POP-A-LOOZA: THE EVERLASTING FIRST! Doc Savage, Man Of Bronze

Each week, the pop culture website Pop-A-Looza shares some posts from my vast 'n' captivating Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do) archives. The latest shared post is a look back at my first exposure to the 1930s pulp hero Doc Savage, Man Of Bronze.

Although Doc Savage was very important to me when I was an adolescent and young teen in the early to mid 1970s, I haven't had much else to say about the Man of Bronze. Ol' Doc was a big part of my long-standing fascination with superpulp paperbacks, and obviously integral to my discovery of the pulps in general. The time my parents gave me a bunch of Doc Savage novels is recalled in the story of my past Christmas presents. But, other than an appearance or two in my 100-Page FAKES! series and a mention in my reminiscence of seeing superhero movies, that's about the extent that Doc has been discussed on this blog.

But I still love pulp, and I still love Doc Savage, even though I haven't read his adventures in a while, and even though I haven't written much about him. I confess that I came THISCLOSE to liquidating much of my Doc Savage paperback stash during my massive book collection downsize last year. But I couldn't do it. I could not bring myself to part with my Doc Savages. 

Nope. They all remain here with me, in my Fortress of Solitude. Some things you don't need to outgrow; you just need to find room for them. My discovery of Doc Savage, Man of Bronze is the latest Boppin' Pop-A-Looza.

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This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, and on the web at http://sparksyracuse.org/ You can read about our history here.

The many fine This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio compilation albums are still available, each full of that rockin' pop sound you crave. A portion of all sales benefit our perpetually cash-strapped community radio project:

Volume 1: download
Volume 2: CD or download
Volume 3: download
Volume 4: CD or download
Waterloo Sunset--Benefit For This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio:  CD or download

I'm on Twitter @CafarelliCarl.

POP-A-LOOZA: Superpulp Paperbacks!

Each week, the pop culture website Pop-A-Looza shares some posts from my vast 'n' captivating Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do) archives. The latest shared post is my reminiscence about discovering pulp and superhero paperback novels as a teenager in the '70s: Superpulp Paperbacks!

It's within the realm of plausible possibility that I love books even more than I love records. Do not even try to make me choose between them. I'll be sharing a few other tales of my affection for pulps, fiction, and books in general over at Pop-A-Looza in the near future. In the mean time, you can have a look back at my introductions to Doc Savage and The Shadow, and my history of reading movie tie-in novelizations.

I've also tried my hand at writing superhero pulp, and I've been pleased with the results. For this blog, I wrote a fanfic Batman pulp short called "The Undersea World Of Mr. Freeze," and began a tentative (and uncompleted) next chapter called "Paradise Does Not Believe In Tears." I wrote and sold a Western called "The Last Ride Of The Copperhead Kid" and a 1930s masked vigilante adventure called "The Copperhead Strikes!" (which repurposed part of the opening from my Batman story). I also wrote and sold a 1965-set secret agent story called "The Copperhead Affair," which has not yet posted here (but may still be available at your local comic book store, in the pages of AHOY Comics' Second Coming: Only Begotten Son # 1). 

Straying a bit more afield of classic pulp, I started writing another Copperhead-connected short story set at a punk rock club in the early '80s ("Chaos At The Copperhead Club") and a rock 'n' roll time travel superhero novel called Eternity Man! Both of those projects remain unfinished and abandoned...for the time being.

But right now, we go back to where a lot of this began for me. My superpulp paperbacks are the subject of the latest Boppin' Pop-A-Looza.

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You can support this blog by becoming a patron on Patreon: Fund me, baby! 

This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, and on the web at http://sparksyracuse.org/ You can read about our history here.

The many fine This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio compilation albums are still available, each full of that rockin' pop sound you crave. A portion of all sales benefit our perpetually cash-strapped community radio project:

Volume 1: download
Volume 2: CD or download
Volume 3: download
Volume 4: CD or download
Waterloo Sunset--Benefit For This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio:  CD or download

Carl's writin' a book! The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1)will contain 165 essays about 165 tracks, each one of 'em THE greatest record ever made. An infinite number of records can each be the greatest record ever made, as long as they take turns. Updated initial information can be seen here: THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE! (Volume 1). My weekly Greatest Record Ever Made! video rants can be seen in my GREM! YouTube playlist. And I'm on Twitter @CafarelliCarl.

