A look back at Weird Heroes

Weird Heroes #1-#4

Since the demise of the adventure pulps in 1949, there have been infrequent attempts to resurrect the genre of outlandish tales for succeeding generations. While a few short-story based pulps survived (Astounding stories , Ellery Queen, Alfred Hitchock Presents) (?) continued regardless, it was the success of the Doc Savage reprints by Bantam starting in 1964 that first rekindled interest in adventure pulp heroes, and reprints of the written adventures of The Shadow, The Avenger, Tarzan, G-8 and others swiftly followed.

As the 1970s dawned, there was also an interest to rekindle the higher quality end of the pulp market, either through reprints or through attempts to develop a new kind of pulp which took advantage of a climate of looser mores, the acceptance of SF as a mainstream genre in popular culture, and the availability of a new generation of comic book artists for spot illustrations. The new generation of writers had been pulp readers in their adolescence, and so were drawn to the challenge of reinventing the genre.

The period of this “new pulp” renaissance lasted for just over a decade, starting with Byron Preiss’s Weird Heroes in 1975, and probably ending with the demise of New Black Mask quarterly in 1988.

Weird Heroes was an experiment, in the words of editor Byron Preiss, to create a New American Pulp. Back in 1976 I managed to procure two copies from DTwAGE. Recently I have managed to collect the other issues. There are 8 issues in total, featuring a mix of short stories and full-length novels. The authors embrace a wide spectrum of talent, from old hands like Philip Jose Farmer to young turks like Harlan Ellison.

I bought my original issues at a time when I was avidly following the work of Harlan Ellison, had a new interest in the old pulps, had a burgeoning interest in movies and SF and Crime TV shows, and so Byron Preiss’ book, with illoes by hot comic artists, hit all the right buttons.  

Weird Heroes #5-#8

The pages below highlight Neal Adams’ artwork contribution the New York Review of Bird, a story featuring a thinly-disguised Harlan Ellison in his alter-ego of Cordwainer Bird, meeting an aged version of the Shadow.

The experiment lasted only 8 books, but they are worth tracking down to read something that really tried to stretch the envelope of graphic storytelling in the mid 1970s.