Ron Goulart is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 popular culture

Popular culture

Popular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the...

 historian and mystery

Mystery fiction

Mystery fiction is a loosely-defined term.1.It is often used as a synonym for detective fiction or crime fiction— in other words a novel or short story in which a detective investigates and solves a crime mystery. Sometimes mystery books are nonfiction...

, fantasy

Fantasy

Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...

 and science fiction

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 author.

The prolific Goulart wrote many novelizations and other routine work under various pseudonyms: Kenneth Robeson

Kenneth Robeson

Kenneth Robeson was the house name used by Street and Smith Publications as the author of their popular character Doc Savage and later The Avenger. Many authors wrote under this name, though most Doc Savage stories were written by the author Lester Dent:...

 (house name), Con Steffanson (house name), Chad Calhoun, R.T. Edwards, Ian R, Jamieson, Josephine Kains, Jillian Kearny, Howard Lee, Zeke Masters, Frank S. Shawn, Joseph Silva.

Goulart's first professional publication was a 1952 reprint of the sf story Letters to the Editor in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction

The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction

The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction is a digest-size American fantasy and science fiction magazine first published in 1949 by Mystery House and then by Fantasy House. Both were subsidiaries of Lawrence Spivak's Mercury Publications, which took over as publisher in 1958. Spilogale, Inc...

; this parody of a pulp magazine

Pulp magazine

Pulp magazines , also collectively known as pulp fiction, refers to inexpensive fiction magazines published from 1896 through the 1950s. The typical pulp magazine was seven inches wide by ten inches high, half an inch thick, and 128 pages long...

 letters column was originally published in the University of California, Berkeley

University of California, Berkeley

The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...

's Pelican

California Pelican (magazine)

The California Pelican was a college humor magazine founded in 1903 by Earle C. Anthony at the University of California, Berkeley. Lasting eighty years, it was the first successful student humor magazine in UC Berkeley, though it was preceded by Smiles in 1891 and Josh in 1895...

. His early career in advertising and marketing influenced much of his work. In the early 1960s, Goulart wrote the text for Chex Press, a newspaper parody published on Ralston Purina cereal boxes (Wheat Chex, Rice Chex, Corn Chex). He contributed to P.S. and other magazines, along with his book review column for Venture Science Fiction Magazine

Venture Science Fiction Magazine

Venture Science Fiction was an American digest-size science fiction magazine, first published from 1957 to 1958, and revived for a brief run in 1969 and 1970. Ten issues were published of the 1950s version, with another six in the second run. It was founded in both instances as a companion to The...

. Cheap Thrills: An Informal History of the Pulp Magazines (1972) is his best known non-fiction book.

Fiction

Goulart's fiction is characterized by several themes, notably humor, technology gone wrong (usually through incompetence rather than malice) and heroes with superhuman powers. His humorous crime and science fiction includes tales about robot

Robot

A robot is a mechanical or virtual intelligent agent that can perform tasks automatically or with guidance, typically by remote control. In practice a robot is usually an electro-mechanical machine that is guided by computer and electronic programming. Robots can be autonomous, semi-autonomous or...

s and historical Hollywood figures, such as Groucho Marx

Groucho Marx

Julius Henry "Groucho" Marx was an American comedian and film star famed as a master of wit. His rapid-fire delivery of innuendo-laden patter earned him many admirers. He made 13 feature films with his siblings the Marx Brothers, of whom he was the third-born...

. In the 1970s, he wrote several Phantom novels

Phantom novels

Lee Falk's comic strip character The Phantom have also appeared in several novels and short stories.-Big Little Books:The first attempt at non-comic strip Phantom stories, was done by Whitman Publishing Company were the Big Little Books, which featured illustrated pulp-adaptations of a few comic...

 featuring Lee Falk

Lee Falk

Lee Falk, born Leon Harrison Gross , was an American writer, theater director, and producer, best known as the creator of the popular comic strip superheroes The Phantom and Mandrake the Magician, who at the height of their popularity attracted over a hundred million readers every day...

