Frost, Conrad
Entry updated 29 April 2024. Tagged: Author.
(1911-2005) UK author and features editor. Sf was only a minor part of his output, which was generally confined to the 1950s. He scripted Basil Blackaller's Ace O'Hara space-adventures in the Daily Dispatch, and wrote eight Rick Random pocket Comic books for the Super Detective Library, though he was here overshadowed by Harry Harrison's five contributions. In 1956 the short-lived UK sf comic Rocket included a text serial each week, written by Frost and illustrated by Harry Winslade, beginning with "The Jungle of Space". His third and last such serial was left unfinished when Rocket ceased publication. All three were on routine subjects – Invasion from Mars, Lost Race, overthrowing a dictatorship – but all had moments of insight. Coincidentally, at this time Mickey Mouse Weekly was running the sf strip Don Conquest written by D C Thomson mainstay Kelman D Frost and illustrated by Winslade; despite sharing an artist the two sf Frosts were not the same.
Frost's adult novel Evidence Before Gabriel (1947) is both sf and supernatural, mainly in its framing chapters. Beginning with sinister deaths and Timeslip visions, the novel episodically studies a twentieth-century femme fatale artist's model before ending with the destruction of her portrait as too disturbing, circa 20,000 CE. The sexual content was unusual for 1940s sf.
Long after his sf work, Frost achieved cult success with his "George and Lynne" daily strip (the term is apposite) for the UK newspaper The Sun. [DR]
Alf Conrad Frost
born Sunderland, Durham: 27 April 1911
died Staines, Middlesex: 2 February 2005
works
series
Rick Random
- Crime Rides the Spaceways (London: Amalgamated Press, 1954) [graph: Super Detective Library #37: Rick Random: illus/Bill Lacey: pb/Bill Lacey?]
- The Case of the Space Bubble (London: Amalgamated Press, 1955) [graph: Super Detective Library #53: Rick Random: illus/Oliver Passingham: pb/Ron Turner]
- Rick Random and the Mystery of the Moving Planet (London: Amalgamated Press, 1955) [graph: Super Detective Library #70: Rick Random: illus/Ron Turner: pb/Ron Turner?]
- Rick Random and the Secret of the Ocean Planet (London: Amalgamated Press, 1956) [graph: Super Detective Library #75: Rick Random: illus/Bill Lacey: pb/Bill Lacey?]
- The Planet of Lost Men: An Adventure of Rick Random (London: Amalgamated Press, 1956) [graph: Super Detective Library #79: Rick Random: illus/Ron Turner: pb/Ron Turner?]
- Rick Random and the Invaders from the Ocean Planet (London: Amalgamated Press, 1956) with Richard Wise [graph: Super Detective Library #83: Rick Random: illus/Ron Turner: pb/Ron Turner?]
- Rick Random and the Mystery of the Man Who Put Out the Sun (London: Amalgamated Press, 1957) [graph: Super Detective Library #105: Rick Random: illus/unknown: pb/unknown]
- Rick Random and the Mystery of the Knights from Space (London: Amalgamated Press, 1958) with Barry Coker [graph: Super Detective Library #139: Rick Random: illus/unknown: pb/James McConnell]
individual titles
- Evidence Before Gabriel (London: Francis Aldor, 1947) [hb/uncredited]
links
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