Review: ‘New Adventures of Jim Anthony’

For those not familiar, Jim Anthony was a sort-of Doc Savage “clone” published by Trojan/Culture Publications in the early 1940s. Trojan was a publisher of the “spicy” pulps, a sort-of soft porn magazine.

Now we have a new Jim Anthony novel from Pro Se Press, part of their Pulp Obscura line.

But first, a little background for those who didn’t read my earlier posting on him.

Jim Anthony was “half Irish, half Indian, and all-American.” More emotional than Doc, Anthony was a physical and mental marvel. He had a penthouse in the Waldorf-Anthony Hotel, which he owned, and had a secret mansion in the Catskills called “The Tepee.” He was assisted by a small group of people include Tom Gentry, pilot and right-hand man; Mephito, his shaman grandfather; his butler; and Dolores Colquitte, the daughter of a U.S. senator and his fiance.

Altus Press is putting out a complete collection of the original stories, and has two volumes out so far (each with three novels). Airship 27 did three volumes of new stories. You can read more about them in my prior posting. Airship 27 has since come out with a fourth volume.

And now Jim Anthony joins Pro Se Press’ Pulp Obscura line with “The New Adventures of Jim Anthony, Super-Detective,” under the authorship of Joshua Reynolds.

Reynolds seems to be taking the lead in writing new Jim Anthony stories. He has written a few that have appeared in volumes of Black Coat Press‘s “Tales of the Shadowmen,” mostly set in the post-WWII period. He wrote half of Airship 27’s second Anthony volume, and all of the third. And he wrote a story in the second “Black Bat Mysteries” from Airship 27 in which Jim Anthony appeared. So will this be the first of several Jim Anthony volumes from Reynolds and Pro Se? Time will tell.

It’s not clear when this story is set. Mention is made of Rado Ruric, who menaced Anthony in his first three novels, and was killed in the third. We are told that Anthony had been involved in World War I toward the end in his “mid teens.” Not sure if I like that idea, as per info given in the sixth original Anthony novel, “Murder in Paradise,” no mention is made of this and it seem clear he is in his late 20s, maybe early 30s and his adventures are set in the early 1940s.

Reynolds had tried to hint in his previous novel that Anthony had been adventuring for a while, but this contradicts info given in the original novels. We get a hint that Anthony actually fought the French supervillain Fantomas and the Si Fan. Might be interesting future stories.

In this work, New York is being menaced by the “Death’s Head Cloud,” a sinister gas attack that drives people crazy. Why is this being done and what (and who) is causing it? Anthony need to find out soon before more deaths occur.

Overall, it’s a great new Jim Anthony work (despite some issues with continuity). All of the Anthony cast is present. Sadly, there are no trips to The Teepee (no time in this short work), nor do we ‘see’ Anthony strip down to his yellow swim trunks.

There was a lot of name dropping in the work, and I almost felt it was too much. We get references to other pulp heroes (Doc Savage, Black Bat, The Spider, Green Lama, Ravenwood, and others), and we get hints of him dating other women from the pulps, including Pat Savage and the Domino Lady. We get references to pulp villains and menaces, but I wasn’t certain which ones were original or not. (A flub is that Doctor Death and Doctor Satan were said to be medical doctors, but neither are.) But I always worry that some not familiar with them will be put off by the namedropping.

That said, I do look forward to further new Anthony works, both from Pro Se and from Airship 27.

Another thing I was surprised was the size of the work. This one was smaller than the earlier Pulp Obscura volumes I have. The Diamondstone volume was the same size, so does this mean all future PO volumes will be the same size?

Check it out.