When Worlds Collide (1933), co-written with Edwin Balmer, inspired Alex Raymond's comic strip Flash Gordon and was adapted as an eponymous 1951 film by producer George Pal.The Savage Gentleman (1932) 'Pulp historians point out that the themes of The Savage Gentleman are replicated to an uncanny degree in the pulp character Clark 'Doc' Savage (1933) created by Lester Dent.' - Richard A.Gladiator (1930) partially inspired the comic-book character Superman.Wylie's wide range of interests defies easy classification, but his earliest work exercised great influence in 20th-century science fiction pulp magazines and comic books: He sold the rights for two others that were never produced. Most of Wylie's major writings contain critical, though often philosophical, views on man and society as a result of his studies and interests in biology, ethnology, physics and psychology.Īt least nine movies were made from novels or stories by Wylie. He also wrote screenplays while in Hollywood, was an editor for Farrar & Rinehart, served on the Dade County, Florida Defense Council, was a director of the Lerner Marine Laboratory, and at one time was an adviser to the chairman of the Joint Congressional Committee for Atomic Energy, which led to the creation of the Atomic Energy Commission. Wylie attended Princeton University from 1920–1923.Ī writer of fiction and nonfiction, Wylie's output included hundreds of articles, novels, serials, short stories, syndicated newspaper columns, and works of social criticism.

His family later moved to Montclair, New Jersey. Early life and career īorn in Beverly, Massachusetts, Wylie was the son of Presbyterian minister Edmund Melville Wylie and Edna Edwards, a novelist, who died when Philip was five years old. Philip Gordon Wylie (– October 25, 1971) was an American writer of works ranging from pulp science fiction, mysteries, social diatribes and satire to ecology and the threat of nuclear holocaust.

The disappearance wylie