Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Detective Tales, September 1939

I think this is a Tom Lovell cover on this issue of DETECTIVE TALES, but I'm not absolutely certain. I am certain, though, that there's a great lineup of authors in these pages: Norbert Davis, Cleve F. Adams, Wyatt Blassingame, William B. Rainey (also Wyatt Blassingame), Emile C. Tepperman, Philip Ketchum, William R. Cox, Stewart Sterling, and Ray Cummings. Every one of those guys was a prolific, top-notch pulpster, and I'm sure this was a well-above average issue. 

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Ten Detective Aces, May 1941

Of course it's a clown causing trouble on the cover of this issue of TEN DETECTIVE ACES. You can't trust those guys! Or maybe he's actually the hero, although I wouldn't bet on that. But you can bet that any cover by Norman Saunders will be dramatic and/or action-packed, and this one certainly is. You've got knives, bullets, and blackjacks! (Hmm, "Knives, Bullets, and Blackjacks!" That wouldn't be a bad title.) Anyway, I don't own this issue, but I'm sure that inside its pages, a reader could find plenty of action. Authors include Emile C. Tepperman (twice, with a Marty Quade story under his own name and a story as by Anthony Clemens), Harold Q. Masur (also twice, once as himself and once as Hal Quincy), G.T. Fleming-Roberts, Cyril Plunkett, Joe Archibald, and several authors unfamiliar to me, James A. Kirch, Arthur T. Harris, Clark Frost, and H.F. Sorensen. I really should have read more from TEN DETECTIVE ACES over the years. It looks like a really good detective pulp.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Super-Detective Stories, May 1935

This early issue of SUPER-DETECTIVE STORIES sports a nice dramatic cover by H.J. Ward, and there are some fine authors inside: Richard Sale, James P. Olsen, Emile C. Tepperman, the mysterious Margie Harris (has any of Harris's work ever been reprinted?), and lesser-known Sam Kellman, John Mallory, and Charles Molyneaux Brown. This was Kellman's only credit, so it's possible that was a pseudonym. Sale, Olsen, and Tepperman are enough to make this issue worth reading if I owned a copy, which I don't.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Ten Detective Aces, May 1935

You never know what you're going to find in a sarcophagus, as Rafael DeSoto illustrates on this cover. Over the years I've read quite a few stories that first appeared in TEN DETECTIVE ACES, but I've never read or even owned an actual issue of the pulp. Plenty of fine fiction appeared there. Authors in this issue include Frederick C. Davis (with a Moon Man story), Paul Chadwick (with a Wade Hammond story), Emile C. Tepperman (with a Marty Quade story), Tepperman again as Anthony Clemens (with a Val Easton story), Joe Archibald (with a Dizzy Duo story), and non-series yarns by Harry Widmer, Margie Harris, and J. Lane Linklater. There are a bunch of issues of this pulp available on the Internet Archive. I ought to read some of them.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Strange Detective Mysteries, September 1940

You don't get much more lurid than this cover for STRANGE DETECTIVE MYSTERIES. I don't know who the artist is, but he's just crammed the action and menace into this one. Inside are stories by Emile C. Tepperman, Donald G. Cormack, R.S. Lerch, Raymond Whetstone (sounds like a pseudonym, but apparently his real name), and Donald Dale, who was really Mary Dale Buckner, one of the few female authors to write Weird Menace yarns. I don't see how the contents could live up to that cover, but you never know.

The Wild Adventures of the Spider: Fury in Steel - Will Murray

I’m sure I’ve mentioned before that my introduction to The Spider was in 1969, when Berkley Medallion reprinted the first two books in the series, THE SPIDER STRIKES and THE WHEEL OF DEATH, both by R.T.M. Scott. They released these in an odd, “buy one, get one free” scheme which saw the two paperbacks bound together with a paper band around them. I bought them off the spinner rack in a drugstore in Stephenville, Texas. My mother and I were on our way to my aunt’s house in Blanket, Texas, and I usually talked her into stopping at that store in Stephenville because they had good paperback and comic book spinners, as well as a big magazine rack where I saw some of the late issues of RANCH ROMANCES but didn’t buy any because I was spending my money on paperbacks like those two Spider novels.

