Pulps of the 1930s Part 2: Doc Savage

Doc Savage first appeared in American pulp magazines during the 1930s and 1940s. His real name was Clark Savage, Jr., and he was a physician, scientist, adventurer, detective, and polymath who “rights wrongs and punishes evildoers.” He was created by publisher Henry W. Ralston and editor John L. Nanovic at Street & Smith Publications, with additional material contributed by the series’ main writer, Lester Dent. The illustrations were by Walter Baumhofer, Paul Orban, Emery Clarke, Modest Stein, and Robert G. Harris.

Ralston and Nanovic wrote a short premise establishing the broad outlines of the character they envisioned, but Doc Savage was only fully realized by the author chosen to write the series, Lester Dent. Dent wrote most of the 181 original novels, hidden behind the “house name’ of Kenneth Robeson.

The heroic-adventure character would go on to appear in other media, including radio, film, and comic books, with his adventures reprinted for modern-day audiences in a series of paperback books, which had sold over 20 million copies by 1979. Into the 21st century, Doc Savage has remained a nostalgic icon in the U.S., referenced in novels and popular culture. Longtime Marvel Comics editor Stan Lee credited Doc Savage as being the forerunner to modern superheroes.

Doc Savage Magazine was printed by Street & Smith from March 1933 to the Summer of 1949 to capitalize on the success of The Shadow magazine and followed by the original Avenger in September 1939. In all, 181 issues were published in various entries and alternative titles.

Background

Clark Savage, Jr. first appeared in March 1933 in the first issue of Doc Savage Magazine. Because of the success of the Shadow, who had his own pulp magazine, the publishers Street & Smith quickly launched this pulp title. Unlike the Shadow, Clark Savage, “Doc” to his friends, had no special powers, but was raised from birth by his father and other scientists to become one of the most perfect human beings in terms of strength, intelligence, and physical abilities.

Doc Savage set up base on the 86th floor of a world-famous New York skyscraper (implied, but never outright stated, as the Empire State Building; Phillip Jose Farmer, in his Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life, gives good evidence that this is likely the case). Doc Savage fought against evil with the assistance of the “Fabulous Five”.

Comic Books

Street & Smith Comics published comic book stories of Doc both in The Shadow comic and his own title. These started with Shadow Comics #1-3 (1940). In May 1940, the character moved to his own book, Doc Savage Comics. Originally, these stories were based on the pulp version, but with Doc Savage Comics #5 (1941), he was turned into a genuine superhero when he crashed in Tibet and was given a blue hood with a sacred ruby in the forehead that deflected bullets and hypnotized anyone who gazed into its mystical red light. These stories had a Doc (now known as “The Invincible”) who bore little resemblance to the character in the pulps. This lasted through the end of Doc Savage Comics in 1943 after 20 issues, and briefly with his return to Shadow Comics in vol. 3, #10 (Jan. 1944). He would last until the final issue, vol. 9, #5 (1948), though did not appear in every one. He also appeared in Supersnipe Comics #9 (June 1943).

Origin

A team of scientists assembled by his father deliberately trained his mind and body to near-superhuman abilities almost from birth, giving him great strength and endurance, a photographic memory, a mastery of the martial arts, and vast knowledge of the sciences. Doc was also a master of disguise and an excellent imitator of voices. He was a physician, scientist, adventurer, detective, inventor, explorer, researcher, and, as revealed in The Polar Treasure, a musician. Dent described the hero as a mix of Sherlock Holmes’ deductive abilities, Tarzan’s outstanding physical abilities, Craig Kennedy’s scientific education, and Abraham Lincoln’s goodness. He also described Doc Savage as manifesting “Christliness.” Doc’s character and world-view is displayed in his oath, which goes as follows:

Let me strive every moment of my life to make myself better and better, to the best of my ability, that all may profit by it. Let me think of the right and lend all my assistance to those who need it, with no regard for anything but justice. Let me take what comes with a smile, without loss of courage. Let me be considerate of my country, of my fellow citizens and my associates in everything I say and do. Let me do right to all, and wrong no man.

By the third story, Doc already had a reputation as a “superman”.

Doc Savage’s aides

Savage was accompanied on his adventures by up to five other regular characters (referred to in the 1975 movie and in marketing materials from the Bantam Books republication as “The Fabulous Five”), all highly accomplished individuals in their own right.

• Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Blodgett “Monk” Mayfair, an industrial chemist. Monk got his nickname from his simian build, notably his long arms, and his covering of red hair. He was in a constant state of “friendly feuding” with “Ham” Brooks. This began when his friend taught him some French words to say to an officer and Monk repeated them, not knowing they were a string of insults. The result was a lengthy stay in the guardhouse.

• Brigadier General Theodore Marley “Ham” Brooks, an accomplished attorney. Ham was considered one of the best-dressed men in the world, and as part of his attire, carried a sword cane whose blade wsa dipped in a fast- acting anesthetic. His nickname was acquired when Monk, in retaliation for his guardhouse incarceration, framed Brooks on a charge of stealing hams from the commissary. In the only case which Ham ever lost, he was convicted of stealing the hams.

• Colonel John “Renny” Renwick, a construction engineer. Renny is a giant of a man, with “fists like buckets of gristle and bone.” His favorite pastime was knocking the panels out of heavy wooden doors. He always wears a look of depression, which deepens the happier he grows. His favorite‚ -- and frequently used -- expression, was “Holy Cow!”

• Major Thomas J. “Long Tom” Roberts, an electrical engineer. “Long Tom” got his nickname from using an antiquated cannon of that nickname in the successful defense of a French village in World War I. Long Tom was a sickly-looking character, but fought like a wildcat.

• William Harper “Johnny” Littlejohn, an archaeologist and geologist. Johnny had an impressive vocabulary, never using a small word when a big one could suffice. (“I’ll be super-amalgamated!” was a favorite expression.) Johnny wore eyeglasses with a magnifying lens over his left eye in early adventures‚ -- that eye having been damaged in World War I. Doc later performed corrective surgery that restored Johnny’s sight in that eye, but Johnny retained the magnifier as a monocle for use both as a magnifying glass and as a memento.

In later stories, Doc’s companions became less important to the plot as the stories focus more on Doc. At least one critic questioned their necessity, since Savage’s talents were superior to theirs and he often had to rescue them. The “missing” characters were explained as working elsewhere, too busy with their own accomplishments to help. Towards the end of the series, usually only Monk and Ham appeared with Doc.

Doc’s cousin Patricia “Pat” Savage, who has Doc’s bronze skin, golden eyes, and bronze hair, also was along for many of the adventures, despite Doc’s best efforts to keep her away from danger. Pat chafed under these restrictions, or indeed any effort to protect her simply because she was female. She was also able to fluster Doc, even as she completely charmed Monk and Ham.

The 86th Floor

Doc’s office was on the 86th floor of a New York City skyscraper, implicitly the Empire State Building, reached by Doc’s private high-speed elevator. Doc owned a fleet of cars, trucks, aircraft, and boats which he stored at a secret hangar on the Hudson River, under the name The Hidalgo Trading Company, which was linked to his office by a pneumatic-tube system nicknamed the “flea run”. He sometimes retreated to his Fortress of Solitude in the Arctic, which pre-dates Superman’s similar hideout of the same name. The entire operation was funded with gold from a Central American mine given to him by the local descendants of the Mayans in the first Doc Savage story. (Doc and his assistants learned the little-known Mayan language of this people at the same time, allowing them to communicate privately when others might be listening.)

Technology

Many futuristic devices were described in the series, some of which have since become reality, including the flying wing, the answering machine, television, automatic transmission, night vision goggles, electromagnetic rail guns, and a hand-held automatic weapon, known variously as the machine pistol, the super-machine pistol, or the rapid-firer. A wide range of ammunition types were used for the machine pistols, including incendiary bullets that smash on contact, coating the target with a high-temperature paste-fed fire, high explosive bullets able to uproot trees, ordinary lead bullets, and the sleep- inducing “mercy bullets”.

A key characteristic of the Doc Savage stories was that the threats, no matter how fantastic, usually have a rational explanation. For example, a giant mountain-walking spider was revealed as a blimp, a scorching death came from super- charged electric batteries, a “sea angel” was a mechanical construct towed by a submarine, Navy ships sunk by a mysterious force were actually sabotaged, and so on. But Doc Savage also battled invisible killers, a murderous teleporter, and super-scientific foes from the center of the Earth.

