Street & Smith’s Doc Savage Magazine hit the nation’s crowded newsstands in an issue dated March 1933.
Doc, or more formally, Dr. Clark Savage, Jr., was Street & Smith Publications’ triumphant attempt to build on the “hero pulp” trend they had triggered with the highly successful and, eventually, twice-monthly The Shadow.
A bronze-skinned, golden-eyed giant, Doc Savage was created in-house by Street & Smith business manager Henry W. Ralston and editor John L. Nanovic, who more or less plotted the first novel in a kind of unofficial series bible.
After a test run at penning a Shadow novel, the writing chores for Doc were handed off to Missouri-born author and former telegrapher Lester Bernard Dent, writing under the house name of “Kenneth Robeson.”
Although 1933 saw a boatload of hero pulp titles launched, including The Phantom Detective, Nick Carter Magazine, The Spider, and G-8 and His Battle Aces, among others, Doc outlasted them all, several by many years, or in the number of issues published. Doc Savage’s pulp run spanned 181 issues.
Even though Doc Savage Magazine debuted during the harshest days of the Great Depression, Doc was very much a hit with readers, inspiring several imitators who would follow him to newsstands, including Street & Smith’s own Captain John Fury — The Skipper — and Ace Magazines’ Captain Hazzard. Counted among his fans was a teenage Philip José Farmer, who would, one day, become a Grand Master of Science Fiction.
We hope you’ll join PulpFest 2023 at 2 pm on Friday afternoon, August 4, for “Doc Savage — The Man and Myth of Bronze.” As part of our celebration of the 90th anniversary of the great pulp heroes, it will feature Christopher Paul Carey and Win Scott Eckert. They’ll explore Philip José Farmer’s Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life and Escape from Loki — the authorized novel that explains how Doc met his aides, and the adventure they bonded over.
Chris and Win will discuss Farmer’s contributions to Doc’s history and mythology, why Farmer was the perfect person to write Doc’s first chronological escapade, and why, as Farmer demonstrated in his biography of the hero, the Doc Savage archetype continues to resonate with readers 90 years after his debut.
Join us at PulpFest 2023 for FarmerCon XVIII, live from Mars, Pennsylvania.
Christopher Paul Carey is the Director of Publishing for Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. and the creative director of the Edgar Rice Burroughs Universe series. Additionally, he’s the authorized continuation author of Philip Jose Farmer’s Khokarsa series that bridges the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs and H. Rider Haggard. His novels include Victory Harben: Fires of Halos, Swords Against the Moon Men, Blood of Ancient Opar, Hadon — King of Opar, Exiles of Kho, and The Song of Kwasin. An editor of more than sixty books, Chris is also a comic book writer, essayist, and the author of short fiction. A tireless champion of Wold Newtonian chronologies, Carey’s work stands out for its literate, often tragic tales of flawed characters who change their world.
Win Scott Eckert launched the first Wold Newton website, The Wold Newton Universe in 1997. For the last quarter-century, he has written or co-written novels and short stories featuring characters such as Philip José Farmer’s Patricia Wildman, cult favorites Honey West and T. H. E. Cat, and classic properties such as The Avenger, Captain Midnight, Doc Ardan, the Domino Lady, the Green Ghost, the Green Hornet, the Lone Ranger, the Phantom, Phileas Fogg, the Scarlet Pimpernel, Sexton Blake, Sherlock Holmes, Tarzan, and Zorro. The editor of and a contributor to Myths for the Modern Age: Philip José Farmer’s Wold Newton Universe, co-editor of Tales of the Wold Newton Universe, and author of Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World, Win’s latest book is The Monster on Hold, based on Philip José Farmer’s partial manuscripts and copious notes.
To learn more about our programming, please click the Schedule button at the top of this page.
For those who also want to enjoy our dealers’ room, you can join PulpFest by clicking the Registration button at the top of this page. And don’t forget to book a room at the DoubleTree. They’re going fast!
Our featured image is excerpted from Walter M. Baumhofer’s front cover art for the April 1935 issue of Doc Savage Magazine. Baumhofer’s work was later used for the first edition of Philip José Farmer’s Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life, published by Doubleday in 1973.
Our lead image was adapted by PulpFest advertising director William Lampkin from James Bama’s iconic cover art for the Bantam Book edition of Doc Savage #1 — The Man of Bronze. It was first published in 1964.
Farmer’s Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life has been reprinted numerous times, including in 2013 by Meteor House. The cover art was by Joe DeVito, well-known for his cover paintings for Will Murray’s Doc Savage novels. Meteor House will have copies of their edition on hand at this year’s PulpFest.
Philip José Farmer’s Doc Savage — Escape from Loki — with cover art by Steven Assael — was published in 1991 by Bantam Books. A prequel to The Man of Bronze, it concerns sixteen-year-old Clark Savage, Jr. and his time as a prisoner of war during the First World War. Sent to Loki, Germany’s ultimate prison camp, Savage meets the men who would become his companions in 182 adventures chronicled by Lester Dent and other writers.
Win Scott Eckert based The Monster on Hold on Philip José Farmer’s notes and the first draft of a chapter for a Doc Caliban story. The completed novel was published by Meteor House in 2022, with cover art for the book’s softcover edition by Douglas C. Klauba.
For more on Doc Savage, please visit our YouTube Channel to view Craig McDonald’s videos on the character and other great pulp heroes. While you’re there, please be sure to subscribe to the PulpFest Channel.
