Pulp Heroes: The Roots of Garbaugust Part 1

[@bobbehers1625]

The Shadow and Doc Savage rule! Thanks Mike!

[@Typingoctopus]

I would love a Walter Gibson or Lester dent vid

[@k76bk15]

Society goes into existential crisis & self-condemnation every time Michael pronounces 'Society'.

[@rogercroft3218]

Love the Shadow of the pulps.

[@nickster_xd8937]

I went to NYC on Wednesday and found copies of the first Doc Savage and Shadow novels from Bantam. I’m on page 42 of Man of Bronze and I’m absolutely loving it! Cost me $60 for both, tho.

[@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader]

Pulp heroes and these stories are so incredibly important. I just never had the opportunity to read them or find any reprints before a couple years ago. Ever since then I’ve been devouring everything I can get my hands on. Not only are they addicting, but you can see the backbone of so many developments in fiction and pop culture throughout them. Not to mention entire generations of writers got their start in pulp magazines. I just wish I had started sooner because I missed out on all of the Sanctum reprints and have been collecting every shadow volume I can find, which have shot up in price astronomically. The six volumes of Zorro are absolute treasures since they’ve never been fully collected before. Reading them all for the first time was absolutely magic. The Shadow and Zorro (and The Phantom) are my favorites, but I love Doc Savage and all the others. The Spider is definitely the most no holds barred crazy awesome in terms of pulpiness and insanity. I have that same collected volume so those were the first stories I read. The body counts alone in a spider story are massive. I also really love the supporting characters. This is reminding me of all the videos I want to do on pulp characters…😂 When you finish the 500 book challenge I highly recommend the Agent 13 trilogy if you haven’t read it for the best pulp hero made after the era had ended.

[@michaelk.vaughan8617]

I look forward to any videos you do on pulps. I’ve been enjoying your videos on the Indiana Jones novels.

[@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader]

@@michaelk.vaughan8617 thanks! I’m glad I’m finally reading them in order. It’s odd that there’s so little discussion of them anywhere.

[@jameslarock2078]

How about Operator #5!! Great apocalyptic pulp fiction!

[@occultdetective]

Great video. My roots are deeply tied to these pulp heroes. I had hoped to take part in Garbaugust, but I've a mountain of projects that will have me swallowed up all month. Thank goodness for #booktube so I can live vicariously through what you all are reading.

[@tommonk7651]

Love me some pulps. Collected Doc Savage and the Shadow and the Avenger when I was a kid. Couldn’t get enough…. Perhaps not surprisingly, I had an affinity for Doc Savage and a certain chemist with a pet pig….

[@mediumjohnsilver]

It has been months since I read a novella of _The Shadow._ I must get back to those adventures during GarbAugust. The next unread Shadow volume in my collection (Volume 80) contains “Shiwan Khan Returns” (1939) and “The Invincible Shiwan Khan” (1940).

[@MriInterocitor]

Khan’t touch that!

[@ellesse3862]

Mmm the Black Bat Archives and Green Lama, I like the omnibus collections. Theres quite a few pulp reprints currently floating around in print and for the technobook, enough for readers to get a wide sampling of some great characters. Last month I enjoyed The Complete Adventures of the Domino Lady by Lars Anderson, a slim one volume book of six tales, a short lived character but fun stories of revenge, crime, and corruption.

[@bizarrebraincomics7819]

Love the pulps. I pick up old pulps and reprints when I can it not too expensive. They gave rise to and overshadowed by comic books.

[@towerjunikeka-tet1979]

Pulp is eternal, it's purest form of literature and fun all together,il' never forget old westerns from my grandpa,i would just stare at the covers and my imagination would go all over the place...hmm nice lookin' cowboy but what if we put a dinosaur over there? That kind of things,and my child play was full of cowboys fightin' barbarians or giant spiders,my favorite :)

[@StevenEverett7]

I look forward to your reviewing of the pulp stories Michael. Doc Savage and The Shadow are some of my favorite reading!

[@paulmonahawk4921]

This is really fascinating, these stories are so influential, we need pulp heroes, I say, by golly!

[@michaelwatson5000]

I adored Doc Savage back in my pre-teen years! Bantam re-issued them as mass market paperbacks in the 60s, and I ate them up. My older brother used to snidely say things like “Still reading Doc Sewage, I see.”

[@BookBlather]

Awesome video! My first Doc Savage is on the way, and I’m pretty excited about it. Never heard of him, but that Green Lama looks pretty rad!

[@michaelk.vaughan8617]

You will like Doc.

[@Wes_LeVoLibrary]

Welcome to Pulp University with Professor Vaughan.

[@michaelk.vaughan8617]

😅

[@GoBabylon]

Great video! Lucked into a stash of the 70's Jules De Grandin paperbacks, as well as few of the Spider reprints a few years back. Still packs a punch today, I think...

