A Character Pulp Question

[OtherEric]

Does anybody have a list of the top 10 (or so) character pulps by number of appearances?  I know Shadow is first at 325, followed by Doc Savage at 181 and Phantom Detective at 170.  But after that I can't find a list online for sure.  The ones I know about are:

The Spider- 118
G-8 and his Battle Aces- 110
The Black Bat in Black Book Detective- 62
Operator #5- 48
Secret Agent X- 41
The Avenger- 24
Captain Future- 17

This is just characters in their own pulp series, I know both the Avenger and Captain Future had brief runs in other titles.  Several of them also had later paperback original novels as well as reprints.  I'm not including Nick Carter or Dan Turner, Hollywood Detective because I'm unclear on both a) if they were in full-length novels in their books, and b) if they actually appeared in every issue of their own titles. 

Anyway, if anybody knows if I'm missing any titles that fit in that list or even where I can find a list, I would appreciate it.  Thanks!

[Geo (RIP)]

Eric, what about Black Cat, she was a long running series over two magazines I believe?

Geo

[OtherEric]

No idea, Geo.  I wasn't aware of a Black Cat pulp.  Are you conflating that with Black BAT?  There were two characters by that name, one with a fairly short run and one with a quite long run in Black Book Detective that I did include.

The only comic characters I can think of who made the jump to the pulps, however short lived, were Black Hood and Flash Gordon.  As far as I know, both of those were one-shots.  But I'm far from an expert, that's why I'm asking here.

[Geo (RIP)]

OK Eric go here for a list of pulp characters:  http://members.cox.net/pulpreprintindex/

That should help you out a bit on this.

And I didn't see Black Cat on the list when I looked, but Don Winslow on there.

Geo

[OtherEric]

See, for some reason I had thought Don Winslow of the Navy started as a radio show.  Shows you just how much I know...

The two issues of the Don Winslow Pulp are VERY high on my dream list of things to see.  They had a small comic section in them, with none other than Sheldon Mayer providing the art.  I've seen a B&W reprint of the second issue, at least.

[Roygbiv666]

Have you tried http://thepulp.net/pulplinks.html ?

[bchat]

No idea, Geo.  I wasn't aware of a Black Cat pulp.  Are you conflating that with Black BAT?  There were two characters by that name, one with a fairly short run and one with a quite long run in Black Book Detective that I did include.

The only comic characters I can think of who made the jump to the pulps, however short lived, were Black Hood and Flash Gordon.  As far as I know, both of those were one-shots.  But I'm far from an expert, that's why I'm asking here.

I've seen Black Hood on the cover of at least four pulp magazines (go here to see them), although "High Adventure" is simply a reprint.

[OtherEric]

Ah, so the title changed from Black Hood to Hooded Detective.  That makes as much sense as anything...

Oh, and there was a Sheena Pulp, as well.

[OtherEric]

And I need to gloat a little:  I just picked up the April, 1934 issue of Operator #5 in fairly nice condition:  Complete, both covers intact, spine intact, not brittle, and cheaper than 80% of the issues currently listed on eBay.

For those of you who don't have pulps memorized, it's the first issue. 

[Geo (RIP)]

Nice score Eric.

Geo

[narfstar]

I have two Shadow pulps in decent condition that I got several years ago I think for ten bucks each. I have a few sci fi pulps I got fro a couple bucks each

[OtherEric]

I've got a smattering of actual pulps and a much better (if still pretty random) assortment of digests.  They're not necessary CHEAP, but compared to comics or first edition books they're very reasonable.  If I recall correctly, I've paid as little as $15 for an issue of the Shadow and $10 for a Doc Savage.  Other than my small selection of character pulps I don't think I've ever gone over $20, and rarely over $10.  And my selection includes quite a few stories that would be keys if pulps were like comics- I've got 3 John Carter of Mars stories by Burroughs, several Heinleins, a few Foundation stories by Asimov, a fair number of stories by Bradbury- including at least two that later became part of the Martian Chronicles, Children of the Lens by E. E. Doc Smith, almost everything H. Beam Piper did, a lot of John D. Macdonald stories, at least a few Cordwainer Smith stories, Philip Jose Farmer's The Lovers, Fredric Brown's What Mad Universe.  That's just off the top of my head, and most of those were under $5.  They also often have art by names we know from comics- I've got illos or covers by Shomburg, Williamson, and Powell in my collection. 

