Tag Archives: World War One

*** SOME READERS HAVE ASKED ME THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PULP MAGAZINES AND COMIC BOOKS. Pulp magazines were WRITTEN material with a few accompanying illustrations. Comic Books were picture stories told via sequential art. ***

Balladeer’s Blog resumes its examination of the neglected Pulp Hero G-8. This continues 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 nurse/ spy whose real name, like G-8’s, was never revealed.

19. THE CAVEMAN PATROL (April 1935) – Previously in G-8’s adventures the Central Powers formed an alliance with Martians to try to win the war. This time around those same powers form an alliance with a subterranean race of pointy- eared cavemen still living the same way they did in the distant past. Well, except for the fact that they’ve evolved enough to use crossbows.

This squadron of cavemen are victorious on the ground and even in the air as the ancient troglodytes calmly adapt to flying in airplanes … although they still just shoot their crossbows at their foes. G-8, Nippy and Bull try to rally their comrades-in- arms against this bizarre menace before the Central Powers gain the upper hand once and for all. Continue reading →

Balladeer’s Blog continues its examination of the neglected Pulp Hero G-8. This continues 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 nurse/ spy whose real name, like G-8’s, was never revealed. 

10. THE DRAGON PATROL (July 1934) – This story eerily foreshadows elements of the Hindenburg disaster of 1937 and of the horrific London Blitz of 1940. The actual dragon on the Pulp magazine cover is mere poetic license. The real menaces in this G-8 tale are two Zeppelins customized for super-silent raids over Paris itself. The Zeppelins are ravaging the City of Lights with special incendiary bombs that leave so much of the metropolis in charred ruins that the French are contemplating surrendering. (This was before the French had made a National Pasttime out of surrendering.)

The main villain this time out is Kapitan Geist (“Captain Ghost” in German), the salty senior commander of the twin Zeppelin unit who approaches his airborne missions like a seasoned sea captain of the skies. Geist’s Zeppelin is called “Fafnir” to emphasize the dragon motif but we never learn the name of the other one. Continue reading →