For those who were disappointed that the Devildogs took a break last year, you’ll be happy to hear they’re back with a third volume of their exploits. Paired with that will be the volume of stories Franklin H. Martin had in Aces.

Franklin H.Martin’s Aces
by FRANKLIN H. MARTIN

This volume collects the five stories the enigmatic Martin had in Aces in the August through December issues of 1932 including the epic two part Black Hawk of Prussia story!

He is known as The Black Hawk of Prussia, but just who is von Woolrich? Every description of him is different. Some say he is big and dark. Others claim to have seen him—and say he’s short and slight, with reddish hair. Some rumors describe him as a man who can break a laminated mahogany prop over his knee like a stick of kindling wood. Others say that he is esthetic, an artist and a musician—he is said to have composed several splendid arias before the war. Or maybe he is just a name made up to scare little boys, like a boogy-man. Whatever the case may be, one thing is for certain—von Woolrich, is a master-mind spy!

Stories include: Pilots of the Night (10/32), Zero Patrol (11/32), The Death Parade (8/32), Lone Eagle (9/32) and Blaze of Glory (12/32). Also a special feature on Franklin H. Martin’s winning submission to the Writer’s Digest-Liberty $2,000 Short Story Contest and a bibliography of Martin’s pulp stories

Paired with this is the third volume of Donald E. Keyhoe’s Mad Marines—The Devildog Squadron! We gave them a rest last year and they are raring to go in five more Weird World War adventures!

Devildog Squadron: The Mystery Meteor
by DONALD E. KEYHOE

“Cyclone Bill” Garrity and his Mad Marines are back in the thick of things in five more Weird World War I Adventures from the imaginative pen of Donald E. Keyhoe. Those crazy Germans have come up with even more ways to turn the tide and win the war. Whether it’s going to elaborate lengths to convince an English scientist it is still 1915 and England and Germany are in a war against France to get the formula for a super explosive he invented; raining an extremely deadly and corrosive liquid fire down from the skies killing all in its deadly path; or developing a brilliant silvery beam that can cut anything in it’s way to shreds. If that’s not enough, throw in the fact that the Devildog’s latest replacement is a dead ringer for the Kaiser’s own brother and you’ve got all the making of classic Keyhoe madness!

The Devildog adventures featured in this volume are all from the pages of Sky Birds: Hangers of Hell (8/34), The Spandau Cyclone (10/34), Devildog Dynamite (12/34), The Mystery Meteor (1/35).

In addition to these new books, we’ll have all of our other titles on hand as well as our previous convention exclusive—Arch Whitehouse’s Coffin Kirk, and 2022’s two book set of Steve Fisher’s Sheridan Doome! So if you’re planning on coming to Pittsburgh for PulpFest this year, stop by our table and say hi and pick up our latest releases!

We hope we see you there!

We’re taking a break from Donald Keyhoe whose stories we’ve been reprinting religiously practically every year since 2011—for just this year to start up two new series character collections. Have no fear, Keyhoe’s Devildog Squadron will return next year.

If you were here at Christmas, then you’re familiar with Arch Whitehouse’s Casket Crew. We uploaded the six stories Whitehouse ran in the British version of Air Stories featuring the crew over the holidays. Here we bring you the first volume of their run in Aces magazine.

The Casket Crew
by ARCH WHITEHOUSE

One-Oh-Nine Squadron of the Independent Air Force was the craziest bomber squadron on the Western Front and Handley Page No.11 was the reason why. It was flown by The Casket Crew: Lieutenant Graham Townsend, the mad Englishman, pilot of No.11; Lieutenant Phil Armitage, equally crazy American, the reserve pilot and bombing officer; Corporal Andy McGregor, wearing his Black Watch kilts, aerial gunner; with Sergeant Michael Ryan, silent fighting Irishman on the toggle board and Corporal Harry Marks, dizzy Australian, manning the rear gun-turret. There was enough insanity scrawled across the log book of No.11 to make the wildest fiction seem tame in comparison!

The extraordinarily prolific Arch Whitehouse drew upon his own experiences as a tail-gunner in the Royal Air Force to bring to life the colorful aces that flew through his stories. His characters for Flying Aces and Sky Birds were extremely popular with readers of the 1930’s and ’40s. The Casket Crew was his only series outside those magazines, running in the pages of Aces and Wings. This exciting collection features five crazy exploits from Aces Magazine: Lost Wings (8/31), Terror Turret (2/32), Handley Hate (5/32), The Flying Fortress (6/32), and Thunder Patrol (9/32).

