Mr. Smith Goes to Venus

I was checking through old magazines at an antique store in Cold Springs, NY, looking for old SF magazines, when a cover caught my eye. It read Mr. Smith Goes to Venus. The date was March, 1950. It was Coronet Magazine, which was a cheaper simpler version of the Saturday Evening Post or Readers Digest. Later, I think, Coronet would become a sleazy sex magazine.

My curiousity piqued, I opened up and found some marvelous pictures by the famous space artist Chesly Bonestell. Bonestell did art for dozens of Hollywood movies, including Destination Moon, When Worlds Collide, and Conquest of Space. After 15 mintues of Googling, though, I couldn’t find any reference to the Coronet spread.

I am wondering if the text is by Bonestell in this article. It describes a family’s trip to Venus. Bonestell did the art work for the movie, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, hence the title of the piece.

Click on a picture to see the (very) large version.