Q. What were character, or hero, pulps?

A. Character pulps were so called because they were named after a single character, or hero. And, the title character appeared in the featured novel in the magazine. Character pulps came into existence in April 1931 when Street and Smith's The Shadow Magazine burst upon the newsstands with .45s blazing. Within two years The Shadow Magazine's success had spawned a new pulp genre. The character pulps rode high for nearly 20 years. Then television, movies, comic books and paperbacks finally took their toll and the pulps vanished in the 1950s.

The phrase "character pulps" is a bit more inclusive than "hero pulps" since several of the magazines that fit this genre featured a villain as the title character. Among those pulps featuring villains were The Mysterious Wu Fang, Doctor Death and The Octopus.