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AIR COMBAT
A LOOK AT THE PULPS
Over a year after Street & Smith's The Shadow hit newsstands in late 1931, its success now proven, other character-driven magazines joined the publishing fray. Thrilling Publications' long-lived Phantom Detective debuted in February of 1933, followed the next month by Street & Smith's own Doc Savage. In October of that year, Popular Publications -- as it often did -- took things further, with two new hero pulps, The Spider and G-8 and His Battle Aces.
While The Spider was notable for it's emotional prose, G-8 distinguished itself by having the wildest conceit of any pulp series ever published: According to the secret diary of G-8, an ace American aviator and spy, Germany faught the "War to End All Wars" using a mixture of super-scientific invention and supernatural creatures! If you were the kind of person who was disappointed by the "rational explanation" at the end of a fantastic Doc Savage story, then G-8 was for you! Nothing but genuine werewolves, zombies and thawed-out Vikings on G-8's battlefield! In this version of The Great War, anything went!
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G-8. The greatest of all the pulp air aces was created by Robert J. Hogan, a veteran author of the pulps and former pilot, and appeared in 110 issues of G-8 and His Battle Aces, beginning with the October 1933 issue. G-8, who was never given a real name besides his codename (it might be argued that "G-8" was his real name), was an air ace and agent of Allied Intelligence during the first World War. Initially G-8 is saved by two superior pilots, Bull Martin and Nippy Weston, who bicker with each other but can always be relied upon to help G-8. Soon enough both became G-8's aides and he became a better pilot than either. Nippy is a small, quick, blond magician who scorns superstition and who flies Spad #13. Bull is tall (twice Nippy's size), broad, a former All-American half-back, and very superstitious, which is why he flies Spad #7. G-8, the "Master Spy," learned the art of disguise from his manservant Battle, who was highly skilled in that area. And guest-star Red Falcon undoubtedly taught him a trick or two. And he most likely learned some things from R-1, the beautiful blonde pilot from the American Intelligence Service.
G-8 himself, of course, is exceptionally capable and, as mentioned, the greatest fighter pilot of them all. He's only of average height, though athletically built, and has "sandy" hair and "steel gray" eyes. He and the Battle Aces worked from an airdrome located near Le Bourget, north of Paris.
G-8's Rogues Gallery was extraordinary, arguably the superior of the Shadow's. In addition to the supernatural monsters G-8 killed, the vampires and werewolves and zombies that G-8 sent to the vasty halls of death, there were the recurring Japanese and German villains. The worst was Herr Doktor Kreuger, the evillest mad scientist Germany ever produced, a man completely dedicated and devoted to evil and viciousness solely for their own sake. His plans ranged from killing all the humans between the Rhone and Paris by way of giant, poison-breathing bats to using captured American pilots against their own side in suicide attacks. He was a short little man with teeth filed to a point, and he always wore his trademark gray cutaway coat. There was Baron von Todschmecker, a schemer and pilot who carried on despite a knife, thrown by G-8, lodged in his brain. There was also Chu Lung, the Chinese "Master of Death" and a flying spy for the German military. Chu Lung was a gaunt giant with "glowing jade-green eyes" and an aerial arsenal, including poisonous clouds, artificial, death-dealing banshee wails, and a gas-powered, fire-breathing dragon plane. Herr Matsu was a small, soft-spoken Japanese freelancer who hired out to the Germans to fight G-8, and then returned as Chu Lung's ally. There was Stahlmaske (Steelmask), a Prussian genius with, as one critic put it, "Messianic delusions." G-8 had mutilated his face with one well-aimed shot, and so Stahlmaske, having lost not only most of his face but much of his memory, hid behind a black steel mask, created fear and loathing among even the German High Command, and invented a number of deadly weapons and vehicles to kill the Allies and help Germany.
And then there was Herr Grun, the beauty-hating American ape-man; the Vampire Hag, "queen of the winged dead;" the Raven, a "beak-faced avian travesty," who swore vengeance against G-8 for the death of his younger brother and for his own facial disfigurement; the enormous Man In Armor, who flew a fighter plane in full plate and who led "an army of bloated corpses;" Dr. Schlemmer, a mad scientist who created bloodthirsty "gorilla-men;" Herr Feuer, the asbestos-clad German firebug; and, finally, Herr Doktor Wormer, the "Death Master," the German mad scientist who planned to literally blow up the world. When need be, these villains would team up together to fight G-8. They never won, but oh, the high times they had!
MORE: http://www.geocities.com/jjnevins/pulpsg.html
http://www.empirecollectibles.com/pulp.html
Flying Aces was published by Aaron Wyn, who also published
At their peak of popularity in the 1920s and 1930s, the most successful pulps could sell up to one million copies per issue. Among the best-known titles of this period were Adventure, Amazing Stories, Black Mask, Dime Detective, Flying Aces, Horror Stories, Marvel Tales, Oriental Stories, Planet Stories, Spicy Detective, Startling Stories, Thrilling Wonder Stories, Unknown and Weird Tales.[1]
http://www.answers.com/topic/pulp-magazine-1
http://www.coverbrowser.com/covers/flying-aces
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulp_magazine
Pulp magazines started to make the change from World War I stories to more modern yarns just prior to America being embroiled in the conflict [WWII]. Without American boys officially in the war, Ned Pines started RAF Aces, highlighting Canadian and British RAF pilots’ desperate battle against the Nazi Luftwaffe. This magazine did not last too long as Pearl Harbor changed everything.
http://www.philsp.com/data/data268.html
By the 1930s all of the fiction genres that we're now familiar with were solidified in the minds of both publishers and the public. There were war magazines (Over the Top, War Stories, Battle Cry, etc.); there were aviation magazines (Air Action, Aces, Fighting Aces, Sky Birds, Wings, G-8 and His Battle Aces, Dusty Ayres and His Battle Birds, etc.); there were detective magazines by the dozens (Clues Mystery Magazine, Famous Detective, Detective Fiction Weekly, Underworld, The Black Bat, etc.); there were romance magazines (Love Story Magazine, Magic Love, Cupid's Diary, Ten Story Romance, Ranch Romances, Romantic Range, etc.); there were horror magazines (Horror Stories, Terror Tales, Uncanny Tales, Ghost Stories, etc.); there were fantasy publications as well (Weird Stories, Strange Tales, Unknown Worlds, Fantastic Adventures). There were even pulp magazines full of fiction stories for sports fans such as, Fight Stories, Knockout Stories, Thrilling Baseball Stories and Champion Sports Stories.
MORE: http://www.public.asu.edu/~paulcook/Second%20Lecture.htm
During the late 20’s, pulp publishers were trying specialized titles, magazines with fiction that centered on a central theme. Gangsters, Fire Fighters, Spies, Navy Stories and flying into to fill a void came aviation magazines. Air Stories from Fiction House was the first aviation title, but it was soon followed by a host of others, including Dell’s War Birds. [Artist Rudolph] Belarski’s talented brush produced art for nearly all of them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolph_Belarski
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