In earlier stories, some of the criminals captured by Doc receive “a delicate brain operation” to cure their criminal tendencies. These criminals return to society, unaware of their past, to lead productive lives. The operation was mentioned in Truman Capote’s novel In Cold Blood, as an older Kansan recalls Doc’s “fixing” of the criminals he had caught.

Pulps of the 1930s Part 1: The Shadow

After the appearance of Zorro, other pulp character debuted but it wasn’t until the 1930s that new influential characters emerged, most notably The Shadow, Doc Savage, and Conan.

The Shadow

The Shadow was the name of a collection of serialized dramas, originally in 1930s pulp novels, and then in a wide variety of media. Its title character had been featured on the radio, in a long-running pulp magazine series, in American comic books, comic strips, television, serials, video games, and at least five feature films. The radio drama included episodes voiced by Orson Welles.

Originally created to be a mysterious radio show narrator, the Shadow was developed into a distinctive literary character in 1931 by writer Walter B. Gibson. 

The Shadow debuted on July 31, 1930, as the mysterious narrator of the radio program Detective Story Hour, which was developed to boost sales of Street & Smith’s monthly pulp Detective Story Magazine. When listeners of the program began asking at newsstands for copies of ‘that Shadow detective magazine’, Street & Smith decided to create a magazine based on a character called The Shadow, and hired Gibson to create a character concept to fit the name and voice and write a story featuring him. The first issue of The Shadow Magazine went on sale on April 1, 1931, a pulp series.

On September 26, 1937, The Shadow, a new radio drama based on the character as created by Gibson for the pulp magazine, premiered with the story “The Death House Rescue”, in which The Shadow was characterized as having ‘the power to cloud men’s minds so they cannot see him’. In the magazine stories, The Shadow was not given the literal ability to become invisible.

The introductory line from the radio adaptation of The Shadow – ‘Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!’ - spoken by actor Frank Readick, has earned a place in the American idiom. These words were accompanied by an ominous laugh and a musical theme, Camille Saint-Saëns’ Le Rouet d’Omphale (“Omphale’s Spinning Wheel,” composed in 1872). At the end of each episode, The Shadow reminded listeners that ‘The weed of crime bears bitter fruit! Crime does not pay. The Shadow knows!’ (However, some early episodes used the alternate statement, ‘As you sow evil, so shall you reap evil! Crime does not pay... The Shadow knows!’)

Background

In order to boost the sales of its Detective Story Magazine, Street & Smith Publications hired David Chrisman, of the Ruthrauff & Ryan advertising agency, and writer-director William Sweets to adapt the magazine’s stories into a radio series. Chrisman and Sweets thought the upcoming series should be narrated by a mysterious storyteller with a sinister voice, and began searching for a suitable name. One of their scriptwriters, Harry Engman Charlot, suggested various possibilities, such as “The Inspector” or “The Sleuth.” Charlot then proposed the ideal name for the phantom announcer: “The Shadow.”

Thus, beginning on July 31, 1930, “The Shadow” was the name given to the mysterious narrator of the Detective Story Hour radio program. The narrator was initially voiced by James LaCurto, who was replaced after four months by prolific character actor Frank Readick Jr. The episodes were drawn from the Detective Story Magazine issued by Street & Smith, “the nation’s oldest and largest publisher of pulp magazines.” Although the latter company had hoped the radio broadcasts would boost the declining sales of Detective Story Magazine, the result was quite different. Listeners found the sinister announcer much more compelling than the unrelated stories. They soon began asking news dealers for copies of “that Shadow detective magazine,” even though it did not exist.

Recognizing the demand and responding promptly, circulation manager Henry William Ralston of Street & Smith commissioned Walter B. Gibson to begin writing stories about “The Shadow.” Using the pen name of Maxwell Grant and claiming the stories were “from The Shadow’s private annals” as told to him, Gibson wrote 282 out of 325 tales over the next 20 years: a novel-length story twice a month (1st and 15th). The first story produced was “The Living Shadow,” published April 1, 1931.

Gibson’s characterization of The Shadow laid the foundations for the archetype of the superhero, including stylized imagery and title, sidekicks, supervillains, and a secret identity. Clad in black, The Shadow operated mainly after dark as a vigilante in the name of justice, terrifying criminals into vulnerability. Gibson himself claimed the literary inspirations upon which he had drawn were Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s “The House and the Brain.” Another possible inspiration for The Shadow is the French character Judex; the first episode of the original Judex film serial was released in the United States as The Mysterious Shadow, and Judex’s costume is rather similar to The Shadow’s. French comics historian Xavier Fournier noted other similarities with another silent serial, The Shielding Shadow, whose protagonist had a power of invisibility, and considered The Shadow to be a mix between the two characters. In the 1940s, some Shadow comic strips were translated in France as adventures of Judex.

