I have previously posted on The Bronze Gazette, a “must have” fanzine for fans of Doc Savage put out by Howard Wright.
It’s published about three times a year and subscriptions are for three specific issues, the most recent trio being issues 71 through 73. So we will focus on those three here. Info on how to subscribe can be found at the Pulp Coming Attractions website.
In the past, The Bronze Gazette has reprinted several of the Street & Smith Doc Savage comic book stories (see my posting for more on this). They are, in fact, the only current place to find such reprints. A highlight of this trio of issues is the reprinting of the three-part adaptation of “The Land of Terror” that ran in The Shadow Comics #3 and Doc Savage Comics #1 and #2, here called “Thunder Island.”
While the general plotline was followed, due to the limitation of the comics at the time, things were really simplified. Only Monk appeared in this adaptation. One source claims Ham appears in the third part, but this is not true. Frankly, the artwork was so poor that it was sometimes hard to distinguish Doc and Monk in some of the panels. Usually the only difference might be hair color (which wasn’t correct for the two) or pants color.
• #71 (July 2014) In addition to the comic reprint, we got two articles in this issue. The longer one was on ventriloquism in Doc stories, and a look at an early ventriloquist, the Great Lester. The other was a brief look at the upcoming (at the time) new Justice Inc. comic book. As always, the issue was rounded out with info on upcoming works.
• #72 (October 2014) The bulk of this issue was taken up by one article looking at the recent Doc Savage series from Dynamite. This article was much more detailed than my posting on it, looking at various aspects, like the new aides, the technology and more. Overall I thought this was a very good and detailed review. We also got the second part of “The Land of Terror” adaptation. I thought a couple things were interesting in this part. One panel is based on the cover of “Pirate of the Pacific” (which was also reused as the cover of the comic this part appeared in). I also thought that having Doc get his shirt ripped (he didn’t wear a vest or suit) in the story was also funny, considering the later image of the ripped-shirt Doc.
• #73 (March 2015) In addition to the third and final part of “The Land of Terror” comic adaptation, we got three articles in this issue. There is an interesting speculative article on Doc Savage spending some time training as a replacement for Captain America after his death/disappearance toward the end of WWII when he and Bucky were launched on a rocket (as shown in Marvel Comics as part of their bringing Captain America into modern times and the basis for a similar situation in the first “Captain America” movie). Marvel later explained that the post-WWII stories of Cap were really others who took his place after his disappearance. The second article is a report (with photos) of the recent Doc Con 17. The third article is an advanced review on the next upcoming new Doc Savage novel: “The Sinister Shadow,” which is coming out very soon.
Sadly, we learn in issue #73 that Howard will be ending The Bronze Gazette with issue #75. Subscriptions are being taken for the final two issues, and I encourage all Doc fans to get your subscription request in. I am sad to see this fanzine ending, as it was great. I still have a few gaps in my collection of them. Hopefully the semi-annual “Big Book of Bronze” will pick up the slack of Doc Savage fan writing.
