Jim Harmon, 1933-2010
Jim Harmon, 76, died February 16, 2010 in Los Angeles of a heart attack. Harmon began publishing professional SF stories with “The Smuggler” in Spaceway (1954), and went on to produce at least 40 stories in the 1950s and ’60s, mostly for Galaxy and If; some of those stories were later collected in Harmon’s Galaxy (2004). He wrote one novel, The Contested Earth, in 1959, but it only saw publication in 2007 as part of The Contested Earth and Other SF Stories in 2007.
James Judson Harmon was born April 21, 1933 in Mount Carmel IL. In addition to SF, he also wrote detective and crime stories, but he was best known as an expert on classic radio shows and movies, earning the nickname “Mr. Nostalgia”. The Great Radio Heroes (1967) remains a landmark work on the subject, and he wrote numerous other non-fiction work.
He contributed writing on comics to fanzine Xero, was editor of Monsters of the Movies from 1974-75, and edited two volumes of anthology series It’s That Time Again in 2004 and 2006, featuring new stories about classic radio characters. Harmon received an Inkpot Award at the San Diego Comic-Con in 1977. He is survived by his wife Barbara.