The Pulps

I'm not 100% certain how I first became aware of pulp magazines, but the book pictured above was certainly an early clue. I recall seeing the hardcover collection The Pulps at World Of Books in North Syracuse in the early '70s, maybe as early as 1971, but probably '72 or so. It was one of a number of books that caught my eye all at the same time, right alongside comic book celebrations All In Color For A Dime, Jules Feiffer's The Great Comic Book Heroes, and Crown Books' Superman From The 30's To The 70's and Batman From The 30's To The 70's. Edited by Tony Goodstone, The Pulps was the only one of these books that I didn't acquire in that early time frame. I was certainly intrigued by it nonetheless.



My real indoctrination into the world of pulp magazines came via Steranko's History Of Comics, I'd say around 1974. My high school library had both volumes of Steranko's captivating account of the Golden Age of comics, and I spent a lot of time immersing myself in those books. Steranko's chapter on "The Bloody Pulps" fascinated me, and fanned the flames of my nascent interest in The Shadow, Doc Savage, The Avenger, The Spider, Operator 5, The Phantom Detective, The Black Bat, and G-8 And His Battle Aces. 

(What's that? I should have been studying when I was in the school library? Ahem. Just move along.)



I read my first pulp adventure--The Land Of Terror, a Doc Savage paperback--before reading Steranko's account of the pulps, and possibly/probably before spying The Pulps at World Of Books. I told my story of discovering Doc Savage here--a sequel describing my discovery of The Shadow is forthcoming--and of my teenage fascination with superpulp paperbacks here. 



Somewhere in there, I picked up my first pulp anthology, The Fantastic Pulps (edited by Peter Haining), plus my very first actual pulp magazine, a flea market purchase of a forgotten random issue of Dime Detective. The flea market also provided me with a copy of The Crime Oracle And The Teeth Of The Dragon, a trade paperback reprint of two vintage Shadow pulp novels, reprints which included the illustrations from the original pulps (something the paperback reprints lacked). 





In the '80s, when I was living in Buffalo, I snagged a few more ragged pulps at the flea market. In later years I also bought some of Anthony Tollins' exquisite pulp reprints starring The Shadow and Doc Savage, and some Black Bat and Spider books, too.

And I finally did buy a copy of Tony Goodstone's The Pulps. Some time early in this newfangled new millennium, I saw a used copy on display (in very good shape) at Metropolis Books, one of the best little book shops that ever was. Metropolis was also in North Syracuse, pretty much kitty-corner across the street from where World Of Books used to be. I told Metropolis owner Mike Paduana about seeing The Pulps on the shelf when I was eleven or twelve, and gestured in the direction of the cafe that now occupied the hallowed ground that had once been World Of Books. And I mentioned to Mike how I always wanted that book when I was a kid, but never got around to getting it.

Mike kinda looked at me for a second before saying, "What are you waiting for? You know you're gonna buy it today."



Yep. Mike was right. Years later, it's on my bookshelf next to The Great Comic Book Heroes. Some things just take time.

Back cover of my Amazing Stories pulp, offered here for my friends in The Charlton Arrow Facebook group, a fine bunch of folks who have a thing about Uranus. And who wouldn't have a thing about Uranus?

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You can support this blog by becoming a patron on Patreon: Fund me, baby! 

Hey, Carl's writin' a book! The Greatest Record Ever Made will contain 100 essays (and then some) about 100 tracks, plus two bonus instrumentals, each one of 'em THE greatest record ever made. An infinite number of records can each be the greatest record ever made, as long as they take turns. Updated initial information can be seen here: https://carlcafarelli.blogspot.com/2019/06/the-greatest-record-ever-made-updated.html

Our new compilation CD This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 4 is now available from Kool Kat Musik! 29 tracks of irresistible rockin' pop, starring Pop Co-Op, Ray Paul, Circe Link & Christian Nesmith, Vegas With Randolph Featuring Lannie Flowers, The Slapbacks, P. Hux, Irene Peña, Michael Oliver & the Sacred Band Featuring Dave Merritt, The Rubinoos, Stepford Knives, The Grip Weeds, Popdudes, Ronnie Dark, The Flashcubes, Chris von Sneidern, The Bottle Kids, 1.4.5., The Smithereens, Paul Collins' Beat, The Hit Squad, The Rulers, The Legal Matters, Maura & the Bright Lights, Lisa Mychols, and Mr. Encrypto & the Cyphers. You gotta have it, so order it here. A digital download version (minus The Smithereens' track) is also available from Futureman Records.

