Will Murray (1953-2026) R.I.P.

 

I was very saddened this week to lean that Will Murray, pulp historian, pulp author, and co-creator of Marvel's Squirrel Girl with Steve Ditko, had passed away this past Monday at the age of 73. It was quite a shock, as I'd only been chatting with him a couple of weeks ago at Pulpfest in Pittsburgh, and we frequently exchanged messages on the history of pulps, most recently about Walter Gibson's (creator of The Shadow) involvement in negotiating early Shadow stories to be reprinted, heavily abridged, in the British adventure paper The Thriller, during the 1930s.

Will is perhaps primarily known for the excellent Doc Savage novels he wrote working from unused outlines written by original Doc author Lester Dent, and Will became the literary agent for Dent's estate when Dent's widow passed. In recent years he expanded into novels about Tarzan, Sherlock Holmes and The Spider. He had also ghost written many of The Destroyer adventure paperbacks.  He was a prolific writer and researcher, and luckily for us, most of his research on Doc Savage was collected in "Writings in Bronze" , as well the the recent hardback books covering the The Shadow's genesis and development. One of my favourite books of his is Wordslingers, a history of the Western novel in the pulps.

I first read his treatise on the various ghost authors of Doc Savage in Will's fanzine Duende #2 back in 1977, and have been an avid follower of his work ever since.

I can't claim to be a close friend of his, but I very much valued the friendship between the years I first met him at the Windy City Pulp & Paper Con in 2008 until our final meeting earlier this month.

I think it's fair to say that he was THE pre-eminent scholar of the history of pulp adventure fiction, as well the work of H.P. Lovecraft, and his passing leaves a huge gap in the pulp community, and the collective knowledge of pulp history.

On the comics front, Will co-created Squirrel Girl with Steve Ditko, a character that went on to be a member of Marvel's Great Lakes Avengers. I asked Will about his working relationship with the notoriously reclusive Ditko. Will responded "I was the one who let Steve Ditko know that Jack Kirby had died...... But he wouldn't give me a quote".

In contrast, I think Will would have been quite taken aback by the outpouring of sentiment this past week on various Facebook groups and websites.