The Crimson Clown was a brilliantly strange concept for a pulp crime-fighting hero, his stories did provide readers with enjoyable thrills, but never quite reached the bizarre excellence his premise offered. The Clown was created by Johnston McCulley and debuted in 1926 in Detective Story Magazine. Collections of the stories featuring the character were reprinted over the years by a variety of publishers including Chelsea House, Cassell in the UK, and Ramble House.
McCulley was a very prolific pulp scribe who secured his place in pop culture history with the creation of El Zorro. You’re familiar with El Zorro, of course. The masked, swashbuckling swordsman of old California would be an adventure fiction icon for decades, spawning many versions and imitators in a variety of media.
In addition to Zorro, McCulley created a myriad of other heroes and villains for the pulps. The Man in Purple, the Black Star, the Spider, all of whom had great concepts, but were often presented in pedestrian chase stories, or episodic crime yarns. Often these stories had very similar plot sequences wherein the hero and villain would each gain and lose the upper hand in their ongoing conflict. While that plot structure can be done well, often McCulley’s stories all seemed to rely on a predictable formula that typically depended more on coincidence and unbelievable occurrences instead of clever storytelling or credible plotting.
This is not to say those stories aren’t enjoyable, because they frequently were, but the very concepts of the characters’ backgrounds or personality led the reader to expect stories that carried more of an impact. It is likely that much of the stories’ weaknesses originated in the time pressure of meeting multiple deadlines rather than a lack of storytelling skill on the part of the writer. This was a common dilemma for pulp writers. Whatever the reason it is unfortunate that such strange and striking characters were featured in stories that, while serviceable, were not as creative and bizarre.
This is certainly the case with the Crimson Clown whose image and milieu deserved more effort and creativity than was evident in his stories. I mean, just look at this guy.
Or this
THIS is the disguise the stalwart hero Delton Prouse decided he’d use to strike a blow against boredom and the gangsters and ne’er do wells who preyed on the honest citizenry. Talk about striking fear into the hearts of men! Many people don’t like bats, but a lot of folks don’t mind them. Same with spiders or other supposedly scary things; some people don’t like them but many don’t care. But everyone hates clowns! Nothing’s creepier than a guy who has a big red smile painted on his face but you can see that HE’S NOT SMILING UNDERNEATH. It’s one of nature’s warning signs.
Think about it. Even a crime-hardened gangster would get the shock of their life if they were to go around the corner of their hideout, only to be confronted by some freak in a red clown suit. That would give even the hardest boiled yegg a shock that would make them reconsider their line of work. And while the criminals in the Mcculley stories fear the Clown, and the police for their part are attempting to hunt him down also, neither respond to the character with the atavistic revulsion and mind-bending bewilderment that the character deserves.
The stories are consistent with McCulley’s other work. The Clown breaks into a criminals hideout to steal back some stolen loot, with the intent of donating the proceeds to charity, a common detail for Pulp thieves that proved that they had hearts of gold. While in the hideout the Clown would be trapped, or conked on the head and tied up, or some other common scenario, and he’d have to make his escape, evading the approaching police all the while. Not a bad adventure, and lively enough, but one expects a person who disguises themselves as a horrifying children’s entertainer to show some more creativity. I’m not sure what I’d specifically expect, perhaps forcing a dozen gangsters to climb into a tiny clown car or something. In any case one feels that the Clown’s adventures should have something extra.
Any character as weird as the Crimson Clown really deserves to have some baroquely strange stories. Any hero with the cajones and possible brain damage to dress up as a clown to fight crime is extreme enough to pull out all of the stops. It’s all well and good to go out dressed in a cape and slouch hat and look all cool, but the Crimson Clown knew what’s really scary.
