Starman the Libertarian is a South American superhero from the '80s, who will be familiar to Colombians of a certain age. You could usually find him on most news stands.
Created by Rafael Curtberto Navarro - who also created Kalimán: El Hombre Incredible - Starman was first published in 1980 by Editora Cinco and ran for over 100 issues.
Set in the futuristic world of 2005 Earth has suffered a huge nuclear war where most of the population has mutated into creatures called Tarhumans.
Not only that but Earth is now ruled by the evil space tyrant Moloch, who destroyed the rebel forces of Liberio, Starman's father.
Libero's army retreats to the moons of Jupiter where his son Starman is given amazing super powers, courtesy of the solar wind.
However Starman's powers depend on the sun and rapidly wane if he is ever cold.
Aided by his robot cat Gatonico, Starman returns to earth to do battle with the evil Moloch and his army of Tarhumans.
Dr. Hana also helps Starman in his battle against Moloch, though she does get captured a lot.
Once Earth is freed of tyranny Starman, Dr. Hana and Gatonico continue their mission to spread justice and freedom across the galaxy.
It's a great space opera and copies are still available on eBay if you search for them.
The series certainly takes a few liberties with copyright: Dr. Hana has a very Princess Leia vibe and some of the spaceships are clearly copied from Chris Foss illustrations.
However for lovers of liberty and fans of epic space opera Starman El Libertario is certainly a hero to celebrate!
More forgotten pulp heroes another time...
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Many readers have asked me "Why do so many pulp covers feature women in ripped red blouses standing in swamps while a man who looks a bit like David Bowie fights off an unusual animal attack?"
The answer is: pulp artist Wil Hulsey...
Wilbur "Wil" Hulsey was the undisputed king of the animal attack pulp cover. You name it, he'd paint it attacking you in a pool of stagnant water.
Very little is known about Wil Hulsey, but he worked on a number of men's pulp magazines in the 1950s and early 1960s including Man's Life, True Men, Guilty, Trapped and Peril.
It was the biggest manhunt in Britain: police, the press, aeroplanes, psychics all tried to solve the disappearance. In the end nobody really knew what happened. It was a mystery without a solution.
This is the story of Agatha Christie's 11 lost days...
By 1926 Agatha Christie's reputation as a writer was setting to grow. Her sixth novel - The Murder of Roger Ackroyd - had been well-received and she and her husband Archie had recently concluded a world tour. But all was not well with the marriage.
In April 1926 Agatha Christie’s mother died. Christie was very close to her: she had been home-schooled and believed her mother was clairvoyant. The shock of her sudden death hit the author hard.
Today in pulp I look back at the early days of pulp Spanish sci-fi.
Let me introduce you to the Luchadores del Espacio!!
Luchadores del Espacio - Space Fighters - is a Spanish-language science fiction saga published by Editorial Valenciana from 1953-63. It's one of the early milestones of Spanish space pulp.
Spanish language science-fantasy had taken off in Argentina during the 1950s with Más Allá (Beyond), a local rival to Galaxy magazine. So the time seemed right for Editorial Valenciana to launch some original Spanish sci-fi stories.
Today in pulp I'm looking back at one of #Japan's greatest science fiction magazines: Hayakawa S-F!
Esu-Efu Magajin (S-F Magazine) was first published in February 1960 by Hayakawa Shobō publishing, and has gone on to shape both Japanese SF and champion Japanese authors for many decades.
Science fiction had been reasonably popular in Japan before the war, but it was in the mid-1950s that specialist story magazines, such as Takumi Shibano's subscription fanzine Uchūjin (Cosmic Dust) began to appear.