Anyway, to get back to the subject at hand . . . Berkley reprinted a couple more Spider novels, these by Norvell Page writing under the house-name Grant Stockbridge. Page was far and away the most prolific Spider author and really defined the series’ tone with his wild, over-the-top plots and almost non-stop action. The problem is, I never saw those paperbacks. They just didn’t show up in any my usual book-buying haunts. It was more than a decade before I read any more of the Spider series, although by then I had read quite a bit about it. A few more reprints started trickling out in the early Eighties, a trio of trade paperbacks published by an outfit called Dimedia, and I found an issue of the actual pulp in a thrift store, and I picked up used copies of several novels published by Pocket Books that had been rewritten and “updated” but still retained some of the pulp feel. More actual reprints followed, some in mass market paperback, some in facsimile editions from small press publishers, and I read most of them. I’m not a Spider expert—I’ve read maybe half of the series in one format or another—but I always enjoy the character and his wild exploits.

Which brings us to The Wild Adventures of the Spider, a series of brand-new novels by pulp expert and fine writer Will Murray. The first one, THE DOOM LEGION, guest-starred two other characters from Popular Publications pulps, G-8 (the Flying Spy) and Operator 5, Jimmy Christopher his own self. I loved it. Murray’s latest Spider novel, the recently released FURY IN STEEL, also has some guest stars, in this case Emile C. Tepperman’s intrepid trio of fast-shooting FBI agents, the Suicide Squad: Johnny Kerrigan, Dan Murdoch, and Stephen Klaw. I’ve read half a dozen of Tepperman’s Suicide Squad stories, and they’re great. So seeing them in the same book with The Spider was a big draw for me. They don’t exactly team up—in fact, for most of the book the FBI agents are trying to arrest Richard Wentworth and in fact succeed in doing so at one point—but their efforts against an invasion of New York by giant killer robots makes for some great reading.

That’s right, giant killer robots that can bite off a man’s head, tear him limb from limb, and, like steel termites, gnaw away the foundations of skyscrapers to bring them crashing down. Another week, another apocalypse in the Big Apple, a crazed scheme by another villain to wreak havoc, panic the nation, and cause the deaths of thousands. And the only one who can stop it, of course, is The Spider.

FURY IN STEEL is just pure fun from start to finish. The plot is well-structured, flowing smoothly from great action scene to great action scene, Murray’s prose captures the frantic tone perfectly, and he has a keen sense of the absurd, pushing the boundaries but always stopping short of letting things get silly. I enjoyed this novel a great deal, and if you’re a fan of The Spider, or just a fan of wild pulp adventures in general, I give it my highest recommendation. 

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Popular Detective, March 1936

Now there's a thoroughly bizarre cover for you. I'm not sure what's going on here, but I am certain there are some good authors in this issue of POPULAR DETECTIVE, including Hugh B. Cave, Steve Fisher, Edmond Hamilton, Barry Perowne, Emile C. Tepperman, Frederick C. Painton, and George A. McDonald. If I'd had an extra dime and nickel in my pocket back in 1936, I might've had to buy this one just to try to figure out the cover.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Ace Detective Magazine, August 1936

This is a pretty obscure pulp magazine, but you can't tell that by the top-notch lineup of authors inside: Frederick C. Davis, Steve Fisher, Frederick C. Painton, Norman A. Daniels, Emile C. Tepperman, Dale Clark, and James Perley Hughes. There are some mighty good authors there. I have to confess, I'm not that fond of the cover by J. George Janes, but it's not terrible, just not up to the level of the writers inside.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Strange Detective Mysteries, May 1941

This issue of STRANGE DETECTIVE MYSTERIES has a good cover, but the real attraction is the line-up of authors: Day Keene, Hugh B. Cave, Norvell Page, Emile C. Tepperman, and Wayne Rogers. That's a powerhouse bunch of pulpsters!

