Reed Andrus summarizes one study's conclusions about the
short-lived "defective detective" run in the pulps--mainly
Dime Mystery Magazine fr. 1938-41:
" The author's premise is that one of the> failings of the
pulps was that the villains were more interesting than>
the protagonists. So, a trend of
"humanizing" the hero arose, making> them "weird" or
"flawed" to increase interest level, I guess from a>
series establishment perspective."
This is interesting. I read two of the Fischer stories in the
anthology, "The Dead Hand Horrors" and "Flesh for the
Monster," both with the original graphic illustrations. Looks
like they both continue the "shudder pulp" tradition, even
while humanizing the hero. In the first, we have crimes
committed against those who can afford to pay by a beautiful
woman whose right hand and arm though purely skeletal, can
operate them through a series of wires....but wait I don't
want to give away the whole plot (?); the second features a
pre-steroid muscle guy who prefers to rip his victims limb
from limb. The hero, on the other hand, is a guy, Ben Bryn,
who has built his upper body up, in partial recompense for
being paralyzed in his legs early in life. So far, my
considered judgement of these stories is that they are
efficient vehicles for horror. Little detection is
required.
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