Because of the great effort involved in writing two full-length novels every month, several guest writers were hired to write occasional installments in order to lighten Gibson’s workload. Those guest writers included Lester Dent, who also wrote the Doc Savage stories, and Theodore Tinsley. In the late 1940s, mystery novelist Bruce Elliott (also a magician) temporarily replaced Gibson as the primary author of the pulp series. Richard Wormser, a reader for Street & Smith, wrote two Shadow stories.

The Shadow Magazine ceased publication with the Summer 1949 issue, but Walter B. Gibson wrote three new “official” stories between 1963 and 1980. The first began a new series of nine updated Shadow novels from Belmont Books, starting with Return of The Shadow under his own name. The remaining eight—The Shadow Strikes, Beware Shadow, Cry Shadow, The Shadow’s Revenge, Mark of The Shadow, Shadow Go Mad, Night of The Shadow, and The Shadow, Destination: Moon—were written by Dennis Lynds, not Gibson, under the Maxwell Grant pseudonym. In these novels, The Shadow is given psychic powers, including the radio character’s ability “to cloud men’s minds,” so that he effectively became invisible; he is more of a spymaster than crime fighter in these eight updated novels.

Character Development

The character and look of The Shadow gradually evolved over his lengthy fictional existence:

As depicted in the pulps, The Shadow wore a wide-brimmed black hat and a black, crimson-lined cloak with an upturned collar over a standard black business suit. In the 1940s comic books, the later comic book series, he wore either the black hat or a wide-brimmed, black fedora and a crimson scarf just below his nose and across his mouth and chin. Both the cloak and scarf covered either a black double-breasted trench coat or a regular black suit. As seen in some of the later comics series, The Shadow also would wear his hat and scarf with either a black Inverness coat or Inverness cape.

In the radio drama that debuted in 1937, The Shadow did not wear a costume because he was invisible when he operated as a vigilante, a feature born out of necessity. Time constraints of 1930s radio made it difficult to explain to listeners where The Shadow was hiding and how he remained concealed from criminals until he was ready to strike, so the character was given invisibility, meaning the criminals (like the radio audience) only knew him by his haunting voice. The actor used their normal voice when the hero was in his civilian identity of Lamont Cranston and effects were added when he became invisible and acted as The Shadow, his voice now having a sinister and seemingly omnipresent quality. To explain this power, radio episodes regularly said that while a young man, The Shadow traveled around the world and then “through the Orient” where he learned how to read thoughts and became a master of hypnotism, granting him “the mysterious power to cloud men’s minds, so they could not see him.” In the episode “The Temple Bells of Neban” (1937), The Shadow said he developed these abilities in India specifically, under the guidance of a “Yogi priest” who was “Keeper of the Temple of Cobras” in Delhi. He did not wear a mask or any disguise while invisible, and so in episodes such as “The Temple Bells of Neban” (1937) he was cautious when he met an enemy who could potentially disrupt his hypnotic abilities, exposing his true face and instantly making him a visible target for attack.

In the print adventures, The Shadow was Kent Allard, although his real name was not revealed until The Shadow Unmasks (1937). Early stories explained he was once a famed aviator who fought for the French during World War I, known by the alias the “Black Eagle” according to one character in The Shadow’s Shadow (1933). Later stories revised this alias as the “Dark Eagle,” beginning with The Shadow Unmasks. After the war’s conclusion, Allard found a new challenge in waging war on criminals. Allard falsified his death by crash landing his plane in Guatemala, encountering the indigenous “Xinca tribe” as a result, who saw him as a supernatural being and provided him with two loyal aides. Allard returned to the United States and took residence in New York City, adopting numerous identities to acquire valuable information and conceal his true nature, and recruiting a variety of agents to aid his war on crime, only a few of whom are aware of his other identities.

