EC Comics' Shock SuspenStories. Although EC had a reputation for grim, terrifying images, I've presented the finale of their adaptation above - and as you can see, it's gore-free. Even in the supposed-unrestrained ranks of EC, they understood restraint; Bradbury's own tale leaves the final horror up to the reader's imagination. In fact, there are some Bradbury fans who disagree as to what the final line of the story means. Good on Feldstein & Kamen for understanding the story's strengths!

Tomorrow: More Bradbury!

Bradbury 31, Day 2: The Screaming Woman

"The Screaming Woman" is a well-known Ray Bradbury story about a girl who hears the sound of a woman screaming from somewhere beneath a vacant piece of land. When she tries to alert her parents to the noise, they assume she's making up a story. Without their help, the girl sets out to save the screaming woman on her own.

Unlike many of Bradbury's tales, this one originated in a medium other than print: radio. In 1948, "The Screaming Woman" appeared on the top-notch radio series Suspense with child star Margaret O'Brien in the lead role. You can hear it from archive.org here.

The story finally appeared in print in 1951. Soon after it was adapted to EC Comics' Crime SuspenStories via Al Feldstein and artist Jack Kamen; later still it was adapted to the 1984 radio series Bradbury 13 (you can listen to it at youtube here). What makes these adaptations interesting is that the ending is rather different; in the radio play, the woman is saved from her burial. However, Bradbury has stated this was because of radio broadcast standards - his original plot left the woman buried alive. The subsequent adaptations simply muddied the finish - it's no longer clear whether or not the woman is rescued.

In 1986, the story was adapted for television's Ray Bradbury Theater with Drew Barrymore in the lead role. Interestingly, this adaptation goes back to the Suspense version with an upbeat conclusion. What I find most interesting about all of these adaptations is that the child isn't depicted as someone being taught a moral (Bradbury was pretty good at avoiding moralizing). In, for instance, Cornell Woolrich's The Window a child who is always lying to his parents witnesses a murder and thus his parents won't believe him - a "boy cries wolf" moral. The girl in "The Screaming Woman" is not a serial liar - she's simply a little girl. By virtue of being a child, she's considered untrustworthy. There is some form of truth in there about how dogged and persistent children are in their beliefs despite adult skepticism.

Tomorrow: More Bradbury!

Bradbury 31, Day 1: Kaleidoscope

Each year I like to celebrate the month of October with posts which are somewhat Halloween-themed. This year I've chosen to celebrate the career of Ray Bradbury, my favourite author to dabble in weird fiction - although he dabbled in virtually every other genre you care to name. Each day I'll bring up one of his short stories and examine the many times that story has been adapted.

"Kaleidoscope" originated as a short story in 1949. It tells of a rocket being lost in space and its former occupants spilled out, each carried in a different direction. Using the radios in their spacesuits, the men speak to each other as they prepare to meet their deaths.

"Kaleidoscope" was a popular adaptation on radio, appearing on a 1951 episode of Dimension X (listen at archive.org by clicking here), a very good 1955 Suspense episode where the actors recorded their lines while confined in separate booths to better capture the isolation of their characters (listen at archive.org by clicking here), and a 1984 broadcast of Bradbury 13 (listen at youtube by clicking here).

The first comic book adaptation of "Kaleidoscope" is a rather notorious comic book story called "Home to Stay" which Al Feldstein wrote and Wally Wood drew for EC Comics' Weird Fantasy #13 (1952). Although it's not really an adaptation of the story, the climax of the tale is an utter rip-off of Bradbury's tale. Subsequently, Bradbury contacted EC and, as Mark Evanier describes here:

He noted that the adaptation was well-done and that the two stories had been rather cleverly intertwined, the whole being greater than the sum of its parts, so to speak. Suing might cost a lot, he knew, and there probably wasn't much money to be collected…so he tried another approach. He wrote Gaines a letter that said, in essence, "You seem to have neglected to pay me for the adaptation of my work." Gaines sent a modest check, a brief correspondence ensued and EC wound up adapting many of Ray's stories on an official basis.

"Home to Stay" is now officially acknowledged as a Bradbury tale, appearing alongside other Bradbury comic book adaptations as collected by Topps Comics in the 1990s. Speaking of which, in 1994 Topps issued a brand-new adaptation in the title Ray Bradbury Comics: Martian Chronicles, even though the tale has nothing to do with his Martian stories. "Kaleidoscope" was adapted by Howard Simpson, using big panels and splashes, evidently to emphasize the vastness of space in which the astronauts had been lost. In a new introduction Bradbury dedicated the tale to the Challenger astronauts.

More Bradbury tomorrow!