Only three issues of Dr. Yen Sin appeared, with cover dates May/June 1936, July/August 1936 and September/October 1936. Each issue contained a lead novel, written by Donald E. Keyhoe (who later became famous as the author of The Flying Saucers Are Real), together with additional material. The titles of the three novels, in chronological order of publication, are as follows:
The Mystery of the Dragon's Shadow
The Mystery of the Golden Skull
The Mystery of the Singing Mummies
The first novel was reprinted in Robert Weinberg's Pulp Classics #9 (1975), while the second and third novels were reprinted in High Adventure issues 32 (1997) and 39 (1998) respectively.
The novels are set in a dark, fog-shrounded version of Washington, D.C. resembling the Limehouse of Sax Rohmer's Fu Manchu books. Yen Sin, described as the "Yellow Doctor" and the "Invisible Emperor", combines the mysticism of the East with the latest devices of the West with diabolical results.[1] He uses blow guns, Dacoit stranglers, death rays and science laboratories to achieve his evil ends. He is opposed by Michael Traile, a man who is incapable of natural sleep (owing to a bungled brain operation) and who has to resort to periodic yoga-like relaxation sessions in order to recharge his vitality.[2]
Dr. Fu Manchu is a supervillain who was introduced in a series of novels by the English author Sax Rohmer beginning shortly before World War I and continuing for another forty years. The character featured in cinema, television, radio, comic strips and comic books for over 90 years, and he has also become an archetype of the evil criminal genius and mad scientist, while lending his name to the Fu Manchu mustache.
Pulp magazines were inexpensive fiction magazines that were published from 1896 to the late 1950s. The term "pulp" derives from the cheap wood pulp paper on which the magazines were printed. In contrast, magazines printed on higher-quality paper were called "glossies" or "slicks". The typical pulp magazine had 128 pages; it was 7 inches (18 cm) wide by 10 inches (25 cm) high, and 0.5 inches (1.3 cm) thick, with ragged, untrimmed edges.
Arthur Henry "Sarsfield" Ward, better known as Sax Rohmer, was an English novelist. He is best remembered for his series of novels featuring the master criminal Dr. Fu Manchu.
Marvel Mystery Comics is an American comic book series published during the 1930s–1940s period known to fans and historians as the Golden Age of Comic Books. It was the first publication of Marvel Comics' predecessor, Timely Comics, a division of Timely Publications.
Warner Oland was a Swedish-American actor most remembered for playing several Chinese and Chinese-American characters: Dr. Fu Manchu; Henry Chang in Shanghai Express and most notably Honolulu Police detective Lieutenant Charlie Chan. His career included time on Broadway and numerous film appearances, including 16 Charlie Chan films.
Startling Stories was an American pulp science fiction magazine, published from 1939 to 1955 by publisher Ned Pines' Standard Magazines. It was initially edited by Mort Weisinger, who was also the editor of Thrilling Wonder Stories, Standard's other science fiction title. Startling ran a lead novel in every issue; the first was The Black Flame by Stanley G. Weinbaum. When Standard Magazines acquired Thrilling Wonder in 1936, it also gained the rights to stories published in that magazine's predecessor, Wonder Stories, and selections from this early material were reprinted in Startling as "Hall of Fame" stories. Under Weisinger the magazine focused on younger readers and, when Weisinger was replaced by Oscar J. Friend in 1941, the magazine became even more juvenile in focus, with clichéd cover art and letters answered by a "Sergeant Saturn". Friend was replaced by Sam Merwin Jr. in 1945, and Merwin was able to improve the quality of the fiction substantially, publishing Arthur C. Clarke's Against the Fall of Night, and several other well-received stories.
More Fun Comics, originally titled New Fun: The Big Comic Magazine a.k.a. New Fun Comics, was a 1935–1947 American comic book anthology that introduced several major superhero characters and was the first American comic book series to feature solely original material rather than reprints of newspaper comic strips. It was also the first publication of the company that would become DC Comics.
Popular Publications was one of the largest publishers of pulp magazines during its existence, at one point publishing 42 different titles per month. Company titles included detective, adventure, romance, and Western fiction. They were also known for the several 'weird menace' titles. They also published several pulp hero or character pulps.