As the vigilante called The Shadow, Allard hunted down and often violently confronts criminals, armed with Colt .45 pistols and sometimes using magician tricks to convince his prey that he’s supernatural. One such trick was The Devil’s Whisper, a chemical compound on the thumb and forefinger, causing a flash of bright flame and sharp explosion when he snapped his fingers. The Shadow was also known for wearing a ring with a purple stone (sometimes depicted as a red stone in cover artwork), gifted to Kent Allard from the Czar of Russia during World War I. The ring was later said to be one of two rings made with gemstones taken from the eyes of an idol made by the Xinca tribe (The Shadow Unmasks, 1937).

The Shadow’s best known alter ego was Lamont Cranston, a “wealthy young man-about-town.” In the pulps, Cranston was a separate character, a rich playboy who traveled the world while The Shadow used his identity and resources in New York (The Shadow Laughs, 1931). The Shadow’s disguise as Cranston worked well because the two men resemble each other (Dictator of Crime, 1941). In their first meeting, The Shadow threatened Cranston, saying that unless the playboy agreed to allow the aviator to use his identity when he was abroad, then Allard would simply take over the man’s identity entirely, having already made arrangements to begin the process, including switching signatures on various documents. Although alarmed at first, the real Lamont Cranston agreed, deciding that sharing his resources and identity was better than losing both entirely. The two men sometimes met afterward in order to impersonate each other (Crime over Miami, 1940). As Cranston, The Shadow often attended the Cobalt Club, an exclusive restaurant and lounge catering to the wealthy, and associates with New York City Police Commissioner Ralph Weston.

The Shadow’s other disguises included: businessman Henry Arnaud, who like Cranston was a real person whose identity Allard simply assumed at times, as revealed in Arnaud’s first appearance The Black Master (March 1, 1932); elderly Isaac Twambley, who first appeared in No Time For Murder (December 1944); and Fritz, an old, seemingly slow-witted, uncommunicative janitor who worked at police headquarters, listening in on conversations and examining recovered evidence, first appearing in The Living Shadow (April 1931).

For the first half of The Shadow’s tenure in the pulps, his past and true identity (outside of his Cranston disguise) were ambiguous. In The Living Shadow, a thug claiming to have seen the Shadow’s face recalls seeing “a piece of white that looked like a bandage.” In The Black Master and The Shadow’s Shadow, the villains of both stories saw The Shadow’s true face and remarked the vigilante was a man of many faces with no face of his own. It was not until the August 1937 issue, The Shadow Unmasks, that The Shadow’s real name was revealed.

In the radio drama series that premiered in 1937, the Allard secret identity and backstory were dropped for simplicity’s sake. The radio incarnation of The Shadow was really and only Lamont Cranston with no other regular cover identities, though he did adopt disguises and short-term aliases during some adventures. The radio version of Cranston traveled the world to “learn the old mysteries that modern science has not yet rediscovered” (“Death House Rescue” in 1937). Along with learning skills and knowledge in Europe, Africa, and Asia, he spent time training with a Yogi priest, “Keeper of the Temple of Cobras,” in Delhi and learned how to read thoughts and hypnotize people enough to “cloud” their minds, making himself invisible to them (as revealed in the episode “The Temple Bells of Neban” in 1937). He explicitly stated in several episodes that his talents were not magic but based on science. Returning to New York, he decided he could best aid the police and his city by operating outside the law as an invisible vigilante. He was somewhat less ruthless and more compassionate than the pulp incarnation.

Though initially wanted by the police, The Shadow also worked with and through them, notably gleaning information from his many chats (as Cranston) at the Cobalt Club with NYPD Commissioner Ralph Weston and later Commissioner Wainwright Barth who was also Cranston’s uncle (portrayed by Jonathan Winters in the 1994 film). Weston believed Cranston was merely a rich playboy who dabbled in detective work out of curiosity. Another police contact was Detective (later Inspector) Joseph Cardona, a key character in many Shadow novels.

In contrast to the pulps, The Shadow radio drama limited the cast of major characters to The Shadow, Commissioner Weston, and Margo Lane, the last of whom was created for the radio series. Along with giving The Shadow a love interest, Margo was created because it was believed that including Harry Vincent as a regular would mean an overabundance of male characters (considering the criminals in the stories were usually male too) and could possibly make it difficult for the audience to distinguish between the voices of so many male actors. The radio script for “The Death House Rescue” (reprinted in The Shadow Scrapbook) featured Harry Vincent, but he did not appear in the actual radio broadcast or any episode of the radio drama series. Clyde Burke made occasional appearances, but not as an agent of The Shadow. Lieutenant Cardona was a minor character in several episodes. Moe Shrevnitz (identified only as “Shrevvy”) made several appearances as a simple-minded acquaintance of Cranston and Lane who sometimes acted as their chauffeur, unaware Cranston was actually The Shadow.