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Ten Detective Aces, February 1935

I don't know much about Emery Clarke, who did the cover on this issue of TEN DETECTIVE ACES, except that he was pretty active as a pulp cover artist from the mid-Thirties to the mid-Forties, including doing the covers for a number of issues of DOC SAVAGE. The guy on this one looks kind of dumb with his hand spread out like that as he reaches for his gun, but that's a fine-looking blonde beside him. Inside is the usual strong line-up for this pulp, including a Moon Man story by Frederick C. Davis and other yarns by G.T. Fleming-Roberts, Emile C. Tepperman, Philip Ketchum writing as Carl McK. Saunders, Joe Archibald, and J. Lane Linklater.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Detective Tales, September 1939

Nice cover on this issue of DETECTIVE TALES. I think it might be by Tom Lovell, but that's just a guess on my part. No guess about the great group of authors inside, though: Norbert Davis, Cleve F. Adams, Philip Ketchum, Stewart Sterling, William R. Cox, Emile C. Tepperman, Ray Cummings, and Wyatt Blassingame. That's a bunch of top-notch talent.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Ace G-Man Stories, April 1940

This is a great cover that would look even better in the scan if somebody hadn't written a price in an unfortunate spot. But what can you do? Well, if you own this issue, you can read a Suicide Squad story by Emile C. Tepperman, a Brian O'Reilly story by Wyatt Blassingame, a Phil Towne story by William R. Cox, and a Phantom Fed story by Harry Lee Fellinge. I can certainly think of worse ways to spend a little time.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Detective Tales, February 1938

This almost looks like a Weird Menace cover, and sure enough, there are stories by Weird Menace stalwarts Hugh B. Cave and Wyatt Blassingame in this issue. There are also stories by prolific, reliable pulpsters Paul Ernst, Emile C. Tepperman, and Ray Cummings (twice, once under his own name and once as Gabriel Wilson). That's plenty to make me think this was probably a pretty good issue.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Ace G-Man Stories, December 1942

I don't see how you could get much more action-packed than this cover. That's Emile Tepperman's Suicide Squad wreaking assorted havoc, and inside there are also stories by Wyatt Blassingame, William R. Cox, and Robert Turner. Great stuff. (Yeah, it's Valentine's Day, and I suppose I could have posted a cover from one of the love pulps, but . . . but machine guns and flaming arrows! Arrows . . . Cupid . . . Hey, close enough!)

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Ace G-Man Stories, Nov.-Dec. 1937

That's a nice action cover on this issue of ACE G-MAN STORIES. A lot of good writers turned their hands to this sub-genre while it was popular, including, in this issue, Wyatt Blassingame, best known for his Weird Menace yarns, W.T. Ballard, one of the top Western writers for many years, W. Wirt, whose adventure stories showed up in many issues of ARGOSY and SHORT STORIES, and the prolific and enigmatic Emile C. Tepperman. (Some of you will remember the fanzine article "The Tepperman Quest".)

Secret Agent X Authors

Brian Earl Brown posted this list in the comments, and I decided to move it up here to make it easier for people who might be looking for this information to find it. Thanks, Brian!

I've read more than half of these novels and will probably get around to all of them sooner or later.


