S P A C E L I G H T
INDEX
Name: BINDER Otto Oscar
Aged: 63
Born: August 26, 1911
Where: Bessemer, Michigan
Died: October 14, 1974
Where: Chestertown, New York
Interred: _ _ _
Married: Ione Frances Turek
When: November 2, 1940
Name: BINDER, Earl Andrew
Aged: 62
Born: October 4, 1904
Where: _ _ _
Died: October 1966
Where: _ _ _
Interred: _ _ _
Married: Yes
When: _ _ _
"EandO" Binder
Another example of SF pulp writers from the Midwest. The Binders took most of their advanced education in Illinois. Otto studying at City College of Chicago, University of Illinois, and Northwestern University. Because Earl preferred Chicago and the secure life of industrial employment, very little is known about him, and practically nothing after 1940.
The Binder brothers (pronounced Bender) started writing SF in the early 1930s after being fans for several years. The initial plan was to write as E. and O. Binder but that somehow got turned into EandO Binder when "The First Martian" sold to Amazing Stories in 1932. By the mid 1930s Otto had moved to New York, putting a strain on collaboration. Earl left the team as a writer in late 1938, although helping Otto as an agent. Otto continued to write as Eando Binder until his death, using only a couple pen names, and occasionally, his own.
The Binders were not the best of writers but they hacked in pulps and that gave them time to improve. Their ideas, however, were not only first rate but imitated by first rate writers: "I, Robot" (Amazing 1939) created a violent, sentient robot that went straight thru Isaac Asimov and on to better things while their novel, Five Steps to Tomorrow, took the Dumas Monte Cristo plot into space where it was later improved upon by Alfred Bester in Tiger, Tiger. "I, Robot" was later the basis for two TV plays on Star Trek and the Outer Limits.
Speaking in 1939 about sentient robots, Otto said, "As for robots being humanly intelligent, that may not be so fantastic as it seems to present-day science. In the final analysis, it may be only a matter of sensitivity of apparatus and the application of around-the-corner discoveries of the exact mechanism of human thought." Otto stayed with robotic themes and a lot of his solo writing is about them, notably the Adam Link series, and even the Anton York immortal series closely parallels.
One of Otto's friends was Julius Schwartz (Superman), and the dime market was used by Eando Binder and artist-brother, Jack. Otto's most notable effort may have been as the author of the Jon Jarl series for Marvel Comics, but Binder script ed (over 3,000) for 18 comic book publishing houses, including work on Captain Marvel, Superman, Batman, and Captain America. Otto's wife helped out as a writer of children's books and cookbooks. The couple lived and worked in Chestertown, NY.
Toward the end of his life, with fading health and the deaths of
his only daughter, Mary Lorine, and brother Earl heavy on his mind,
Otto's writing moved into areas of re-incarnation (which was fadish
then) and the 'Lost Continent' theories. Binder acquired a
journalistic interest in Flying Saucers and allied themes. Yet, Otto
wrote more than a few scientific, non-fiction books.
But in the end, when life was gone, a SF pulp legend had died, having touched the brass ring of fame only on the edges as it slipped away to others...for a while.
Above sketch of Otto from Jan 1939 issue of Amazing Stories.
PEN NAMES: Jack Binder (the 3rd brother), John Coleridge, Giles A. Gordon, and Dean D. O'Brien
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Mine here.
BIOGRAPHY: Contemporary Authors, Vol 3, p71-2
OBITUARY: Otto's
The New York Times, October 19, 1974