Reflecting the changing political climate, the representation of racial and ethnic minorities in comic books have also evolved over time. This article is intended to document and discuss historical and contemporary racial and ethnic stereotypes in the medium of mainstream comics.
Doctor Death was the title of a short-lived pulp science fiction magazine published by Dell Magazines in 1935, as well as the name of the main character featured in that magazine. Doctor Death was an archcriminal who wanted to return the world to a primitive condition and used supernatural tools such as zombies and magic in his plots against humanity. The stories were written by Harold Ward under the pseudonym of "Zorro". Dell may have intended Doctor Death to be a continuation of a character of the same name in All Detective Magazine, also published by Dell.
Famous Fantastic Mysteries was an American science fiction and fantasy pulp magazine published from 1939 to 1953. The editor was Mary Gnaedinger. It was launched by the Munsey Company as a way to reprint the many science fiction and fantasy stories which had appeared over the preceding decades in Munsey magazines such as Argosy. From its first issue, dated September/October 1939, Famous Fantastic Mysteries was an immediate success. Less than a year later, a companion magazine, Fantastic Novels, was launched.
Harry Agar Lyons was an Irish-born British actor. He is best known for playing Fu Manchu in a series of fifteen silent films collectively called The Mystery of Dr. Fu Manchu, all filmed in 1923, followed by a 1924 series of eight additional Fu Manchu films under the title The Further Mysteries of Dr. Fu Manchu. Lyons starred in the title role of all 23 movies, all of which featured Fu's ongoing battle with his two British nemeses, Sir Nayland Smith and his assistant Dr. Petrie. Both series were produced by Oswald Stoll, who had earlier produced a 1920 film version of Sax Rohmer's 1915 "Yellow Peril" novel, The Yellow Claw.
Fantastic Novels was an American science fiction and fantasy pulp magazine published by the Munsey Company of New York from 1940 to 1941, and again by Popular Publications, also of New York, from 1948 to 1951. It was a companion to Famous Fantastic Mysteries. Like that magazine, it mostly reprinted science fiction and fantasy classics from earlier decades, such as novels by A. Merritt, George Allan England, and Victor Rousseau, though it occasionally published reprints of more recent work, such as Earth's Last Citadel, by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore.
A. Merritt's Fantasy Magazine was an American pulp magazine which published five issues from December 1949 to October 1950. It took its name from fantasy writer A. Merritt, who had died in 1943, and it aimed to capitalize on Merritt's popularity. It was published by Popular Publications, alternating months with Fantastic Novels, another title of theirs. It may have been edited by Mary Gnaedinger, who also edited Fantastic Novels and Famous Fantastic Mysteries. It was a companion to Famous Fantastic Mysteries, and like that magazine mostly reprinted science-fiction and fantasy classics from earlier decades.
Marvel Science Stories was an American pulp magazine that ran for a total of fifteen issues in two separate runs, both edited by Robert O. Erisman. The publisher for the first run was Postal Publications, and the second run was published by Western Publishing; both companies were owned by Abraham and Martin Goodman. The first issue was dated August 1938, and carried stories with more sexual content than was usual for the genre, including several stories by Henry Kuttner, under his own name and also under pseudonyms. Reaction was generally negative, with one reader referring to Kuttner's story "The Time Trap" as "trash". This was the first of several titles featuring the word "Marvel", and Marvel Comics came from the same stable in the following year.
Captain Future was a science fiction pulp magazine launched in 1940 by Better Publications, and edited initially by Mort Weisinger. It featured the adventures of Captain Future, a super-scientist whose real name was Curt Newton, in every issue. All but two of the novels in the magazine were written by Edmond Hamilton; the other two were by Joseph Samachson. The magazine also published other stories that had nothing to do with the title character, including Fredric Brown's first science fiction sale, "Not Yet the End". Captain Future published unabashed space opera, and was, in the words of science fiction historian Mike Ashley, "perhaps the most juvenile" of the science fiction pulps to appear in the early years of World War II. Wartime paper shortages eventually led to the magazine's cancellation: the last issue was dated Spring 1944.
