Recently I posted about Bronze Knuckles, a New Pulp fanzine I discovered. The main emphasis of the fanzine is pulp-hero stories, but other pulp-inspired stories are carried. Its slogan is “Keep Pulp Alive.” It’s done through a Patreon and I received the seventh issue.
Like the rest, this issue is about 40 pages long, about 8- by 10.5-inches in size, and saddle stitched. They use an off-white paper inside that I think was chosen in imitation of the color of pulp paper, which I thought was a nice touch. The covers are in full color, with black-and-white interior artwork.
Bronze Knuckles #7 (April 2023) has another new story using Adventurers Inc. by Alexandre LeVasseur. We get the last of The Lone Ranger reprint, and a comicbook story of Dracula set in space. This may be the first of a series of these stories.
As the last issue had an Adventurers Inc. story as well, I thought I would focus on those two in this posting.
For those not aware, Adventurers Inc. was a Doc Savage pastiche by William Bogart, who had ghosted some Docs for Lester Dent.
He took his Doc novel “The Magic Forest” and added some new elements, and had it published as “The Crazy Indian.” Doc became Rush Randall, Ham became Malcolm “The Deacon” Dean, and Monk became George “Buzz” Casey. But they have different backgrounds. Rush is an MIT electrical engineer; Malcolm is a chemist and an ex-Navy officer; and Casey is a mining engineer.
Their only appearance was in “The Crazy Indian,” which appeared in the November 1946 issue of Ziff-Davis’ short-lived post-war pulp, Mammoth Adventure. Thus these stories are set in 1947. This story has been reprinted. The one I have is in a collection by Black Dog Books, which I’ve reviewed.
In Bronze Knuckles #6, the story is “The Lost Lord.” Here the team is helping an old widow return to Gabon, where she had visited as a youth and was one of the few happy times in her life. While there, she learned of a British lord and lady who had passed away and been buried, but a few items were given to her father to return to the family. But somehow a diary wasn’t, which is still in her possession. Someone is trying to stop them. It may be tied to that old diary. The title passed to his brother, which his son will inherit. Will Rush succeed in their mission and figure out what is really going on?
In #7, it’s “The Rouge Rogue” and is cover-featured. Rush and the team head to the Statue of Liberty, where a strange terrorist has taken over. Known as the Rouge Rogue, he plans to blow it up and kill his hostages if he doesn’t get a ransom payment. But they find that the hostages are already dead. So will he still blow up the statue even if he gets the ransom? Can Rush stop him as he is monsterously strong.
At the end of the story, the team is joined by two more. Lucky Williams and Mike, who actually appeared in the original novel.
LeVasseur is working on a third story. It’s to be titled “The Wichita Lights” and is about something that lands in that area. I’m not sure where it will appear, hopefully in the next issue of Bronze Knuckles.
So if you aren’t getting this one, do so. I hope that there will be enough stories that one of the New Pulp publishers can collect them into a book (Airship 27 or Bold Venture Press or who knows?).
Some have urged him to write a novel, but I’m fine with whatever he is able to produce. I look forward to the next adventure of Adventurers Inc.
