Comic Book Resources

Great column, Brian.

I really enjoy getting the scoop on these comic book urban legends. While this question is not directly related to comics it is in the ballpark and would certainly be of interest to lots of readers, myself included.

Is it true that the TV show Lost In Space was created by some CBS executives after they heard Gene Roddenbery’s pitch for Star Trek and decided to rip him off and create their own outer space series without him?

I hope you can set the record straight on this.

All the best,
Steven

That’s what William Shatner claimed in his auto-biography, Steven!

Thanks for the well wishes.

Re: Lost in Space

It’s not true, though. LIS was developed from a Gold Key comic book called “Space Family Robinson,” which even changed it’s title to incorporate the phrase “Lost in Space” when the TV show took off.

No, the story on the Space Family Robinson / Lost in Space connection is that there isn’t one. It’s one of those Man-Thing / Swamp Thing, or Brady Bunch / Yours, Mine, and Ours things; i.e., two people with the same idea around the same time. My understanding is that Gold Key’s SFR came first and that Gold Key/Western came to an understanding with the TV production company that allowed them to use the words Lost in Space later on in their run of the comic. I may have read this in the Gold Key issue of Comic Book Artist.

Space Family Robinson was on the stands almost exactly two years before Lost In Space was on the air. Compare Overstreet with any authoritative TV source. No “around the same time” here at all. Also, Yours, Mine and Ours was (or at least claimed to be) dramatizing a true story. Don’t shoot off your keyboard without doing your research.

Hey Ted, here are some links that don’t agree with your version of events, first for Space Family Robinson/Lost in Space:

http://www.geocities.com/area51/shire/9680/aboutlis.html

Seems I read this story in Alter Ego, not Comic Book Artist.

Here is Sherwood Schwartz’ take on the Brady Bunch/Yours, Mine, Ours connection:

http://www.bradyworld.com/cover/begin.htm

I think these fairly well reflect what I originally said.

Do you have anything to back up your versions other than a really snotty attitude?

Another suggestion for your column, if it hasn’t been covered already, how about the DC’s Barry Allen is alive…in the Marvel Universe!

See Quaser #17 & 55.

I clicked on the link for the SFR/LIS story, and if jrvandore thinks it agrees more with him than with me, he has problems. It says that the two projects were NOT approximately simultaneous, and that the only reason there was no copyright/trademark infringement lawsuit against Irwin Allen was the fact that the two companies were already working together on a comic version of his Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea series so they easily settled. (The statement that Allen was unaware of the SFR comic is the sort of thing that is invariably said when such a dispute ends with a no-harm-no-foul settlement, and consequently has no evidentiary credibility.) I admit that the TV show wasn’t a direct, licensed adaptation of the comic, but it damned sure wasn’t a Swamp Thing/Man-Thing situation, wherein DC and Marvel pretty much ignored each other’s similar characters, either. As for the YMO/BB deal, I neither said much nor care much–and have no reason to believe jrvandore’s description of it reflecting what HE said, as the other sure didn’t–so I didn’t go look. As far as having anything to back up my versions, I SAID check out Overstreet and any authoritative TV reference work to see the dates yourself! If I was the moderator here, that indefensible “anything other than a snotty attitude” remark would have gotten you banned.

New business: In the late 1990s and early 2000s, DC published quality format reprints of some of their old comics of varying giant sizes, and made up some actually new collections in those old formats. Most of these–called faux replica editions by some–had a new inside-cover text piece that admitted they were newly assembled. and in fact generally gave the game away by including at least one item that had actually been reprinted in the era of that format, or in some cases had been ORIGINALLY published at that time. One neither made any such admission nor included any such tell-tale content, the Green Lantern giant. It in fact reeked of being a replica of a genuine old issue, but there never was one. Was it prepared and, at the last minute, scrapped, leaving the stats or whatever on a shelf at DC until the recent practice of replica and faux replica editions was begun? Any ideas, Brian–or anyone else for that matter?

Hey Ted, look for the word simultaneous in my original post. You won’t find it. I said “around the same time.” That was intentionally vague.

I challenged your original assertion that the TV show Lost is Space was “developed” [your word] from the Gold Key comic book Space Family Robinson. Your only evidence for this is that the comic precedes the TV show. You need more than that to prove your assertion.

I tend to believe that Irwin Allen wasn’t aware of the comic as the article asserted. Why would he be?

If I were moderator I might kick you out for your rude “Don’t shoot off your keyboard without doing your research” comment. I showed you my research as politely as I could muster.

1. “Around the same time” is NOT vague enough to allow for a difference of TWO YEARS.

2. You showed NO research, just assertions to the contrary of mine, in your first denial of my comments. It’s right up above for all to see. When the two years difference invalidated the Man-Thing/Swamp Thing analogy, that alone meant you had NOT done sufficient research, hence my warning that you shouldn’t tell somebody he’s wrong without checking your facts. Your accusing me of having a “snotty attitude” and nothing else as support when I cited Overstreet and any good TV reference work, was itself a snotty attitude, indicating you don’t like being told you’re wrong, even when you are.

3. The fact that “the comic precedes the TV show” was NOT my only evidence, as I also pointed out the FACT that the comic adopted the show’s title, requiring a legal arrangement of some sort.