100-Page FAKES! presents: Giant-Size Spider-Man # 3 [with DOC SAVAGE]

100-Page FAKES! imagines mid-1970s DC 100-Page Super Spectaculars that never were...but should have been!



Continuing Marvel Comics week on the blog, in memory of Stan Lee. Doc Savage was the first pulp hero I ever read. My discovery of The Man Of Bronze commenced when I found a paperback of Doc's second adventure The Land Of Terror while (trying to) help my Dad work at the ballpark in Syracuse. When Marvel secured the license to produce a Doc Savage comic book in 1972, I was well and truly stoked for it. The series ran eight issues, then transitioned to a black and white Marvel magazine in 1975, prepping for the inevitable Savagemania expected to follow that year's major motion picture Doc Savage, Man Of Bronze starring Ron Ely. The film's box office fizzle didn't prevent the magazine from lasting until 1977.

In between the cancellation of Doc's color comics and the debut of his black and white magazine, Marvel kept its Doc Savage license active with this co-starring appearance in 1975's Giant-Size Spider-Man # 3. When you consider the fact that Doc Savage was one of the most pervasive influences on the creation of Superman in the '30s, you might consider writer Gerry Conway and penciller Ross Andru's efforts here a dry run for a very high-profile project they would produce in 1976: the DC-Marvel crossover book Superman Vs. The Amazing Spider-Man.

Giant-Size Spider-Man # 3 also included a reprint of a classic tale by Spidey's co-creators Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, pitting the wall-crawler against The Man Without Fear Daredevil. Since it was already a Giant, it didn't take much more to turn this into another 100-Page FAKE! That mission was accomplished with just the addition of a 1940s Doc Savage story (presuming for our purposes that Marvel's Doc Savage license would have given them access to Doc Savage comics originally published by Street & Smith) and a Stan Lee Spider-Man story from a 1968 issue of Marvel Super-Heroes, also pencilled by Andru.

Spider-Man and Doc Savage in "The Yesterday Connection," Giant-Size Spider-Man # 3 (January 1975)
Doc Savage in "Live, Evil...Veil," Shadow Comics Vol. 6 # 1 (April 1946)
Spider-Man in "The Reprehensible Riddle Of...The Sorcerer!," Marvel Super-Heroes # 14 (May 1968)
Spider-Man and Daredevil in "Duel With Daredevil!," Amazing Spider-Man # 16 (September 1964)

Doc Savage and his friends are copyright Advance Magazine Publishers Inc./The Condé Nast Publications, and Marvel owns everything else. We can only show representative sample pages here; I share the whole thing with my patrons. It's time for the pulp hero once billed as a superman to meet your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.

TIP THE BLOGGER: CC's Tip Jar!

You can support this blog by becoming a patron on Patreon: Fund me, baby! 

Our new compilation CD This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 4 is now available from Kool Kat Musik! 29 tracks of irresistible rockin' pop, starring Pop Co-Op, Ray Paul, Circe Link & Christian Nesmith, Vegas With Randolph Featuring Lannie Flowers, The Slapbacks, P. Hux, Irene Peña, Michael Oliver & the Sacred Band Featuring Dave Merritt, The Rubinoos, Stepford Knives, The Grip Weeds, Popdudes, Ronnie Dark, The Flashcubes,Chris von Sneidern, The Bottle Kids, 1.4.5., The Smithereens, Paul Collins' Beat, The Hit Squad, The Rulers, The Legal Matters, Maura & the Bright Lights, Lisa Mychols, and Mr. Encrypto & the Cyphers. You gotta have it, so order it here. A digital download version (minus The Smithereens' track) is also available from Futureman Records.








COVER GALLERY