[@Krypton_Ken]

Michael, I was wondering if you had ever read Sandman Mystery Theatre? With your love of pulp, noir, and comics it feels like it would be right up your alley. Thanks, love the channel.

[@michaelk.vaughan8617]

It’s been a while but yes, I’ve read that.

[@russworks2882]

This is going to be so much fun. The hero pulps are a touchstone, but it's not as if they are the Big Bang of super heroes. I see them as part of a continuum, preceded in dime novels and family-oriented magazines. Are Sherlock Holmes and Fu Manchu that different because they appeared in the Strand and Colliers, which were part of the leisure entertainment in households before television and, God knows, the internet? I recently read one of the early Victorian penny dreadfuls of Spring-Heeled Jack "the Terror of London", very much in the mold of a scary disguised avenger. Before there was a Batman, kids in Japan thrilled to the folkloric exploits of Ogun Bat, the Golden Bat. The shape of the adventures change, but in whatever form, we've always had thrilling garbage to enjoy.

[@teetoo3790]

Liked this video and looking forward to Part 2.

[@MriInterocitor]

This makes me happy on a bad-health day. I love this stuff, and I love you presenting it so that others can enjoy it too. A friend is reading some of the Zorro books in a print-on-demand edition that turns out to have scanned text that proofread poorly. Best typo so far: instead of Pueblo de Los Angeles, “Edna de Los Angeles”. Now we want to read her adventures. Please tell me you’ve read Ellis and Cassady’s comic book series, Planetary. And if not, get thee to collections or the omnibus. The issue introducing Doc Brass is worth it all by itself for the pages in amazingly perfect period style.

[@michaelk.vaughan8617]

Everyone tells me I need to read Planetary. I guess I really should.

[@MriInterocitor]

@@michaelk.vaughan8617 It’s only 27 issues. Won’t take very long. And you will dig it.

[@denisadellinger4543]

You are the Grand Master Flash of Pulp history. I'd rather listen to you than eat. However, I was eating while watching this video.

[@disshelvedwithadamwhite8731]

You’re right about Zorro giving out his identity. They immediately retconned that when he was serialized. The green lama is fun and I love the Black Bat. Lama is all on kindle and I have the first Bat on kindle but I think those are all now print only. I have through volume six. I need to check and see if any more are out.

[@nedmerrill5705]

Let's get real. Trashy books got us into literature in the first place.

[@michaelk.vaughan8617]

True.

[@michaelwatson5000]

Yes! I re-read book # 1 in my twenties and thought, “How could I ever have liked this rubbish?” But then it occurred to me that these were exactly the right books for who I was at the time, and they helped establish the habit of reading entirely on my own initiative, for my own pleasure.

[@kelvinsantiago7061]

Black Book Detective for me all day looooong!.

[@DevilnightThe]

i love the pulp heroes, you should checkout one of my favourite The Phantom The Ghost Who Walks, The Phantom Detective is another classic pulp hero, Will Eisner's The Spirit,

[@stevezeidman7224]

I read Doc Savage! I think I remember he supposed to be bronze. He was nearly super human.

[@michaelk.vaughan8617]

He does have a good, permanent tan.

[@tompagnillo]

“The Shadow knows ..”

[@CriminOllyBlog]

This was really great.

[@michaelk.vaughan8617]

Thanks!

[@DDB168]

Yeh Lester Dent's wiki page, very interesting. Had an amateur radio license, pilot license and passed electrician and plumbers trade exams. Possibly the coolest author ever ! I mean let's face it, most authors are incredibly boring people 🤭🤭 Very interesting history lesson. I love the Robert Goulet inspired cover on Zorro. Or is it Wayne Newton ? 😉

[@michaelk.vaughan8617]

Lester Dent would actually miss deadlines because he was out adventuring!

[@timmeyer9191]

I love the pulps, but I will admit the hero pulps haven't held much interest for me. I seem to prefer the SFF&H along with the detective one more. Still, the history of the genre is fascinating to learn about.

[@garylovisi357]

Michael, good video and talk about the pulp heroes. You should do a video on Spider creator Novell Page, he was a wild guy!

[@planet6288]

Great video

[@michaelk.vaughan8617]

Thanks!

[@rondemkiw4492]

George Pal made a DOC SAVAGE movie in 1975 starring Ron Ely, who was a TV Tarzan.

[@benriley6716]

Good stuff....I know it isn't the written works but just ordered the 'Perfect Assassin' - 1947 Doc Savage movie. Looking forward to it.

[@michaelk.vaughan8617]

The Perfect Assassin is a newer novel by James Patterson. Doc Savage didn’t make it into the movies until 1975.

[@benriley6716]

​@@michaelk.vaughan8617 Ugh....yes the author Patterson was born in 1947. But on the condensed library page it made it look like that was the date of the movie. Oh well, I'll watch it anyway. Good catch.

[@bonpourvous]

I`d like to see a Jungle action Pulp hero team up of Doc Savage, The Phantom, Solomon Kane, Tarzan and maybe a Conan cameo for good measure. 💪🦍🐒🌴

[@cartert2]

Doc Savage is a fun read!

