In a message dated 2/8/03 4:01:51 AM Eastern Standard Time,
owner-rara-avis@icomm.ca writes:
<<
On eBay the other day I bought several issues of a
magazine
called SUSPENSE, "The High-Tension Magazine Inspired by
the
CBS Radio and Television Program Series SUSPENSE." I
looked
over the table of contents, an interesting combination
of
categories: Mystery, Science Adventure, Dread Dilemma,
The
Fantastic, The Macabre, and Criminals at Large.
An
interesting group of writers, too: Fritz Leiber,
Talmadge
Powell, H. L. Gold, A. E. Van Vogt, and Sir
Arthur
Quiller-Couch (no, English majors, I'm not making that
up),
among others. But what really caught my eye was a name
at
the bottom of the contents page, the name of the
associate
editor. N. R. DeMexico. Does this mean that the author
of
MADMAN ON A DRUM was a real person? Or that Larry Shaw,
one
man suspected of using the name as a pseudonym, also
used it
for an editing job?
I await the definitive answer.
Bill Crider >>
I pulled out the first and last issues of Suspense (there
were only four issues in 1951-1952), and DeMexico was listed
as Associate Editor in the first issue but was promoted to
Managing Editor by the last issue. I haven't dug out the
other suspense issue that I own so I can't say when the
promotion happened. Larry Shaw was an editor with Quinn
Publications in 52 or 53 as I remember his name on some
issues of the science fiction magazine IF, where he also had
a story or two published. It is intriguing to note that
Suspense published so many science fiction writers in its
four issues. Many of them were reprints.
Here's one other fact to throw on the small pile we have.
N.R. DeMexico had a short story "The Devil's Fiddle" in the
June 1943 issue of Thrilling Wonder. On the one hand here is
another link to science fiction which makes Larry Shaw a more
logical guess as the man behind the penname. However, why
would a young SF fan(as Shaw was at that time) hide his
identity?
Richard Moore
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