I think it's a very telling point on the mentality of collectors that, for at least a while, there were some Doc Savage stories where the original pulps were cheaper that the paperback reprints.

[josemas]

I think it's a very telling point on the mentality of collectors that, for at least a while, there were some Doc Savage stories where the original pulps were cheaper that the paperback reprints.

I wonder if this had something to do with the fact that the original readers and collectors of these pulps were dying off and those of later generations, not being so familiar with the original pulps, didn't value them so much.

I have a film collector buddy who still buys original 16mm prints of films and he has been finding prints of 1930s B-Westerns becoming more and more common and cheaper and cheaper to buy the last few years and he attributes it to the fact that those collectors who grew up with those films are passing away.

BTW, somewhere around here I have an old copy of the Hero Pulp Index.  I'll see if I can dig it out and look through it for answers to your questions.

Best

Joe

[josemas]

Okay I found my old copy of The Hero Pulp Index (1971 edition) by Robert Weinberg and Lohr McKinstry. 

The index sometimes (but not always) indicates whether a character appears in a novel, novelette or short story in any given appearance.  I would speculate that most characters who have titles named after them are probably appearing in novel length stories but you may need to do further research to make sure of that. 
I won't list here any of the numerous characters from the index who are listed but don't have the magazine named after them (there are a total of 56 characters listed in the index). 
If you so want I can make an additional listing of the other characters listed in the index who only appeared in magazines not named after themselves but you'll have to figure out whether those stories were novel length or not.

The Angel Detective-1
The Avenger-24-plus 5 additional appearances in Clues Detective and 1 in The Shadow
Big Chief Western-3
Bill Barnes, Air Adventurer-20-title then changed to
Bill Barnes, Air Trails-41 followed by an additional 22 appearances in Doc Savage
The Black Hood-1-title changed to
Hooded Detective-2
Captain Combat-3
Captain Hazard-1
Captain Satan-5
Dan Dunn-2
Doctor Yen-Sin-3
Dusty Ayres and His Battle Birds-12
G-8 and His Battle Aces-110
The Ghost-4-title changed to
The Green Ghost Detective-3 followed by additional appearances in Thrilling Mystery
Hopalong Cassiday-3
Kazar-2-title changed to
Kazar the Great-1
The Lone Eagle-66-(character also appeared in one issue of Sky Fighters)-title changed to-
The American Eagle-8-title changed to-
The American Eagles-1
The Lone Ranger-8
The Masked Detective-12
Nick Carter, Detective-40-(I'm assuming that these are all novel length as the index has a separate listing of 22 Nick Carter novelettes that appeared in his own magazine plus an additional 3 in The Shadow)
The Octopus-1-title changed to
The Scorpion-1
Operator Five-48
The Pecos Kid Western-5
Pete Rice-32
The Phantom Detective-170
Public Enemy-6-title changed to
Federal Agent-7
Secret Agent X-41
The Secret Six-4
The Shadow-325
Sheena, Queen of the Jungle-1-plus an additional appearance in Jungle Stories
The Skipper-12-plus an additional 40 appearances in Doc Savage
The Spider-118
Tailspin Tommy-2
Terence X. O'Leary's War Birds-3
The Whisperer (first series)-14-plus an additional 24 appearances in The Shadow and 1 in Crime Busters
The Whisperer- (second series)-10
The Wizard-4-tile changed to-
Cash Gorman-2
Wu Fang-7
Captain Zero-3

Some of the characters listed in the index are actually villains rather than heroes. Wu Fang, Doctor Yen-Sin and The Octopus/The Scorpion are three such cases of villain pulps that most immediately come to mind but there may be more as I'm no real expert on pulp charcters.

Hope this info is of some help.

Best

Joe

[OtherEric]

Thank you!  This is just the sort of thing I was looking for, even if I can spot a few gaps.  I think the only characters with particularly noteworthy novel length runs in a title not named after them were the Black Bat and Green Lama.

It also answers the question that I didn't even realize I trying to answer when I first asked- if I try and put together a run of Operator #5, it's in that sweet spot of "a major enough title to be impressive, but far enough down on the list to be realistically possible".  Not that I really need yet another project to work on....