's The Phantom for Avon Books, using the pseudonym "Frank Shawn" (a play on his wife and son's names), and he has also written Phantom comic book

Comic book

A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...

 stories and short stories for Moonstone Books

Moonstone Books

Moonstone Books is an American comic book, graphic novel, and prose fiction publisher based in Chicago focused on pulp fiction comic books and prose anthologies as well as horror and western tales....

 from 2003 and beyond.

It is widely known that Goulart ghost wrote the popular TekWar

TekWar

Tekwar is a series of science fiction novels officially authored by William Shatner and co-written by uncredited science-fiction author Ron Goulart, published by Putnam...

series of books credited to the actor William Shatner

William Shatner

William Alan Shatner is a Canadian actor, musician, recording artist, and author. He gained worldwide fame and became a cultural icon for his portrayal of James T...

  (Shatner is said to have written the outlines for the books). He has also ghosted novels featuring the Phantom

The Phantom

The Phantom is an American adventure comic strip created by Lee Falk, also creator of Mandrake the Magician. A popular feature adapted into many media, including television, film and video games, it stars a costumed crimefighter operating from the fictional African country Bengalla.The Phantom is...

, Flash Gordon

Flash Gordon

Flash Gordon is the hero of a science fiction adventure comic strip originally drawn by Alex Raymond. First published January 7, 1934, the strip was inspired by and created to compete with the already established Buck Rogers adventure strip. Also inspired by these series were comics such as Dash...

 and the pulp character the Avenger.

A collection of his mystery short stories, Adam and Eve on a Raft, was published in 2001 by Crippen & Landru.

Goulart is married to author Frances Sheridan Goulart and has two sons, Sean-Lucien and Steffan Eamon.

Comics

In the early 1970's, Goulart wrote several scripts for Marvel Comics

Marvel Comics

Marvel Worldwide, Inc., commonly referred to as Marvel Comics and formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, is an American company that publishes comic books and related media...

, mostly adaptations of classic science fiction stories. Later in the decade, he collaborated with artist Gil Kane

Gil Kane

Eli Katz who worked under the name Gil Kane and in one instance Scott Edward, was a comic book artist whose career spanned the 1940s to 1990s and every major comics company and character.Kane co-created the modern-day versions of the superheroes Green Lantern and the Atom for DC Comics, and...

 on the Star Hawks

Star Hawks

Star Hawks is a comic strip written first by Ron Goulart and later by Archie Goodwin, with artwork by Gil Kane. It began on October 3, 1977 and ran through 1981....

newspaper strip. In the early 1990's, he scripted Marvel's TekWar comics series.

Awards

Goulart has been nominated twice for the Edgar Award, once for his 1970 science fiction novel After Things Fall Apart.

Non-fiction

• The Hardboiled Dicks: An Anthology and Study of Pulp Detective Fiction (1967)
• Assault on Childhood (1970)
• Cheap Thrills: An Informal History of the Pulp Magazines (1972)
• The Adventurous Decade: Comic Strips In the Thirties (1975)
• Comic Book Culture: An Illustrated History (1980)
• The Dime Detectives (1982)
• The Great Comic Book Artists (1986)
• Focus on Jack Cole (1986)
• Ron Goulart's Great History of Comicbooks (1986)
• The Funnies: 100 Years of American Comic Strips (1987)
• The Encyclopedia of American Comics (1991)
• The Comic Book Reader's Companion: an A-z Guide to Everyone's Favorite Art Form (1993)
• Masked Marvels and Jungle Queens: Great Comic Book Covers of the '40s (1993)
• Comic Book Encyclopedia (2004)
• Good Girl Art (2006)
• Good Girl Art Around the World (2008)

Fiction

Serials:

Flash Gordon

• The Lion Men of Mongo (1974) (as Con Steffanson) (with Alex Raymond)
• The Space Circus (1969) (as Con Steffanson) (with Alex Raymond)
• The Plague of Sound (1974) (as Con Steffanson)
• The Time Trap of Ming XIII (1977) (as Con Steffanson)

Barnum System

• The Fire-Eater (1970)
• Clockwork Pirates (1971)
• Shaggy Planet (1972)
• Spacehawk, Inc. (1974)
• The Wicked Cyborg (1978)
• Dr. Scofflaw (1979)

