After too long we get two more issues of Murania Press‘ excellent magazine Blood ‘n’ Thunder.
Blood ‘n’ Thunder covers not just pulps, but their dime novel forerunners, movie serials, and early radio. But every issue has something of interest to pulp fans, and these are no exceptions, having both new articles, and reprints of both fiction and non-fiction. As I noted in my previous review, editor Ed Hulse‘s plan is to continue the magazine until #50, then continue it as a series of books.
Surprisingly, issue #46/47 came out, and #48 followed rapidly. I wound up receiving both at the same time.
Issue 46/47
Let’s first take a closer look at Blood ‘n’ Thunder #46/47 (Winter/Spring 2016).
Yup, another double issue clocking in at 230 pages with the usually collection of reviews, articles, and reprints. As I noted, there is stuff here for pulp fans, OTR and movie serial fans, and lots of crossover.
First up is a reprint from the 1932 Writer’s Digest on the western pulp market.
Then we get an interest pulp magazine review. S. Craig Zahler looks at two issues of Weird Tales. He feels that the May 1932 issue is excellent, but the March 1932 issue he thinks is one of the worse pulp magazines. See why as he assesses the stories in each.
Dave Smith looks at the long-running air pulp hero, The Long Eagle, which ran for 76 stories at Thrilling.
Missing episodes from The Mysterious Traveler radio show is the focus of Martin Grams‘ article. I mainly know this show from the Charlton Comic it spawned, with art by Steve Ditko (who recently did a new issue of this title). It also spawned a short-lived (four issues) pulp magazine.
Ed Hulse looks at an early silent serial, The Million Dollar Mystery.
An interesting article looks at Robert E. Howard‘s attempts to crack the Clayton pulps. This one also serves as a pretty good examination of this pulp publisher and is by Howard scholar Morgan Holmes.
Another OTR series, Stay Tuned for Terror, is examined. This is apparently another “pulp to radio” series, with stories adapted from Weird Tales.
The Falcon is a detective hero of movies, TV, radio, and fiction with a very convoluted history. This article by Bruce Dettman works it all out. I had never heard of this character until Mark Ellis decided to revive him in The Falcon: Resurrected, so this is a welcome addition.
Rick Lai provides an article on Will Murray‘s recent Sinister Shadow novel that officially teams-up Doc Savage and The Shadow. Here he looks at how this work fits into the chronology and continuity of both series. So not so much a review, this article will probably more enjoyed by those who have read the work.
The Spider movie serials are examined in a detailed article, that is followed by an article on Iris Meredith, who played Nita. Both are by publisher Ed Hulse.
The 1936 Flash Gordon serial is celebrated with a short article and a selection of promotional materials.
For fiction, we get a reprint from Dan Turner, Hollywood Detective.
The zine wraps up with a large section devoted to court documents from a 1941 lawsuit between Fictioneers/Popular and Columbia over the similarity of titles between Columbia’s Black Hood Detective and Fictioners’ long-running and classic Black Mask. Reading over the material, you also pick up other information on the pulps. Personally, I don’t feel that Columbia was at fault here. Black Hood Detective was one of the rare instances of a comic-book character (MLJ’s Black Hood) having a hero pulp magazine. The Black Hood was pretty popular, even getting a radio show.
Now, some of the examples of Columbia (and related companies) coming up with pulp magazine titles too close to Popular’s I can accept. Columbia was one of the lesser pulp publishers (in many ways). It was owned by Louis Silberkleit, who is the “L” in MLJ Comics. We get in the materials a lot of examples of other court cases between various pulp publishers over too similar title names. One I found interesting was Popular going after Albing over their Red Mask hero pulp, which they retitled Red Hood. So that explains that change. Black Hood Detective would be retitled Hooded Detective after the first issue and I didn’t know why. Now I do.
Now, speculation: Thrilling was working on a new pulp hero to be called the Purple Hood or the Purple Mask. He would appear as the Purple Scar in Fall of 1941, after this trial. Could this trial have lead to the name change?
Issue 48
Issue #48 (Summer 2016) is a normal size issue, but still gives us a lot of great stuff.
In non-fiction reprints, we get an article on Detective Dragnet from a 1931 issue of Writer’s Digest. This is the magazine that Lester Dent‘s early “gadget hero” Lynn Lash appeared.
Ed Hulse reviews the March 1933 issue of Dime Mystery Book, before it became a “weird menace” pulp.
And Ed also takes a look at the three Monogram Pictures’ The Shadow movies from 1946. These followed two other runs of The Shadow movies and a serial.
And Ed has a further article looking at a 1926 silent movie serial, The House Without a Key, which introduces us to Charlie Chan. It was based on the same titled work that introduced the character, though he was more a secondary one at that point.
Morgan Holmes, a Howard scholar, provides an article on the Western yarns of Robert E. Howard. Here he defends them from the claim they are sub-par.
Pulp researcher and novelist Will Murray provides an interesting piece on a proposed Street & Smith hero pulp that would have been more fantastical than others. This character was developed during the 1939/40 expansion of hero pulps that saw a spurt of new ones in response to the growing number of comic book heroes. S&S put out The Avenger, The Wizard, gave The Whisperer back his own mag, and was planning a new Bill Barnes magazine (which instead became the Bill Barnes comic). Almost enough info here that an enterprising New Pulp author could pick this up and create a new character. I did find it interesting that S&S made the mistake of referring to The Avenger as “The Challenger,” when someone created an Avenger-inspired New Pulp character with that name.
Ed provides the second part of his survey of Famous Fantastic Mysteries, an overlooked pulp reprint magazine. (The first part ran in BnT #45). This on focuses on FFM after Munsey was purchased by Popular.
The issue ends with a couple of art portfolios. One has ads for 1930s Street & Smith pulps that ran in the company’s top-selling movie fan magazine Picture Play. The other is rare pulp cover paintings scanned from the original art, though sadly in black and white.
Per the editorials in these, the plan at this point is to have a final double issue (#49/50) come out this Fall, which will close out the “magazine” life of Blood ‘n’ Thunder.
Going forward there will be themed “bookazine” issues coming out, ideally timed with events like PulpFest and Windy City. They won’t be numbered and there won’t be subscriptions. There may be an occasional issue with a mixture of materials.
I look forward to the final issue, and am interested in see the follow on bookazines.
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