With another Doc Con completed, we get another edition of The Big Book of Bronze. Volume 8 has a theme on the long promised new Doc Savage movie, but we also get some other articles.
Julian Puga looks at “The Tunnel Terror,” in particular working out where this adventure occurred.
We get an interesting article on something from Lester Dent‘s life. Most are aware that he owned for several years a schooner that he and Norma sailed along the east coast and the Caribbean looking for treasure. In 1936, he sponsored a contest whereby a high school boy from Missouri could win a trip to the Caribbean with him. The boys had to write an essay on what they would do if they were President. And it was won by John Yauk. We get a copy of his essay, and a copy of his obituary, which shows that he became an Air Force pilot with a very good record of service.
Will Murray writes about the new Pat Savage novel he did, which hopefully will not be the last. Interestingly, here he compares her to the early 1930s Nancy Drew in many ways. I do hope this novel will lead to further ones.
Joe DeVito, the current Doc artist, provides an article on King Kong, looking at his new book coming out (that has nothing to do with the new Kong movie).
As to the upcoming Doc movie, we have two articles on that.
The first looks at the several years journey of the current Shane Black movie, looking at all the news (and rumors) that connected from Chris Hemsworth and now Dwayne Johnson.
But the bulk of the volume, over two-thirds of it, are taken up by a single work by Dafydd Neal Dyar. This long article looks at the various attempted movies and TV shows of Doc Savage. It’s long as it also gives associated information on radio and comic strip attempts, how other dime novel and pulp heroes have fared, and more. I learned a lot about the Shadow movies and series that what I previously knew, as well as more on the radio show. A lot of this I knew, but there was a lot I didn’t. I got more info on some things I had heard of, and saw artwork and proposals I never knew about.
For this article alone it’s worth getting this volume.
Like all the previous volumes, this one comes from Solace of Fortitude Publications and can be purchased from Lulu. Sorry, no, you can’t get it from Amazon. If you don’t have the previous volumes, all are still available at Lulu.
Nice recap!