4. What I said about Allen’s awareness of the comic’s existence was that in the context of the legal settlement the statement of denial had no evidentiary value (admittedly, I said “credibility” before, but this is a more appropriate word), and it doesn’t.

Look, jrvandore, the main fact here is that the source you cited in your defense and as contradicting me was more consistent with my statements than yours, and that’s pretty bad. Refusing to admit that fact when it’s pointed out is even worse.

I said I wouldn’t respond to any more to this topic, and I would understand if the moderator didn’t approve this post, but here goes…

“1. “Around the same time” is NOT vague enough to allow for a difference of TWO YEARS.”

As you define it only. And in any case it is less than 2 years, unless you think a television show creator has an idea and it becomes an aired television show the next day.

“2. You showed NO research, just assertions to the contrary of mine, in your first denial of my comments. It’s right up above for all to see. When the two years difference invalidated the Man-Thing/Swamp Thing analogy, that alone meant you had NOT done sufficient research, hence my warning that you shouldn’t tell somebody he’s wrong without checking your facts. ”

Just because I did not cite references in my first post does not mean I did not do it.

And if the point of the Swamp Thing/Man-Thing analogy was that they were conceived at the same time, then I could understand your continual emphasis on this, but it was not. It was the dependence of one concept on the other, which you asserted. The evidence I provided supports that they were independently conceived, as Man-Thing and Swamp Thing were.

“Your accusing me of having a “snotty attitude” and nothing else as support when I cited Overstreet and any good TV reference work, was itself a snotty attitude, indicating you don’t like being told you’re wrong, even when you are.”

I have yet to be proven wrong, though. Where is your evidence that there is a direct causal connection between Space Family Robinson and Lost in Space? That one precedes the other is not evidence of a causal relationship.

“4. What I said about Allen’s awareness of the comic’s existence was that in the context of the legal settlement the statement of denial had no evidentiary value (admittedly, I said “credibility” before, but this is a more appropriate word), and it doesn’t.”

So Allen may have been aware of the comic book at the time of the agreement made between Space Family Robinson and Lost in Space. Again that does not in any way indicate that he was aware of the comic when he created the show.

Your original statement: “LIS was developed from a Gold Key comic book called “Space Family Robinson,” which even changed it’s title to incorporate the phrase “Lost in Space” when the TV show took off.”

You have yet to show any causal relationship between the comic and the creation of the TV show, which is what you originally asserted. I will admit I am wrong when you produce any evidence of this causal relationship.

jrvandore:

“…unless you think a television creator has an idea and it becomes an aired television show the next day.” The ONLY possible way you can feel that this is an appropriate thing to say is if you believe that it does not apply to comic book creation, that they CAN go from conception to the stores overnight, which is nothing less than insane. Literally. I can refute almost everything else you said just as well, but I have done that enough times to no effect that I won’t waste any more time with further efforts. I don’t know when you said you “wouldn’t respond to any more to [sic.] this topic,” but I can’t find it HERE. However, *I* now say that I am done with you.

OOPS! MY BAD! Of course, Allen could not be influenced by the comic until it was on the market. My most humble apologies (You see, I am FULLY capable of admitting I’m wrong when I am). So let me refute something else.

“Just because I did not cite references in my first post does not mean I did not do it.” But you WERE accusing me of not having support when in fact I DID cite Overstreet and any authoritative TV reference work to see how much earlier the comic was out than the TV show. Whether it was fully two years or somewhere between one and two does not change the fact that one was out well ahead of the other. And the source YOU linked as support of your no-more-story-there-than-Swamp Thing/Man-Thing claim stated specifically that there could easily have been a big lawsuit if not for the already-in-place relationship for Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, the TV debut of which post-dates SFR’s by about a year, so that comic probably came out later than that. The main point is that what you presented as support for your claim of total coincidence did not do so. And the facts of: 1)the TV show launching two full years after the comic did, 2)the former adopting the latter’s title, and 3)no publicized legal battle, justified drawing the conclusion that the second was a licensed if loose adaptation of the first. Furthermore, the first two directly contradict the “Things” analogy, where the two projects came out almost literally simultaneously and no lawsuit was possible. Deny it if you will, but THAT was what you were trying to claim. Maybe now that I’ve admitted that I logically deduced “adaptation”–and I certainly should have done so much earlier, apologies for that as well–we can bury the hatchet and move on. Neither of us was 100% accurate. Truce?

1)the TV show launching two full years after the comic did

Does nothing to establish a causal relationship between the two

2)the former adopting the latter’s title

Means that Irwin Allen allowed the use of the title, but does nothing to establish that Irwin Allen “developed” Lost in Space from Space Family Robinson

3)no publicized legal battle, justified drawing the conclusion that the second was a licensed if loose adaptation of the first

Not true. There are legal battles every day that aren’t publicized. And if Lost in Space was a “licensed if loose adaptation” it would have to say it was licensed on the product.

You can keep saying the point of my analogy was temporal when it was actually causal and in response to your causal argument. But your saying it doesn’t make it so.

From the webpage I referenced: “It didn’t appear that Allen was at all aware of the comic. His focus appeared to be on emulating his peers in Hollywood, and his conception of Space Family Robinson seemed to be inspired more by a combination of Disney’s version of the Wyss novel, intertwined with