[@michaelk.vaughan8617]

It is.

[@Vice.K]

Wow! Those are so cool! I found a Perry Mason pulp the other day. It's next up in my TBR. I'm excited to check it out. If you have a video talking about those, which one is it?

[@nunyabidness4220]

The Shadow might kill one or two guys. The Spider might kill one or two hundred. I think "The Cholera King" had a body count of over 10,000...

[@freelivefree7221]

I tend to see the pulp heroes as a bit classier than the mens adventure heroes that came later. I am a big Destroyer fan and read quite a few of the Executioner (you know the character the Punisher was ripped off from) but I really loved the Shadow and Doc Savage. I read about two novels of each for a couple of years and really enjoyed it. There was going to be a Doc Savage cartoon by the people who did Jonny Quest which would have been awesome but it fell through.

[@michaelk.vaughan8617]

That would have been a fantastic cartoon.

[@davidnovakreadspoetry]

Maybe it's time to take that Lester Dent video off the back burner! 😅

[@michaelk.vaughan8617]

It is.

[@dylantindall5573]

!At last, the point of 'tall. Modernities heroes writ up on the worm of rent.

[@dranimations7902]

The pulp characters are fascinating. I wonder have you read the Dr Nikola stories by Guy Boothby - i have some in a book but i never hear anyone mention this character (i think the character was once pitted against Doc Savage strangely enough)

[@michaelk.vaughan8617]

Haven’t read Dr. Nikola.

[@bludluva]

Mike you showed a novel once that was virtually the exact same story as Superman’s origin. I really want to find it somewhere. What was it called, “the champion” or something

[@michaelk.vaughan8617]

I think you might be thinking of Gladiator by Philip Wylie. It is probably an inspiration for Superman but the origin and story of the character is actually quite different. It’s August’s pick for Roger’s Cheap Old Book Club.

[@stretmediq]

The basic Batman costume wasn't that unique. He wore a mask that didn't cover the lower half of his face and a cape. The best example of a similar outfit is of course Zorro but there were others so it's not surprising Batman and the Black Bat looked alike

[@edmundkarcher8754]

Michael, go to Google and type in Doc Savage radio shows. Second website should say radio echoes The Adventures of Doc Savage. There are 13 shows here pretty good sound quality 30 minutes each. There is no telling when or where they come from. If you have trouble let me know, I can send you an MP3 CD with the shows on it. Radio Echoes is a black hole of delight and wonderment. And it's free. Try not to fall in your fans would really miss you.

[@michaelk.vaughan8617]

Looks like these episodes were produced in 1985 by NPR. I didn’t know these existed. Thanks!

[@Batfan1964]

Good video, Michael! Have you read any Ki-gor pulps? I have a lot of his trade paperbacks. Despite being a Tarzan rip-off, I enjoy his stories.

[@michaelk.vaughan8617]

I’ve never read Ki-Gor.

[@scotttrammell3913]

Michael, I use every single one of these guys as a "member" of a "team" of Pulp Heroes, in addition to Conan of Cimmeria and Tarzan of the Apes, that I call "Adventurers Unlimited". Mind you, all of this is head-canon, in other words, all of this is from my imagination. Oh, by the bye, the "team" isn't just Doc Savage, Conan, Tarzan, The Shadow, Zorro, The Spider, and The Green Lama, there are dozens more. So, what do ya think?

[@russworks2882]

There was a bit of this in the comic Planetary; I think you;d enjoy it. It's a great premise.

[@scotttrammell3913]

@@russworks2882 I've read Planetary, and I did enjoy it very much. In fact that was one of the several influences upon my "team".( I have no analog for Hark, beyond Doctor FuManchu and he's my primary villain.)

[@michaelk.vaughan8617]

That sounds awesome!

[@davidsigler9690]

Does The Green Hornet count as pulp?

[@michaelk.vaughan8617]

The Green Hornet was a radio show character. A really good one.

[@davidsigler9690]

@@michaelk.vaughan8617 True he was that, and a bad movie....

[@davebrzeski]

He was the grand nephew of the Lone Ranger, who did have a handful of pulp magazine appearances in the 30s.

[@brettrobson5739]

DC definitely ripped off the Black Bat origin for first, Dr. Midnite, and then Two Face. G8 (aviator/spy/nutjob) is, IMO, the other great pulp hero.

[@michaelk.vaughan8617]

I really wish I had some G-8. That pulp sounds amazing.

[@russworks2882]

@@michaelk.vaughan8617 If you're able to get your hands on it, the Purple Invasion series that ran in the superspy Operator 5 pulp is one of the most feverish apocalyptic war epics of the pulps, full of massive Spider-level destruction, anarchy and paranoia. Maybe next year for Booktube at war?

[@derekgreen7319]

Do Tarzan, John Carter and Conan count ?