Bug-eyed monster

Comic cover from 1950

Cover of the pulp magazine Planet Stories (spring 1942)

Bug-eyed monster (mostly translated as "glubschäugiges monster", literally "monster with insect eyes ", abbreviated to BEM ) is a term used in English for the stereotypical representation of an alien in science fiction works since the late 1930s at the latest .

Notorious here are the covers of pulp magazines from the 1930s to 1950s, in which typically a (often blonde) scantily clad woman is threatened by an alien monster, often insect-like or tentacle -armored. The attempt to kidnap the monster is then prevented by the male protagonist, who is usually armed with a beam pistol (English blaster ). The derogatory term of blaster fiction (such as "space wild west story") for the corresponding genre belongs in this context .

literature

• Hans Joachim Alpers , Werner Fuchs , Ronald M. Hahn : Reclam's science fiction guide. Reclam, Stuttgart 1982, ISBN 3-15-010312-6 , p. 483.
• Jeff Prucher: Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction. Oxford University Press, 2007, ISBN 978-0-19-988552-7 , pp. 18 f.