Two good books that any pulp hero fan should have on their shelves is Don Hutchison‘s “The Great Pulp Heroes” (1996, 2007) and Nick Carr‘s “The Pulp Hero” (deluxe edition 2008). Both works are excellent introductions and overviews of the world of pulp heroes.
Don’s work (make sure to get the more recent revised edition, cover shown here) has several chapters going over the different characters. All the major characters get their own chapters: The Shadow, Doc Savage, G-8, Phantom Detective, The Avenger, Captain Future and Operator #5. These chapters give a good overview of the character and his associates, information on the stories, as well as info on the authors of the works. The Shadow and Doc chapters have info on the comicbook and reprint works done.
The minor Thrilling characters like the Black Bat, Green Ghost, Masked Detective, Crimson Mask, and Purple Scar are covered in one chapter.
Another chapter covers the various villain pulps like Doctor Death, Doctor Satan, Wu Fang, Octopus/Scorpion, etc. And the various flying characters, Philip Strange, Griffon, Bill Barnes, The Lone Eagle and many others, get a chapter. Jungle characters, Tarzan and his many clones, get another.
A final chapter wraps up with other minor characters like The Skipper, The Whisperer and so on, up to the final pulp hero, Captain Zero. The book is rounded out with a lot of nice cover and interior artwork.
Nick Carr’s work is more of an encyclopedia of all the major and many of the minor pulp heroes.
Minor ones get a page or less, but the major ones will get several pages. Info on their associates is also given, and for most you get a good overview of the character. What is lacking is any detailed information on the stories or their availability. For that, you will need to go to other works for in depth information, such as the various “Companion” volumes from Altus Press.
But as a quick reference, this work is great. I keep it at hand to remind me of basic info on these characters.
Now, one flaw with the work is the characters are not all given in alphabetical order. Some are out of order. And in a few cases, there is one article that covers several characters, like G-men and some of the flying characters. I wound up writing their names into the table of contents to help me find them.
There are some good additional items in the work that also makes it useful. Ron Hanna contributes an index and bibliography of Nick Carr’s many works. Ver Curtis has an article on the “care and feeding” of pulps. And Hanna has an article on the New Pulp heroes that were coming from Wild Cat Books at the time.
Sadly, this last work is out of print from Wild Cat Books, but is still available in ebook format through Amazon.
But, if you consider yourself a pulp hero fan, you should have both of these works on your shelves, and better yet, read them. These serve as great intros to the larger world of pulp heroes. Only the more in-depth works on individual characters are more comprehensive, and sadly I don’t expect to see such works for some of the minor characters. Both Hutchison and Carr are longtime pulp researchers, who have written other works. If you like their works, look for others by them as well.
