G-8 and His Battle Aces

Allied and German biplanes in an aerial dogfight
Cover of the April 1934 issue, by Frederick Blakeslee[1]

G-8 and His Battle Aces was an American air-war pulp magazine published from 1930 to 1944. It was one of the first four magazines launched by Popular Publications when it began operations in 1930, and first appeared for just over two years under the title Battle Aces. The success of Street & Smith's The Shadow, a hero pulp (a magazine with a lead novel in each issue featuring a single character), led Popular to follow suit in 1933 by relaunching Battle Aces as a hero pulp: the new title was G-8 and His Battle Aces, and the hero, G-8, was a top pilot and a spy. Robert J. Hogan wrote the lead novels for all the G-8 stories, which were set in World War I. Hogan's plots featured the Germans threatening the Allied forces with extraordinary or fantastic schemes, such as giant bats, zombies, and Martians. He often contributed stories to the magazines as well as the lead novel, though not all the short stories were by him. The cover illustrations, by Frederick Blakeslee, were noted for their fidelity to actual planes flown in World War I.

The magazine originally appeared monthly, but changed to bimonthly during World War II, ceasing publication in 1944. Pulp historian Lee Server suggests that it was Hogan's writing that allowed the magazine to last as long as it did, since by the last issue, in June 1944, the aircraft portrayed had long been obsolete.

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