An edition of Weird heroes (1975)

Weird heroes

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Last edited by Krokodil
June 28, 2025 | History
An edition of Weird heroes (1975)

Weird heroes

  • 1 Want to read

WEIRD HEROES was a 1970s series of mostly anthology books that tried to replicate and update the concept of 1930s pulp fiction. Most of the writers and artists, especially in the early volumes, were strongly associated with comic books.

"Greatheart Silver," by Philip Jose Farmer, is an over-the-top pastiche of the Shadow, Doc Savage, and the like. It's illustrated by Tom Sutton. Silver appears in three of the eight WEIRD HEROES volumes, and the stories were later collected/combined into a single novel by a different publisher.

"Quest of the Gypsy" by Ron Goulart and Alex Niño is a post-apocalypse thriller; the character is brought back for a novel-length story in Volume 3.

"Adam Stalker: The Darkstar File" is a detective story by Archie Goodwin and underground cartoonist Dave Sheridan. The main character is a Native American Vietnam vet with counterculture edge. The term "stalker" did not have its current unsavory connotation when this was published in 1975.

"Rose in the Sunshine State" by Joann Kobin and Jeffrey Jones, is about an elderly woman in an assisted care facility, and is a big departure in tone from the high adventure in the other stories (although much of "Greatheart Silver" also takes place in elder care).

"Guts, the Cosmic Greaser" by Byron Preiss, with art by Jim Steranko and Rich Buckler, is a time travel story trying hard to capitalize on the popularity of Arthur Fonzarelli.

WEIRD HEROES lasted for eight volumes and strayed from its original vision pretty quickly. It was, among other things, an opportunity for comic book writers to get prose work published in a slightly more respectable format, though later volumes focused more heavily on established science fiction prose novelists. (That's not really an issue these days; most new comic book writers are only hired if they have prior publishing and screenwriting credits. In the 1970s, though, new comic book writers came almost exclusively from the fan and fanzine communities.) Also, four of the eight volumes were book-length stories about a single character, drifting from the anthology format. Volume 1 may be the clearest look at what this series was intended to be.

Publish Date
Publisher
Pyramid Books
Language
English

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Previews available in: English

Edition Availability
Cover of: Weird heroes
Weird heroes
1975, Pyramid Books
in English

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Book Details


Edition Notes

Also issued online.

Published in
New York

Classifications

Library of Congress
PN6071.F25 W45x

The Physical Object

Pagination
v. :

Edition Identifiers

Open Library
OL24618062M
Internet Archive
weirdheroes01prei
ISBN 10
051503746v.2
LCCN
75027066
OCLC/WorldCat
2003526

Work Identifiers

Work ID
OL15690007W

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June 28, 2025 Edited by Krokodil Edited without comment.
February 13, 2020 Edited by MARC Bot remove fake subjects
July 30, 2018 Edited by DriniBot removing erroneous .number_of_editions
August 25, 2011 Edited by EdwardBot merge works
March 16, 2011 Created by ImportBot initial import