1.The Torture Trust, Secret Agent X , Feb., 1934 (v1-1) Written by Paul Chadwick)
2. The Spectral Stranglers, Secret Agent X , Mar., 1934(v1-2) Written by Paul Chadwick
3. The Death-Torch Terrors, Secret Agent X , Apr., 1934 (v1-3) Written by Paul Chadwick
4. The Ambassador of Doom, Secret Agent X , May, 1934 (v2-1) Written by Paul Chadwick
5. City of the Living Dead, Secret Agent X , June, 1934(v2-2) Written by Paul Chadwick
6. Hand of Horror, Secret Agent X , Aug., 1934(v2-3) Written by Emile C Tepperman
7. Octopus of Crime, Secret Agent X , Sept., 1934 (v3-1) Written by Paul Chadwick
8. The Hooded Hordes, Secret Agent X , Oct., 1934(v3-2) Written by Paul Chadwick
9. Servants of the Skull, Secret Agent X , Nov., 1934 (v3-3) Written by Emile C Tepperman
10. The Murder Monster, Secret Agent X , Dec., 1934 (v4-1) Written by Emile C Tepperman
11. The Sinister Scourge, Secret Agent X , Jan., 1935 (v4-2) Written by Paul Chadwick
12. Curse of the Waiting Death, Secret Agent X , Feb., 1935 (v4-3) Written by Paul Chadwick
13. Devils of Darkness, Secret Agent X , Mar., 1935 (v5-1) Written by Paul Chadwick
14. Talons of Terror, Secret Agent X , Apr., 1935 (v5-2) Written by Emile C Tepperman
15. The Corpse Cavalcade, Secret Agent X , May, 1935(v5-3) Written by G. T. Fleming-Roberts
16. The Golden Ghoul, Secret Agent X , July, 1935 (v6-1) Written by G. T. Fleming-Roberts
17. The Monarch of Murder, Secret Agent X , Aug., 1935(v6-2) Written by Paul Chadwick
18. Legion of the Living Dead, Secret Agent X , Sept., 1935(v6-3) Written by Paul Chadwick
19. Horde of the Damned, Secret Agent X , Oct., 1935(v7-1) Written by Paul Chadwick
20. Ringmaster of Doom, Secret Agent X , Nov., 1935 (v7-2) Written by G. T. Fleming-Roberts
21. Kingdom of Blue Corpses, Secret Agent X , Dec., 1935(v7-3) Written by Unknown
22. Brand of the Metal Maiden, Secret Agent X , Jan., 1936 (V7-4) Written by G. T. Fleming-Roberts
23. Dividends of Doom, Secret Agent X , Feb., 1936 (v8-1) Written by G. T. Fleming-Roberts
24. The Fear Merchants, Secret Agent X , Mar., 1936 (v8-2) Written by Paul Chadwick
25. The Faceless Fury, Secret Agent X , Apr., 1936 (v8-3) Written by G. T. Fleming-Roberts
26. Subterranean Scourge, Secret Agent X , June, 1936(v8-4) Written by G. T. Fleming-Roberts
27. The Doom Director, Secret Agent X , Aug., 1936 (v9-1) Written by G. T. Fleming-Roberts
28. City of Madness, Secret Agent X , Oct., 1936 (v9-2) Written by G. T. Fleming-Roberts
29. Horror's Handclasp, Secret Agent X , Dec., 1936(9-3) Written by G. T. Fleming-Roberts
30. Death's Frozen Formula, Secret Agent X , Feb., 1937(v9-4) Written by G. T. Fleming-Roberts
31. The Murder Brain, Secret Agent X , Apr., 1937 (v11-1) Written by G. T. Fleming-Roberts
32. Slaves of the Scorpion, Secret Agent X , June, 1937 (v11-2) Written by G. T. Fleming-Roberts
33. Satan's Syndicate, Secret Agent X , Aug., 1937 (v11-3) Written by G. T. Fleming-Roberts
34. The Assassin's League, Secret Agent X , Oct., 1937 (v11-4) Written by G. T. Fleming-Roberts
35. Plague of the Golden Death, Secret Agent X , Dec., 1937 (v12-1) Written by G. T. Fleming-Roberts
36. Curse of the Mandarin's Fan, Secret Agent X , Feb., 1938 (v12-2) Written by G. T. Fleming-Roberts
37. Claws of the Corpse Cult, Secret Agent X , Apr., 1938 (v12-3) Written by G. T. Fleming-Roberts
38. The Corpse That Murdered, Secret Agent X , June, 1938(v12-4) Written by G. T. Fleming-Roberts
39. Curse of the Crimson Horde, Secret Agent X , Sept, 1938 (v13-1) Written by Paul Chadwick
40. Corpse Contraband, Secret Agent X , Dec., 1938 (v123-2) Written by G. T. Fleming-Roberts
41. Yoke of the Crimson Coterie, Secret Agent X , Mar., 1939(v13-3) Written by G. T. Fleming-Roberts

