 |
|
| Ron Goulart | |
Ron Goulart, a "remarkably prolific science fiction, fantasy, mystery and romance novelist who cast Groucho Marx as a detective and collaborated with William Shatner on a series of books set in the 22nd century," died January 14, the New York Times reported. He was 89. Goulart wrote at least 180 books, "and that number may underestimate his output. His goal was to write as many books as Isaac Asimov, who at his death was credited with having written about 500."
"He might have gotten writer's block at some point, but it didn't last long," said his wife, author Frances Sheridan Goulart. "He would just switch from one genre to another if he got stuck."
Goulart was also a comic book historian; the writer of a syndicated comic strip in the 1970s (Star Hawks, drawn by Gil Kane); and a cultural critic. His book The Assault on Childhood (1969) "scorned parents for not protecting their children from being exploited by toy makers, television and the Walt Disney Company," the Times noted.
"The guy was a chameleon," Mark Evanier, a fellow comic book historian, said. "He was really good at nailing the style of whatever work was available to him."
But Sean Goulart, his son, said that Goulart's heart was mainly in science fiction: "Deep down, he wanted to be the Ray Bradbury of humorous science fiction."
One of his best-known sci-fi novels, After Things Fell Apart (1970), was nominated for an Edgar Award by the Mystery Writers of America. It was the first of five books in his Fragmented America series, which he wrote in the 1970s and '80s. Goulart started working with William Shatner in the late 1980s; TekWar was the first of their nine novels in a series published through 1997. He also wrote novelizations of films, including The Island of Dr. Moreau, Cleopatra Jones and Capricorn One, as well as three Laverne & Shirley tie-in books.
"Let's understand," he told the Knight Ridder News Service in 1981 when his oeuvre had reached more than 100 books, "you don't compare this to, say, David Copperfield. But I've never written a book I was ashamed of. I've written a good 20 books I'd put up against anything. Thirty maybe."
Goulart wrote under his own name and also under numerous pseudonyms, including Kenneth Robeson, for novels inspired by the Avenger; and Con Steffanson, for several Flash Gordon novels based on Alex Raymond's comic strip and for the Laverne & Shirley books. His love of mysteries and Groucho Marx led him in the late 1990s to turn the comedian into a wisecracking private eye in six novels, including Groucho Marx, Secret Agent (2002).
He also turned his passion for comic strips and comic books into histories like The Great Comic Book Artists (1986), The Funnies: 100 Years of American Comic Strips (1995) and Comic Book Culture: An Illustrated History (2000).
Gary Groth, editor-in-chief of the Comics Journal, said: "Ron had an enormous expertise in the history of what were previously thought of as the more lurid side of pop culture: comics, newspaper strips, pulps, dime novels, and invested his histories with the same attention to factual detail and the same respect historians of highbrow culture invested in their subjects."