Paired with this is the first volume of Alexis Rossoff’s Hell-Cat Squadron! We’ve posted a couple Hell-Cat stories from War Birds, but the series was rebooted when it moved to Flying Aces so that seemed like a good place to start.

The Hell-Cat Squadron: Cyclops of the Skies
by ALEXIS ROSSOFF

The order came direct from G.H.Q.: “Send one undesirable pilot of your organization to Alons. Arrange pilot’s departure from your drome so that he will reach destination not earlier than second hour nor later than third hour after noon, twenty-eighth day this month.” Never was an order complied with more promptly as thirty cursing, rebelious undesirables found themselves thrown together in the doomed, scorched region known by all as Hell’s Half Acre. There, under the command of “Iron” Mike Hilton, himself ostrasized for questioning his superiors, they became the Hell-Cats!

Siberian-born, Russian war veteran Alexis Rossoff started writing air and war fiction stories in the late 1920’s as his eyesight slowly faded away. The adventures in this volume are from 1931 to 1932. After a successful operation to restore his vision in the mid thirties, Rossoff, a self-professed boxing nut, switched from primarily writing air war fiction to writing sports stories. This action-packed tome compiles six thrilling adventures from the pages of Flying Aces Magazine: Hell-Cat Harvest (1/31), The Old Man’s Whiskers (2/31), The Hell-Cat’s Kittens (3/31), The Cyclops of the Skies (6/31), Rusty Rides the Thunderbolt (12/31), and The Black Moth (1/32).

In addition to these new books, we’ll have all of our other titles on hand as well as our previous convention exclusive—Arch Whitehouse’s Coffin Kirk, and 2022’s two book set of Steve Fisher’s Sheridan Doome! So if you’re planning on coming to Pittsburgh for PulpFest this year, stop by our table and say hi and pick up our latest releases!

We hope we see you there!

First up is another collection of tales of that Inseparable trio—The Three Mosquitoes!

The Adventures of the Three Mosquitoes: The Night Monster
by RALPH OPPENHEIM

THE Three Mosquitoes—Kirby, the D’Artagnan of the group, led the formation even though he was the youngest, but his amazing skills had won him the position of leader of the trio. On his right flew “Shorty” Carn, bald, stocky, and mild of eye, but nevertheless a dead shot with a gun. On his left flew Travis, the oldest and wisest of the trio, whose lanky legs made it difficult for him to adjust himself in the little cockpit. With their customary battle cry—“Let’s go!”—they’re off on another dangerous mission in perilous skies!

Ralph Oppenheim’s Three Mosquitoes was one of the longest running aviation series to never have its own magazine. They flew for twelve years, through nine different magazines in over five dozen stories! This thrilling volume collects four action-packed adventures from the pages of Popular Publications’ Dare-Devil Aces: The Night Monster (2/32), The Crimson Ace (7/32), The Rocket Ace (11/32), and The Secret Ace Patrol (6/33).

Paired with this is the second volume of Donald E. Keyhoe’s Fighting Marines—The Devildog Squadron!

Devildog Squadron: The Flying Juggernaut
by DONALD E. KEYHOE

“CYCLONE BILL” Garrity and his Mad Marines are back in the thick of things in six more Weird World War I Adventures from the imaginative pen of Donald E. Keyhoe. Those crazy Germans have come up with even more ways to turn the tide and win the war. Operating from airfields hidden in the sides of cliffs under a waterfall, beneath an impenetrable dome, or simply under camouflage nets, the Germans unleash everything from deadly rays that can wipe an entire drome off the face of the earth; the dead pilots flying again; a tank as large as a city block and just as tall that can flatten everything in it’s path; and the cloak of death itself lurking in the night sky ready to suck the life out of anything it should happen to touch––both pilot and plane!

The Devildog adventures featured in this volume are all from the pages of Sky Birds: Devildog Doom (6/32), Lucky’s Day (8/32), The Devildogs’ Decoy (1/33), The Flying Juggernaut (2/33), The Squadron Nobody Knew (7/33), and Devildog Breed (7/34).

In addition to these new books, we’ll have all of our other titles on hand as well as our previous convention exclusive—Arch Whitehouse’s Coffin Kirk, and last year’s two book set of Steve Fisher’s Sheridan Doome! So if you’re planning on coming to Pittsburgh for PulpFest this year, stop by our table and say hi and pick up our latest releases! We hope we see you there!