Secret Agent X: Talons of Terror - Brant House (Emile C. Tepperman)

Originally published in the April 1935 issue of SECRET AGENT X, “Talons of Terror” finds the Man of a Thousand Faces going up against yet another criminal mastermind whose plot involves threatening to kill a number of wealthy, powerful men unless they pay him off. This time the mysterious villain calls himself Doctor Blood, and as the story opens, he’s managed to murder ten men (one per day) by using some sort of unknown beast to tear their throats out and suck the blood from their bodies. Secret Agent X sets out to find Doctor Blood and put a stop to his crime spree. Even though “X” (as he’s often referred to in the novels) makes a habit of not killing his adversaries, he’s willing to make an exception to that rule where Doctor Blood is concerned.

If you’ve read this far, you probably have a pretty good idea whether or not you’d enjoy this novel. And I haven’t even mentioned the chapter entitled “Enter – the Claw Man!” You know me. I love this stuff.

Like all the other Secret Agent X novels, “Talons of Terror” was published under the pseudonym “Brant House”. In this case, the author was Emile C. Tepperman, almost as much a mysterious personage as some of the pulp heroes and villains he wrote about. I’ve found Tepperman’s work to be somewhat inconsistent, but he usually came up with pretty entertaining yarns. “Talons of Terror” falls into that category, although I wouldn’t put it in the top rank of Secret Agent X stories. Despite the lurid plot, at times the story seems a little restrained. You know my motto: “If you’re gonna go over the top, go ’way over.” But I did enjoy it, and everything does build up to a good final showdown. As far as I know, this pulp novel has never been reprinted since its original appearance, but a reprint edition is on the way later this year, courtesy of Beb Books. If you want to find out what happens to Doctor Blood and the Claw Man, check it out.

Servants of the Skull -- Brant House (Emile C. Tepperman)

One talent shared by most pulp heroes was the ability to disguise themselves at a moment’s notice so well that their best friends wouldn’t know them. Secret Agent X was probably the absolute master of this art, leading him to be billed at times as the Man of a Thousand Faces. The thing about Secret Agent X is that he’s always in disguise. No one ever sees his real face, although there’s usually a mention of it in the novels.

In SERVANTS OF THE SKULL, from the November 1934 issue of the pulp SECRET AGENT X, the Agent pulls off several disguises as he infiltrates a gang of kidnappers led by the evil mastermind known only as The Skull, who wears a red, hooded robe with a skull mask concealing his face. The Skull has established a headquarters underneath Manhattan with numerous hidden entrances and has recruited a gang of crooks who are experts at their various specialties to pull off the crimes he plans. If he succeeds, The Skull will reap a payoff of ten million dollars and several leading financiers and industrialists will be reduced to broken, gibbering hulks.

This plot is standard stuff, and most readers will figure out The Skull’s real identity with no trouble at all. What makes this a pretty good pulp novel, though, is the atmosphere of claustrophobic horror the author – in this case, Emile C. Tepperman writing under the house name Brant House – creates as “X” carries off his dangerous impersonation in the very depths of The Skull’s lair. Tepperman, about whom very little is known, was an inconsistent writer. SERVANTS OF THE SKULL is one of his better efforts, good enough that I recall reading an earlier paperback reprint of this book back in the Sixties. I just read it again, and it holds up fairly well. An inexpensive reprint of it will be available later this year from Beb Books. I wouldn’t recommend it to everybody, but if you’re a pulp hero fan I think you’ll probably find it pretty enjoyable. I did.