Comic Strip

The Shadow has been adapted for the comics several times during his long history; his first comics appearance was on June 17, 1940, as a syndicated daily newspaper comic strip offered through the Ledger Syndicate. The strip’s story continuity was written by Walter B. Gibson, with plot lines adapted from the Shadow pulps, and the strip was illustrated by Vernon Greene. The comic strip ran until June 20, 1942.

Comic book

To both cross-promote The Shadow and attract a younger audience to its other pulp magazines, Street & Smith published 101 issues of the comic book Shadow Comics from Vol. 1, #1 – Vol. 9, #5 (March 1940 – Sept. 1949). A Shadow story led off each issue, with the remainder of the stories being strips based on other Street & Smith pulp heroes.

Impact

When Bob Kane and Bill Finger first developed Kane’s “Bat- Man,” they patterned the character after pulp mystery men such as The Shadow. Finger then used “Partners of Peril” — a Shadow pulp written by Theodore Tinsley — as the basis for Batman’s debut story, “The Case of the Chemical Syndicate.” Finger later publicly acknowledged that “my first Batman script was a takeoff on a Shadow story” and that “Batman was originally written in the style of the pulps.” This influence was further evident with Batman showing little remorse over killing or maiming criminals and not above using firearms. Decades later, noted comic book writer Dennis O’Neil would have Batman and The Shadow meet in Batman #253 (November 1973) and Batman #259 (December 1974) to solve crimes. In the former, Batman acknowledged that The Shadow was his biggest influence and in the latter, The Shadow reveals to Batman that he knows his true identity of Bruce Wayne but assures him that his secret is safe with him.

The Shadow was mentioned by science fiction author Philip José Farmer as being a member of his widespread and hero-filled Wold Newton family.

Alan Moore has credited The Shadow as one of the key influences for the creation of V, the title character in his DC Comics miniseries V for Vendetta, which later became a Warner Bros. feature film released in 2006. The protagonist of the 1990s Disney cartoon Darkwing Duck has a striking resemblance to The Shadow.

The Shadow also appears to have been a major inspiration behind the comic book crime-fighting hero The Silver Shroud in Bethesda’s post-apocalyptic video game Fallout 4.

Later Heroes

Other comic strip heroes followed Popeye: Dick Tracy in 1931, Captain Easy, Dickie Dare, and Brick Bradford in 1933, Flash Gordon, Secret Agent X-9, Mandrake the Magician, Terry and the Pirates in 1934. But after comics books appear in 1934-1935 most new heroes appear there and comics strips become primarily a home for humor. Consider the comic strips that follow through to the end of the 20th century:

Heroes	Humor
Phantom, 1936 Prince Valiant, 1937 Charlie Chan, 1938 Buz Sawyer, 1943 Johnny Hazard, 1944 Rip Kirby, 1946 Steve Canyon, 1947	Blonde, 1930 Alley Oo,p 1933 Li’l Abner, 1934 Sad Sack, 1942 Pogo, 1943 Peanuts and Beetle Bailey, 1950 Dennis the Menace, 1951 Hi and Lois, 1954 Miss Peach and Andy Capp, 1957 B.C., 1958 Wizard of Id, 1964 Broom Hilda and Doonesbury, 1970 Bloom County, 1980 Calvin and Hobbes, 1985 Outland and Dilbert, 1989 Non Sequitur, 1992 Get Fuzzy, 1999

But heroic characters were appearing in pulps and on the radio too. These mediums would have an important impact of the characters that would appear in comic books too.

Popeye

Popeye

Popeye first appeared in Thimble Theatre on January 17, 1929, as a minor character. He was initially hired by Castor Oyl and Ham Gravy to crew a ship for a voyage to Dice Island, the location of a casino owned by the crooked gambler Fadewell. Castor intended to break the bank at the casino using the unbeatable good luck conferred by stroking the head feathers of Bernice the Whiffle Hen. Weeks later, on the trip back, Popeye was shot many times by Jack Snork, an undercover stooge of Fadewell’s, but survived by rubbing Bernice’s head. After the adventure, Popeye left the strip, but, owing to reader reaction, he was brought back after an absence of only five weeks.

