In this posting on pulp fanzines, I look at the excellent, but very short-lived fanzine: Duende.
Duende was edited and largely written by pulp historian Will Murray, and published by Odyssey Publications, a short-lived publisher that Murray was involved in later in its existance.
Odyssey published several items that pulp fans should be aware of in addition to Duende. They did about a dozen pulp facsimile reprints, the great “Duende History of The Shadow Magazine” (which I’ll cover in a future posting), and a series of small booklets on Doc Savage (which I hope to review soon as well).
The title of the fanzine is strange. “Duende” is a Spanish word that means “goblin,” but it means more than that, sometimes also esprit and elan as well. They worked to explain the meaning in the first issue, but I can’t do it justice.
Duende lasted by two issues: The first came out in April 1975; and the second in Winter ’76-’77. There were no definite plans for a third, and I guess one could consider the Doc Savage booklets or The Shadow book as a sort of third issue. The magazine was more scholarly than other fanzines, and I am not certain where all the material that appeared here has been reprinted.
Duende No. 1 has several articles. We get a nice long article by Murray on Lester Dent‘s various detectives, such as Lynn Lash, Lee Nash, Foster Fade, Click Rush, and others. We get a one-page article and checklist of Thunder Jim Wade. Then we get an interview with pulp artist Graves Gladney, which apparently first appeared in much longer form in issue Nos. 4 and 5 of the pulp fanzine Whizzard. The rest of the issue has some brief editorial items and short reviews. The front cover is based on the cover for The Shadow issue featuring the story “Zemba,” and the back cover gives a brief overview of the main agents of The Shadow.
Duende No. 2 again kicks off with another Shadow cover reproduced by Rick Roe. The bulk of this issue is taken up by a long article by Murray on “The Secret Kenneth Robesons,” which reveals who the authors of all the Doc Savage novels were. Fans today may not appreciate the impact of this article, as it finally revealed who wrote the Doc novels.
This article is followed by an index of all the stories that gives their submission dates and original titles, along with publication date and authors. These two works have since been reprinted in Altus Press‘ collection of Murray articles “Writings in Bronze”.
Rounding out the issue is a long interview with Walter Gibson, creator of The Shadow. And my copy has a 8.5×11 sheet folded in half with corrections to the issue.
I have no idea where the article on Dent’s detectives may have been reprinted. It deserves to be so, especially if info on Ed Stone can be added. Nor do I know where the interview with Gibson may have been reprinted.
As noted, a very nice, if short-lived fanzine.