Science-fiction and fantasy magazines began to be published in the United States in the 1920s. Stories with science-fiction themes had been appearing for decades in pulp magazines such as Argosy, but there were no magazines that specialized in a single genre until 1915, when Street & Smith, one of the major pulp publishers, brought out Detective Story Magazine. The first magazine to focus solely on fantasy and horror was Weird Tales, which was launched in 1923, and established itself as the leading weird fiction magazine over the next two decades; writers such as H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith and Robert E. Howard became regular contributors. In 1926 Weird Tales was joined by Amazing Stories, published by Hugo Gernsback; Amazing printed only science fiction, and no fantasy. Gernsback included a letter column in Amazing Stories, and this led to the creation of organized science-fiction fandom, as fans contacted each other using the addresses published with the letters. Gernsback wanted the fiction he printed to be scientifically accurate, and educational, as well as entertaining, but found it difficult to obtain stories that met his goals; he printed "The Moon Pool" by Abraham Merritt in 1927, despite it being completely unscientific. Gernsback lost control of Amazing Stories in 1929, but quickly started several new magazines. Wonder Stories, one of Gernsback's titles, was edited by David Lasser, who worked to improve the quality of the fiction he received. Another early competitor was Astounding Stories of Super-Science, which appeared in 1930, edited by Harry Bates, but Bates printed only the most basic adventure stories with minimal scientific content, and little of the material from his era is now remembered.
Ka-Zar was an American pulp magazine that published three issue in 1936 and 1937. Each issue had a lead novel, featuring Ka-Zar, a character modelled after Tarzan. Ka-Zar had been born David Rand, orphaned in the Congo when a plane crash killed his parents, John and Constance. David was raised by a lion named Zar, and can speak to animals. The novels, written by Bob Byrd, are described by pulp historian Robert Weinberg as "all clearly derivative...[showing] no originality in either content or form". The first, "King of Fang and Claw", tells the story of the plane crash, and Ka-Zar's revenge on the men who caused it. The other two novels were titled "Roar of the Jungle" and "The Lost Empire". The novels were supplemented by short stories, all of which were jungle adventures. Contributors included Rex Allen and Norman Daniels.
The Mysterious Wu Fang was a pulp magazine which published seven issues in 1935 and 1936. Sax Rohmer's Fu Manchu, an oriental villain, was a "yellow peril" stereotype, and Popular Publications wanted to take advantage of the public's interest. The author of all seven lead novels was Robert J. Hogan, who was simultaneously writing the novels for G-8 and His Battle Aces, producing 130,000 to 150,000 words per month; Hogan was told to not to rewrite, but to deliver his first drafts. The hero of the novels was a man named Val Kildare; other characters included a young assistant to Kildare, who was probably added to attract younger readers. The artist John Richard Flanagan, who had experience illustrating Fu Manchu, was hired, but in the opinion of pulp historian Robert Weinberg, "an imitation was an imitation, and the magazine did not sell well". There were short stories along with the lead novel in each issue, also with a "yellow peril" theme; the authors included Steve Fisher, Frank Gruber, O.B. Meyers, and Frank Beaston. The magazine was cancelled after seven issues in favor of a similar magazine with a different villain: Dr. Yen Sin. According to pulp historian Joseph Lewandowski, the decision to switch titles may have been because Wu Fang was too juvenile, and Dr. Yen Sin was supposed to be more mature.
G-8 and His Battle Aces was an American air-war pulp magazine published by Popular Publications from 1930 to 1944. It was one of the first four magazines launched by Popular when they began operations in 1930, and lasted for just over two years under the title Battle Aces. The success of Street & Smith's The Shadow, a hero pulp, led to many imitations and Popular followed suit in 1933 by relaunching Battle Aces as a hero pulp: the new title was G-8 and His Battle Aces, and the hero, G-8, was a top pilot and a spy. Robert J. Hogan wrote the lead novels for all the G-8 stories, which were set in World War I. Hogan's plots featured the Germans threatening the Allied forces with extraordinary or fantastic schemes, such as giant bats, zombies, and Martians. He often contributed stories to the magazines as well as the lead novel, though not all the short stories were by him. The covers are by Frederick Blakeslee, and notable for their fidelity to actual planes flown in World War I.
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