inaugural issue: "strong stories of action and adventure ... There will be two prime requisites for Venture stories: In the first place, each must be a well-told story, with a beginning, middle and end; in the second place, each must be a strong story—a story with pace, power and excitement." Ferman hoped to take advantage of a gap in the science fiction magazine market opened up by the demise of Planet Stories, one of the last sf pulps, which had ceased publication in late 1955. Planet Stories had focused on adventure stories, as opposed to the realistic style becoming more popular in science fiction in the 1950s, and Ferman hoped to combine the virtues of the melodramatic pulp fiction style with the literary values that were key to F&SF's success. Venture's bias towards action-oriented adventure led to stories with relatively more sex and violence than those in competing magazines, and sf historian Mike Ashley has commented that it was perhaps five or ten years ahead of its time. One story, "The Girl Had Guts", by Theodore Sturgeon, involved an alien virus that caused its victims to vomit up their intestines; Ashley records a reviewer saying that the story made him physically ill."Venture Science Fiction", in Tuck, The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy Volume 3, p. 604. Ed Emshwiller supplied eight of the ten covers; he had sold several covers to F&SF by this time, so his work reinforced the sense of connection between the two magazines. Emshwiller also contributed interior illustrations in the first issue, but the main interior artist was John Giunta, with John Schoenherr contributing some of his earliest work to several of the later issues. Some well-known writers appeared during this incarnation of Venture, including Isaac Asimov, Clifford Simak, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Robert Silverberg, and Damon Knight. Not all the fiction was adventure oriented. For example, Sturgeon's story "The Comedian's Children" tells of a telethon host and his relationship with his sponsors, and Leigh Brackett's "All the Colors of the Rainbow" deals with racism after aliens have contacted humanity. These and other examples can be regarded as stories of character with strong themes, in keeping with Ferman's stated goals in his inaugural editorial. Venture was also the place that "Sturgeon's Law" first saw print. This adage is now usually seen in the form "90% of everything is crap". It was formulated by Sturgeon in about 1951,