Balladeer's Blog

Balladeer’s Blog resumes its examination of the neglected Pulp Hero G-8. This is a story-by- story look at the adventures of this World War One American fighter pilot who – along with his two wingmen the Battle Aces – took on various supernatural and super- scientific menaces thrown at the Allied Powers by the Central Powers of Germany, Austria- Hungary and the Ottoman Muslim Turks.

G-8 was created by Robert J Hogan in 1933 when World War One was still being called simply the World War or the Great War. Over the next eleven years Hogan wrote 110 stories featuring the adventures of G-8, the street-smart pug Nippy Weston and the brawny giant Bull Martin. The regular cast was rounded out by our hero’s archenemy Doktor Krueger, by Battle, G-8’s British manservant and by our hero’s girlfriend R-1: an American spy/ nurse whose real name, like G-8’s was never revealed.

52. SATAN PAINTS THE SKY (January 1938) – Introducing an all-new villain for G-8 and his Battle Aces to take on! Baron Von Todschmecker, a haughty German aristocrat who is determined to see the Central Powers defeat the “assembled rabble” of the Allied Powers. Keeping the Baron forever unhinged: the remains of a knife lodged in his skull in a location too delicate to be surgically removed.  Continue reading →