Happy Birthday Ray Bradbury!

Happy Birthday Ray Bradbury!  Ray Bradbury was a prolific writer who made a mark in fantastic fiction, his writing spans genres, and gave a hopeful vision of the future.  His first story was printed in Forrest J. Ackman’s Imagination!  Forrey was a great supporter of Ray.  Many of Bradbury’s short stories were adapted by Al Feldstein in Haunt of Fear, Weird Fantasy, and other EC Comics titles.  His stories were collected with new graphic novel adaptations in the Ray Bradbury Chronicles by Byron Preiss.  They were reprinted in comic book form in Ray Bradbury Comics published by Topps Comics.  Ray worked on the screenplay for John Huston’s adaptation of Moby Dick (1956).  

Ray Bradbury at a book signing, 2005, photo by the author.

The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953) had a scene out of Bradbury’s story, “The Fog Horn” (1951) which made a life long friendship with Ray Bradbury and Ray Harryhausen.  One of the best adaptations was the 1962 episode of The Twilight Zone based on Ray Bradbury’s short story, “I Sing the Body Electric.”  Fahrenheit 451 was made into a film in 1966 directed by Francois Truffaut, but featured Julie Christie more than focusing on the theme from Ray Bradbury’s highly regarded novel.  There is a current film on HBO starring Michael B. Jordan starring as the fireman tasked to destroy books.  The Martian Chronicles based on his 1950 collecting his Martian stories was made into a miniseries in 1980.  It is screaming for a film.  In 1983, Disney produced a film of Something Wicked This Way Comes, it is creepy about a carnival, but was weak at the box office.  

The Halloween Tree at Disneyland, 2010, photo by the author.

There was a television series, The Ray Bradbury Theater, which ran from 1985 to 1992.  One of Ray Bradbury’s book that was most influential to me is Zen in the Art of Writing (1990), I highly recommitted it to any creative person.  An animated television film narrated by Ray Bradbury was made of The Halloween Tree in 1993 which won him the Emmy Award.  The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit (199 )was a film with an incredible cast that went direct to video.  A Sound of Thunder (2005) was released in theaters, but twisted the original story and failed at the box office. It was a 1989 episode of The Ray Bradbury Theater.  In 2007, he was awarded the Pulitzer Citation for his work.  We lost Ray Bradbury in 2012 with “Author of Fahrenheit 451” on his headstone, but he lives on in his writing.  Happy Birthday Ray Bradbury!   

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