First up is The Black Falcon by Arthur J. Burks.

Selected by Black Jack Pershing himself for an impossible assignment, Lt. Evan Post was volunteered to drive Germany’s top five aces out of the sky. Orders were sent ahead to see that he was given every cooperation by any allied post of command he would work out of. With the biggest, blackest, ugliest bird painted on his red plane’s fuselage, Post worked the list. And with every German Ace he downed, Evan Post became known as The Black Falcon!

Arthur J. Burks never met a story he couldn’t write. Although he was known to be able to craft a story about anything suggested to him, he was probably best known for his weird menace and detective stories. He wrote six stories with The Black Falcon for Sky Fighters magazine, with a nice continuity running through them. So much so, when he published the sixth story, two years after the initial five, The Black Falcon was a mythic character the young recruits had only heard of.

Stories Include: The Black Falcon (Oct 33), The Balloon Buster (Feb 34), Falcon Fury (Mar 34), The Falcon Flies High (Apr 34), Claws of the Falcon (Jun 34), and Black Falcon’s Return (Jul 36).

Our second book is the ninth and final volume of Donald E. Keyhoe’s Captain Philip Strange Adventures—Strange Rivals.

Captain Philip Strange is back in nine more weird WWI stories! A mental marvel from birth, who used his talents on stage as a boy, Philip Strange is now known as “The Phantom Ace of G-2″ by the Allies during WWI and the verdamnt Brain-Devil by the Boche. In these stories from the end of the series run, The Brain-Devil’s arch nemesis, Karl von Zenden, the quick-change Man of a Thousand Faces resurfaces to wreak havoc and cause more trouble—from aerodromes peopled with corpses to pirate staffels to German Officials dropped over Paris to gases of forgetfulness to all of England disappearing! Von Zenden does his worst! Thankfully, we have have Captain Philip Strange on our side to stop them in some of his strangest cases yet from the pages of Flying Aces magazine!

Stories Include: Dead Man’s Drone (Jun 37), Skeletons From the Sky (Dec 37), Scourge of Oblivion (Apr 38), Pirate Squadron (Jun 38), The Gray Face Ace (Oct 28), Strafe of the Skull (Dec 38), Raid of the Wraith (Mar 39), Flight of the Phantoms (Aug 39), and When England Vanished (Nov 39).

In addition to our two new titles, we’ll have all of our previous titles that are still in print as well as some fun extras include an 11″ x 14″ art print of all 64 splash opens for the Philip Strange stories in order from “A Squadron Shall Perish” to “When England Vanished”. If you’re at the show, stop by, say “Hi” and pick up a copy. (Quantities are limited.)

Our first is the penultimate volume in our Captain Philip Strange series—back this time with eight more weird WWI stories spanning the run of the series in Strange Deaths! A mental marvel from birth, who used his talents on stage as a boy, Philip Strange is now known as “The Phantom Ace of G-2″ by the Allies during WWI and the verdamnt Brain-Devil by the Boche. Just when you thought there were no more ways to die in war, the Germans come up with some even more gruesome ways! if you’re not just being incinerated by the sun’s ray focused through enormous lenses, you’re being gassed with a horribly disfiguring plague; drowned in a sea of blood or injected with a serum that turns you into a hyped up fighting hellion until you keel over dead; maybe you’ll be lucky and just have your own munitions blow up your entire outfit, or simply have your head chopped off and mounted on some psychotic ace’s wings. Thankfully, we have have Captain Philip Strange on our side to stop them in eight of his strangest cases yet from the pages of Flying Aces magazine!

The inseparable trio is back!, Through the dark night sky, streaking swiftly with their Hisso engines thundering, is the greatest trio of aces on the Western Front—the famous and inseparable “Three Mosquitoes,” the mightiest flying combination that had ever blazed its way through overwhelming odds and laughed to tell of it! At point was Captain Kirby, impetuous young leader of the great trio; on his right was little Lieutenant “Shorty” Carn, the mild-eyed, corpulent little Mosquito and lanky Lieutenant Travis, eldest and wisest of the Mosquitoes on his left! Flying in a V formation through four exciting hell-bent tales from the pages of Popular Publication’s Battle Aces—”The X-Gun Flight” (Jan 32), “The Iron Ace” (Feb 32), “The Flying Dreadnought” (Jun 32), “The 20-Ace Patrol” (Jul 32)—all illustrated by John Fleming Gould!