Fragmented America

• After Things Fell Apart (1970)
• Gadget Man (1971)
• Hawkshaw (1972)
• Crackpot (1977)
• Brinkman (1981)

Barnum System : Jack Summer

• Death Cell (1971)
• Plunder (1972)
• A Whiff of Madness (1976)
• Galaxy Jane (1986)

Jack Conger

• A Talent for the Invisible (1973)
• The Panchronicon Plot (1977)
• Hello, Lemuria, Hello (1979)

Phantom (writing as Frank S Shawn)

• The Golden Circle (1973)
• The Hydra Monster (1973)
• The Mystery of the Sea Horse (1973)
• The Veiled Lady (1973)
• The Swamp Rats (1974)
• The Goggle-Eyed Pirates (1974)

Avenger

• The Man from Atlantis (1974) (as Kenneth Robeson)
• Red Moon (1974) (as Kenneth Robeson)
• The Purple Zombie (1974) (as Kenneth Robeson)
• Dr. Time (1974) (as Kenneth Robeson)
• The Nightwitch Devil (1974) (as Kenneth Robeson)
• Black Chariots (1974) (as Kenneth Robeson)
• The Cartoon Crimes (1974) (as Kenneth Robeson)
• The Death Machine (1975) (as Kenneth Robeson)
• The Blood Countess (1975) (as Kenneth Robeson)
• The Glass Man (1975) (as Kenneth Robeson)
• The Iron Skull (1975) (as Kenneth Robeson)
• Demon Island (1975) (as Kenneth Robeson)

Vampirella

• Bloodstalk (1975)
• On Alien Wings (1975)
• Deadwalk (1976)
• Blood Wedding (1976)
• Deathgame (1976)
• Snakegod (1976)
• Vampirella (1976)

Gypsy

• Quest of the Gypsy (1976)
• Eye of the Vulture (1977)

Incredible Hulk (as Joseph Silva) (with Len Wein and Marv Wolfman)

• Stalker from the Stars (1977)

Barnum System : Star Hawks

• Empire 99 (1980)
• The Cyborg King (1981)
• Star Hawks (1979)

Odd Jobs, Inc.

• Hail Hibbler (1980)
• Big Bang (1982)
• Brainz, Inc. (1985)

Groucho Marx

• Groucho Marx, Master Detective (1998)
• Groucho Marx, Private Eye (1999)
• Elementary, My Dear Groucho (1999)
• Groucho Marx and the Broadway Murders (2001)
• Groucho Marx, Secret Agent (2002)
• Groucho Marx, King of the Jungle (2005)

Novels:

• Clockwork's Pirates (1971)
• Ghost Breaker (1971)
• Wildsmith (1972)
• The Tin Angel (1973)
• The Hellhound Project (1975)
• When the Waker Sleeps (1975)
• The Enormous Hourglass (1976)
• The Emperor of the Last Days (1977)
• Nemo (1977)
• Challengers of the Unknown (1977)
• The Island of Dr Moreau (1977) (writing as Joseph Silva)
• Calling Dr. Patchwork (1978)
• Capricorn One (1978)
• Cowboy Heaven (1979)
• Holocaust for Hire (1979) (writing as Joseph Silva)
• Skyrocket Steele (1980)
• The Robot in the Closet (1981)
• The Tremendous Adventures of Bernie Wine (1981)
• Upside Downside (1981)
• The Great British Detective (1982)
• Hellquad (1984)
• Suicide, Inc. (1985)
• A Graveyard of My Own (1985)
• The Tijuana Bible (1989)
• Even the Butler Was Poor (1990)
• Now He Thinks He's Dead (1992)
• Murder on the Aisle (1996)

Collections:

• Broke Down Engine: And Other Troubles with Machines (1971)
• The Chameleon Corps: And Other Shape Changers (1972)
• What's Become of Screwloose?: And Other Inquiries (1972)
• Odd Job 101: And Other Future Crimes And Intrigues (1974)
• Nutzenbolts: And More Troubles with Machines (1975)
• Skyrocket Steele Conquers the Universe: And Other Media Tales (1990)
• Adam and Eve On a Raft: Mystery Stories (2001)

External links

• Ron Goulart Bibliography at Fantastic Fiction