Ultimately, the Popeye character became so popular that he was given a larger role by the following year, and the strip was taken up by many more newspapers as a result. Initial strips presented Olive as being less than impressed with Popeye, but she eventually left Ham to become Popeye’s girlfriend in March 1930, precipitating Ham’s exit as a regular weeks later. Over the years, however, she has often displayed a fickle attitude towards the sailor. Initially, Castor Oyl continued to come up with get-rich-quick schemes and enlisted Popeye in his misadventures. By the end of 1931, however, he settled down as a detective and later on bought a ranch out west. Castor’s appearances have become sparser over time. As Castor faded from the strip, J. Wellington Wimpy, a soft-spoken and eloquent yet cowardly hamburger-loving moocher who would “gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today” was introduced into the Sunday strip, in which he became a fixture by late 1932. After first appearing in the daily strip in March 1933, Wimpy became a full-time major character alongside Popeye and Olive.

In July 1933, Popeye received a foundling baby in the mail whom he adopted and named Swee’Pea. Other regular characters introduced into the strip following its retool in 1930 were George W. Geezil, an irascible cobbler who spoke in a heavily affected accent and habitually attempted to murder or wish death upon Wimpy; Rough-House, the temperamental owner of a budget diner who served as a long-suffering foil to Wimpy; Eugene the Jeep, a yellow, vaguely doglike animal from Africa with magical powers; the Sea Hag, a terrible pirate and the last witch on Earth; Alice the Goon, a monstrous creature who entered the strip as the Sea Hag’s henchwoman and continued as Swee’Pea’s babysitter; the hapless, perpetually anxious King Blozo; Blozo’s unintelligent lackey Oscar; Popeye’s lecherous, superannuated father Poopdeck Pappy; and Toar, an ageless, dim-witted caveman.

Segar’s strip was quite different from the theatrical cartoons that followed. The stories were more complex (often spanning months or even years), with a heavier emphasis on verbal comedy and many characters that never appeared in the cartoons (among them King Blozo, Toar, and Rough- House). Spinach usage, a trait introduced in July 1931, was comparatively infrequent, and Bluto appeared in only one story arc. Segar signed some of his early Popeye comic strips with a cigar, his last name being a homophone of “cigar” (pronounced SEE-gar). Comics historian Brian Walker stated: “Segar offered up a masterful blend of comedy, fantasy, satire and suspense in Thimble Theater Starring Popeye”.

Popeye’s story and characterization vary depending on the medium. In his debut storyline, Popeye’s superhumanly proportioned strength and endurance stemmed from the “luck” he acquired by rubbing the feathers of the head of Bernice,  a “whiffle hen”, thus enabling him to survive fifteen gunshot wounds. By the end of 1929, however, Popeye’s strength had become a regularized fixture of his character, with spinach, by 1932, becoming the primary repository of his prowess. Swee’Pea is Popeye’s ward in the comic strips, but his custody is inconsistent in cartoons.

There is no absolute sense of continuity in the stories, although certain plot and presentation elements remain mostly constant, including purposeful contradictions in Popeye’s capabilities. Popeye seems bereft of manners and uneducated, yet he often comes up with solutions to problems that seem insurmountable to the police or the scientific community. He has displayed Sherlock Holmes-like investigative prowess, scientific ingenuity, and successful diplomatic arguments.

In the animated cartoons his pipe also proves to be highly versatile. Among other things, it has served as a cutting torch, jet engine, propeller, periscope, musical instrument, and a whistle with which he produces his trademark toot. He also eats spinach through his pipe, sometimes sucking in the can along with the contents. Since the 1970s, Popeye is seldom depicted using his pipe to smoke tobacco.

Popeye’s exploits are also enhanced by a few recurring plot elements. One is the love triangle among Popeye, Olive, and Bluto (sometimes called Brutus), and Bluto’s endless machinations to claim Olive at Popeye’s expense. Another is his near-saintly perseverance in overcoming any obstacle to please Olive, who often (if temporarily) renounces Popeye for Bluto.

