The man whose pen introduced us to the monsters on Maple Street and five characters in search of an exit has a life just as complex and colorful as those fantastical beings that graced the early days of television.
Written and Illustrated by Korem ShadmiCover by Korem Shadmi
Lettered by AndWorld DesignA illustrated biographical tale that follows Hollywood revolutionary Rod Serling’s rise to fame in the Golden Age of Television, and his descent into his own personal Twilight Zone.
We recognize Rod Serling as our sharply dressed, cigarette-smoking tour guide of The Twilight Zone, but the entertainment business once regarded him as the “Angry Young Man” of Television. Before he became the revered master of science fiction, Rod Serling was a just a writer who had to fight to make his voice heard. He vehemently challenged the networks and viewership alike to expand their minds and standards―rejecting notions of censorship, racism and war. But it wasn’t until he began to write about real world enemies in the guise of aliens and monsters that people lent their ears. In doing so, he pushed the television industry to the edge of glory, and himself to the edge of sanity. Rod operated in a dimension beyond that of contemporary society, making him both a revolutionary and an outsider.
“It is the middle ground between light and shadow — between man’s grasp and his reach; between science and superstition; between the pit of his fears and the sunlight of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area that might be called the Twilight Zone.”
With those words from Rod Serling on October 2, 1959, an American science fiction cultural icon was born. Perhaps fitting and prophetic, that day also saw a full solar eclipse, light and shadow, teasing of the senses playing out on the screen up above and the screen in the living room. And the story of the man who teased those senses for five years on CBS (and countless years to come) is as rich and complex as the stories he brought to screen. This is a man who translated the horrors of war and mid-20th century American race relations to audiences, embracing a new medium without sacrificing artistic quality, challenging his audiences to expand minds and hearts.
So where to start the story of such a fascinating life? For Shadmi, it’s in the trenches of World War II, a young Rod Serling seeing action in the Pacific Theater. Even then, those early sparks of the gifted writer are clear as day, from youthful optimism (he just can’t say no to anything, a trait that will certainly hurt him artistically and financially later than life) to comic books to exposure to radio dramatist Norman Corwin, a pioneer in blending entertainment and social commentary. These shaped Serling’s worldview and understanding of the power of the arts to educate as well as entertain, far more than any college course or writing job. From there, the book explores the struggle to “make it” as a writer, the success of The Twilight Zone, and life for Serling after the series first left the air in 1964.
What’s left out of this life tale is Serling’s early life. This was a man born on Christmas Day 1924, a Jewish man coming of age during the Great Depression and the rise of anti-Semitism in the world. There’s certainly no shortage of fascinating events that deserve exploration. Perhaps this was an upbringing too cliched: the child with abilities simultaneously encouraged and discouraged, a struggling writer living in the shadow of a successful older sibling. Conversely, there’s still much in these early years that shaped the artist he became as an adult, so it does seem an injustice, however slight, to leave this out of the narrative.
This is also not a story about The Twilight Zone itself. If you’re looking for detailed backstory on the creation and inspiration behind “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” or “A Stop at Willoughby,” or other of those emblematic stories, you won’t find those here. There are brief moments of the teleplays that folks most think of when you say The Twilight Zone, but also smaller moments that you view and realize later worked their way onto television: an addiction to a slot machine on a trip to Las Vegas (“The Fever”), a dictaphone as Serling’s method of choice for capturing stories (“A World of His Own”). In events and objects large and small, Serling found his inspiration. It is the adage of “write what you know” taken to an extreme, one that worked beautifully.
Continued belowThis is a book of character moments, which Shadmi illustrates competently, tailoring each panel size and placement to ensure balance and put emotion front and center. He plays with metaphor beautifully in scenes of an angry Serling marching out of view on one of his heavily edited scripts, angry that his teleplay of the case of Emmett Till became “so watered down it was practically meaningless,” stamping his feet on scratched out dialogue and editorial notes. The fight he has with those networks, sponsors, and censors becomes a literal one, with Serling in a boxing ring taking on a Saga-esque corporate suit with a television set for a head (and just like his early boxing days, losing badly and bloodily). And with that focus on character, action moments jump off the page. You feel the intense weather of East Asia in World War II, the anger and frustration of a young Serling battling shell-shock in mundane moments of building airplane models, a file cabinet with an early Serling script slammed shut, closing the doors (temporarily) on his dreams.
Fittingly, this story is told in black and white – – just like its TV show – – with the wraparound sequences of Serling on a plane entertaining his seat companion with this life story also in monochrome, but slightly purple to distinguish past and present. And it is in those wraparound moments at the end that we get the final twist, the most Twilight Zone-esque tribute to the man who created it, a captivating homage to the series.
The Twilight Zone outlived its father, who died of a heart attack in 1975. That legacy lives on in three series revivals, a treasured New Year’s marathon tradition thanks to cable network Syfy, and a feature film. That most recent revival is as pioneering as its granddaddy, airing on a streaming service backed by the same network that gave those original sci-fi social justice stories their start. Somehow I feel Serling would be glad there’s another generation doing just what he did sixty years ago – – hopefully wiser, and angrier, than him.
