WEIRD MENACE PULP FICTION

One of my favorite categories of pulp fiction is the "Weird Menace" genre, a bizarre type of erotic horror story that was extremely popular in the 1930s, hitting its peak between 1934-1937 and dying out by 1942. Weird Menace got its start in the pages of Popular Publications' DIME DETECTIVE MAGAZINE (1933); brisk sales caused the genre to branch out into three "all weird menace, all the time" sister magazines: TERROR TALES (1934), HORROR STORIES (1935) and SINISTER STORIES (1940).

So what is Weird Menace? Basically, a villain would dress up as a monster, kidnap women, disrobe and torture them, threatening their death (and in some cases, succeeding) before the brave hero can defeat him. The reasons for these kidnaps varied, from simple sadism to complicated money-making schemes. No matter how improbable, there was a 99% chance the story ended with the "monster" unmasked as an ordinary man using the latest in "super science" to pull off his seemingly supernatural powers... Does this remind you of a certain cartoon featuring a reluctant crime-fighting dog and his van-driving human friends? I wouldn't be surprised if this was where the creators of that cartoon got their idea for the series, LOL...

Some of the greatest pulp writers of the day wrote weird menace stories: Hugh B. Cave (aka "Justin Case"), Robert Leslie Bellem, Wyatt Blassingame, Grant Stockbridge (aka "Norvell Page"), etc. There was even some spill-over of the genre into mainstream "hero" pulps like DR. DEATH and THE SPIDER, with the latter's "Hordes of The Red Butcher" being a prime example (a horde of horny cavemen go on a rape-crazy killing spree at the orders of a masked super-villain).

Perhaps the single greatest example of "Weird Menace" fiction is THE MOLE-MEN WANT YOUR EYES (1938) by Frederick C. Davis, available as a free online reprint thanks to the Nostalgia League. It's an amazingly gory, disgusting and gratuitous read sure to give you a shake and a shudder! An excerpt:

Jane was still strapped to the table—strapped immovably—but now she was disrobed. Every garment had been torn off her. She lay nude and helpless, her lovely body quivering with terror, under the hands of the demon in white. Her eyes were fixed upon the face of the fiend who was preparing to cut them from her head.

The white monster was bending over her now, holding an instrument whose edge gleamed razor-sharp—an instrument of death and horror. And at the barred door, the abominable mole-men were still reaching through, whining with obscene impatience, pleading that the girl be thrown to them...

Popular Publications' successful pioneering of this controversial format bred a horde of imitators like EERIE STORIES, SAUCY MOVIE TALES and THRILLING MYSTERY. With the exception of the latter, most of these were short-lived and of hit-or-miss quality. The exception to this was rival publisher Culture Publications legendary "Spicy" series, which were considered so "hot" they had to be sold under the counter, often stripped of their lurid covers. Culture's line consisted of SPICY ADVENTURE STORIES, SPICY DETECTIVE STORIES and SPICY MYSTERY STORIES (with "mystery" meaning horror, more often than not). By the early 1940s, the "Spicy" line had become so notorious that it had trouble finding distribution thanks to censorship; Culture quickly changed the word "Spicy" in the title to "Speed" but it was a short-lived ruse that failed to save the line. Censorship (and the real life horrors of World War II) contributed to the decline and demise of Popular Publications' weird menace titles around the same time. For more information, read UNCOVERED: THE HIDDEN ART OF THE GIRLY PULPS by Douglas Ellis, a fun-filled, fully illustrated history of those wonderfully naughty magazines of the 1920s-1940s.

Sporadically, the "Weird Menace" genre would resurface throughout the intervening decades but without much success... WEB TERROR STORIES in the 1960s was the last real attempt to resurrect the genre and was a short-lived hybrid between the classic weird menace pulps of the 1930s and the true crime and S&M "men's adventure" magazines of the 1960s.

THE SHUDDER PULPS, by the late Robert Kenneth Jones, is an excellent comprehensive history of the Weird Menace magazines, including anecdotes about their wacky publishers and writers, from their 1933 genesis in DIME DETECTIVE through their final (?) demise in WEB TERROR STORIES.

For more pulp fiction, be sure and visit The Vintage Library where you can find hundreds of print and electronic reprints, replicas and more! They are having a 10% off sale during April, 2006, plus you can get a free paperback of THE SPIDER. I've been getting my "weird menace" itch scratched by them for years and have never been disappointed with their selection or service.