A Couple Pulp Ladies
Although most women in the pulps fell
under two categories: one, they were pretty damsels to be rescued, or two, they
were Mata Hari’s or femme fatales. A few
exceptions do come to mind. Back in 1921, Johnston McCulley's serialized short
novel, The Masked Woman was originally published as a
serial in The Washington Post; this is another of McCulley's early
costumed characters, appearing nearly two decades before The Domino Lady and
The Black Cat. Like her future protégés, she brought beauty, brains, and sex
appeal to the female vigilante long before they were popular. Calling herself Madame
Madcap, she wears a sexy evening gown, long black cloak with hood, and a black
mask to cover her features. Appearing mysteriously, she recruits a gang of
hoodlums to do her bidding, demanding complete loyalty. Then she sets them up
for a fall, handing them over to the police with enough evidence to convict.
This was an interesting story from the very first. As with most of McCulley's
stories, his characters are heroes who act outside the law, but for the good of
society - or for a purpose, like Zorro. Though there are no gun battles or
sword fights, we see plenty of fisticuffs. Madame Madcap's chauffeur and
bodyguard is a huge, muscular black man, and her right hand man is a professor
of anthropology, who is studying the criminal element of society.
The Masked Woman was the forerunner of
The Domino Lady, a masked crime fighter that appeared in 1936. Truth is, many
of Johnston McCulley’s characters were the influence of the pulp heroes of the
1930s. Like The Masked Woman, The Domino Lady was a beautiful woman in a mask.
Criminals had murdered her father, and she was after them, and any that got in
her way. She wears a gown of either black or white satin, daringly cut and
backless. The halter-neck of the negligible bodice revealed a gleaming expance
of faultless white bosom and creamy shoulders. She drew a cape of black silk
around her shoulder, then a shiny black domino mask over her eyes. Her
adventures appeared in SAUCY ROMANTIC ADVENTURES and MYSTERY ADVENTURE
MAGAZINE.
Sheena, Queen of The Jungle, first
appeared in comic books, but was so popular she moved over to movies and pulps.
Wearing a leopard-skin, she is a golden-haired beauty. Slim, tall and bronzed,
with blue eyes. Unfortunately, she was short-lived in the pulps; only two
issues were published. Fiction House released SHEENA, QUEEN OF THE JUNGLE in
1951, with three novelettes; then a final story was published in JUNGLE STORIES
in 1954.
Lady super heroes fared much better in
the comic books, as the men seemed to dominate the pulp magazines, which to me
is a surprise. I’ve never been able to figure
out why this was so. Of course boys were probably the majority readers of the
pulps, and I’m sure they wanted to read about characters they could connect to.
Still, boys were also fascinated with girls and they read comic books that
featured them.
Crime does not pay...but, during the Great Depression, some might have argued that it DID pay - and pay very well, too. After the 1929 stock market crash, bank failures, Midwestern crop disasters, and mass unemployment became a daunting part of everyday life, resulting in the rise of the bank robber and gangster as folk hero rather than criminal threat. It would take the election of Franklin Roosevelt and the appointment of such charismatic crime fighters as Melvin Purvis, J. Edgar Hoover, and Elliott Ness to finally turn the tide against the criminal element, turning lawmen into heroes and, eventually, the common man against the criminal element.
From the earliest days of broadcasting, radio audiences always loved a "really big show". In December of 1943, a musical variety series that would quickly become one of the most distinguished - and expensive - radio shows on the air debuted on the then newly formed Blue Network. Titled the Radio Hall of Fame, this hour-long Sunday evening offering presented itself as a weekly tribute to the best entertainment then available on stage, in radio, on recordings, and in motion pictures.
