The Press: Mercy Killings

For 94 years the dime novels, pulp magazines and comic books of Street & Smith have helped U.S. males while away billions of idle hours in bunkhouses, fo'c'sles, foxholes and subways. One generation escaped into a world of high adventure and happy endings in Nick Carter and Horatio Alger tales; another ate up Supersnipe and the Shadow comics. None of their pulp-paper characters was ever so hard-boiled as Street & Smith themselves; whenever a title slipped in public favor, they coldly shot it down. Last week Street & Smith staged a mass execution. In...

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