Like Smith’s “science”?
Would Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Black Pirates of Barsoom quailify? The Gods of Mars began as a serial in All Story magazine in January of 1913
Written by someone from Haaarvard, I’m thinking.
D&R
Did you hear maracas? If not, then it wasn’t space banditos.
Well, I don’t believe they plundered any spacecraft, so no.
Not the Fenachrome (ok they don’t show up until the next book but they had to be around while the events of Skylark are taking place).
From the Buck Rogers daily comic strip:
March 23, 1932
That may be the first use of “Space” and “Pirate” together.
If you’re pointing fingers you could say Kayla and Gadarxtl were space pirates for locking up Buck. But, previous to that Buck, Wilma and Huer boarded a space ship to investigate and ended up being Emperor of nine moons.
Prior to that, on June 13 1931 Ardala steals plans for an Atlantian treaty and escapes to 7,000 miles up (which is clearly in space) where she has to jump and is picked up in the stratosphere by Pirate Black Barney in his rocket ship. So we have Black Barney who is clearly a pirate but doesn’t leave the stratosphere yet and Ardala in space doing pirate like activity. Does that make either of them Space Pirates?
Oh, wait. February 26, 1930 Wilma is kidnapped by Tiger Men from Mars and taken from Earth to Mars, so…