Owing to Popeye’s increasingly high profile, Thimble Theatre became one of King Features’ most popular strips during the 1930s. A poll of adult comic strip readers in the April 1937 issue of Fortune magazine voted Popeye their second-favorite comic strip (after Little Orphan Annie). By 1938, Thimble Theatre was running in 500 newspapers, and over 600 licensed “Popeye” products were on sale. The success of the strip meant Segar was earning $100,000 a year at the time of his death. The strip continued after Segar’s death in 1938 under a succession of artists and writers. Following an eventual name change to Popeye in the 1970s.

Heroes Arise: Buck Rogers Debuts

 Heroes Arise

In 1929 heroic characters began to fill the comic strip newspaper pages. This was critical for comic books to become what they are today because for the first time you had heroic characters in the drawn in the sequential art form common to comic strips and comic books.

Buck Rogers, Tarzan, and Popeye all started that year. Tarzan was an adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ famous novel character from 1912, discussed previously. Buck Rogers introduced science fiction to comic strips.

Buck Rogers is a science fiction adventure hero and feature comic strip created by Philip Francis Nowlan first appearing in daily U.S. newspapers on January 7, 1929, and subsequently appearing in Sunday newspapers, international newspapers, books and multiple media with adaptations including radio in 1932, a serial film, a television series, and other formats.

Buck Rogers

Nowlan had published several novellas including Armageddon 2419 A.D., published in the August 1928 issue of Amazing Stories. The newspaper syndicator John F. Dille saw the opportunity for a science fiction-based comic strip. After Nowlan and Dille enlisted editorial cartoonist Dick Calkins as the illustrator, Nowlan created the comic strip about life some 500 years hence titled Buck Rogers. Some have suggested that Dille coined that name based on the 1920s cowboy actor Buck Jones.

On January 7, 1929, the Buck Rogers in the 25th Century A.D. comic strip debuted. (Coincidentally, this was also the date that the Tarzan comic strip began, distributed by United Feature Syndicate.) Buck Rogers was initially syndicated to 47 newspapers. On March 30, 1930, a Sunday strip joined the Buck Rogers daily strip.

Writer Nowlan told the inventor R. Buckminster Fuller in 1930 that “he frequently used [Fuller’s] concepts for his cartoons”. Dick Calkins, an advertising artist, drew the earliest daily strips, and Russell Keaton drew the earliest Sunday strips.

Like many popular comic strips of the day, Buck Rogers was reprinted in Big Little Books; illustrated text adaptations of the daily strip stories; and in a Buck Rogers pop-up book. At its peak in 1934, Buck Rogers appeared in 287 U.S. newspapers, was translated into 18 languages, and appeared in an additional 160 international papers.

Keaton wanted to switch to drawing another strip written by Calkins, Skyroads, so the syndicate advertised for an assistant and hired Rick Yager in 1932. Yager had formal art training at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts and was a talented watercolor artist; all the strips were done in ink and watercolor. Yager also had connections with the Chicago newspaper industry, since his father, Charles Montross Yager, was the publisher of The Modern Miller; Rick Yager was at one time employed to write the “Auntie’s Advice” column for his father’s newspaper. Yager quickly moved from inker and writer of the Buck Rogers “sub-strip” (early Sunday strips had a small sub-strip running below) to writer and artist of the Sunday strip and eventually the daily strips.

Authorship of early strips is extremely difficult to ascertain. The signatures at the bottoms of the strips are not accurate indicators of authorship; Calkins’ signature appears long after his involvement ended, and few of the other artists signed the artwork, while many pages are unsigned. Yager probably had complete control of Buck Rogers Sunday strips from about 1940 on, with Len Dworkins joining later as assistant. Dick Locher was also an assistant in the 1950s. The strip’s artists also worked on a variety of tie-in promotions such as comic books, toys, and model rockets.

For all of its reference to modern technology, the strip was produced in an old-fashioned manner — all strips began as India ink drawings on Strathmore paper, and a smaller duplicate (sometimes redrawn by hand) was hand-colored with watercolors.

The relations between the artists of the strip (Yager et al.) and the Syndicate became acrimonious, and in mid-1958, the artists quit. Murphy Anderson was a temporary replacement, but he did not stay long. George Tuska began drawing the strip in 1959 and remained until the final installment of the original comic strip, which was published on July 8, 1967. At that point, Buck Rogers appeared in only 28 newspapers.