In addition to these two volumes we’ll have all of our other titles that are still in print as well as our convention exclusive—Arch Whitehouse’s Coffin Kirk. So if you’re planning on coming to Pittsburgh for PulpFest this year, stop by our table and say hi and pick up our latest releases! We hope we see you there!

Our first is the lastest in our Captain Philip Strange series—back with six more weird WWI stories in Strange Squadrons! A mental marvel from birth, who used his talents on stage as a boy, Philip Strange is now known as “The Phantom Ace of G-2″ by the Allies during WWI. From his very first adventure, Captain Philip Strange has rooted out only the most bizarre battalions commissioned by Germany in the Great War. When flying coffins circle the air, or severed hands drop from the sky, the call goes out for the Phantom Ace of G-2 Intelligence. For the Allies know that only the so-called “Brain-Devil” and his aides can out-fly the zombie traitors and human bombs, or out-spy fiends like The Mask and the Man with the Iron Claw! When World War I gets weird, only America’s own “Phantom Ace of G-2” has a ghost of a chance against the supernatural slaughter. Captain Philip Strange in his strangest cases yet from the pages of Flying Aces magazine!

We’re doubling down on Keyhoe this year, as our other title is the second half of the Jailbird Flight Stories that ran through all three of Popular Publication’s air anthology titles. Starting in Battle Aces in September 1931 running through the end of it’s initial publication run when they switched to Battle Birds at the end of 1932 and into Dare-Devil Aces in 1934.

The Jailbird Flight: The Devil Flies High. They had all been sentenced to a living death and all bore The Convict Brand! The Jailbirds were recruited from the military prisons of Britain, France, and America. Real men, molded in the harsh fires of life, dishonored perhaps in the eyes of the Army—but men with red blood and courage. Hard fighters, some of them hiding bitter memories, but all of them ready to follow their leader, “Killer” Kirby, down a flaming suicide trail on the most dangerous missions of the Great War! Rather than wither behind bars—they were given the chance to die fighting!

In addition to these two volumes we’ll have all of our other titles that are still in print as well as our convention exclusive—Arch Whitehouse’s Coffin Kirk. So if you’re planning on coming to Pittsburgh for PulpFest this year, stop by our table and say hi and pick up our latest releases!

First, we have the lastest in our Captain Philip Strange series—back with six more weird WWI stories in Strange Hell! A mental marvel from birth, who used his talents on stage as a boy, Philip Strange is now known as “The Phantom Ace of G-2″ by the Allies during WWI. The German Empire has unleased Hell on Earth! The dead are climbing out of their graves and giant skeletons attack the living. Heads are detonating and soldiers are turning to bronze. But flying to the rescue like an avenging angel is America’s own “Brain Devil,” Captain Philip Strange, the phantom ace of G-2 Intelligence. Whether it’s deadly bridges or killer broadcasts, when the Allies need a miracle they pray for Philip Strange! When World War I gets weird, only America’s own “Phantom Ace of G-2” has a ghost of a chance against the supernatural slaughter. Captain Philip Strange in his strangest cases yet from the pages of Flying Aces magazine!

Our other title is from the prolific pen of Harold F. Cruickshank. Sky Devil: Ace of Devils collects the second half of Cruickshank’s stories about The Sky Devil and his Brood—Lieutenants “Chuck” Verne, “Slug” Walton, Mart Bevan, “Slim” Skitch and the maverick peelot, Tom Foster! Nowhere along the Western Front could you find a more feared crew, both in their element and out. The Sky Devil and his Brood could always be counted on to whip Germany’s best Aces, out-scrap entire squadrons of Boche killers, or tackle not one, but two crazed Barons with an Egyptology fetish! But what happens when they find themselves up in a dirigible fighting a fleet of ghost zeppelins, or down in the English Channel battling ferocious deep water beasts, or even behind enemy lines dealing with a crazed Major Petrie?

This volume is bursting with fifteen action-packed air tales of those riders of the Hell trail—including the seminal story we unwittingly left out of the first volume where Dawe is rooked out of command of the 120 Squadron in leu of the frequently simpering Major Petrie.

In addition to these two volumes we’ll have all of our other titles that are still in print as well as our convention exclusive—Arch Whitehouse’s Coffin Kirk. So if you’re planning on coming to Columbus for PulpFest this year, stop by our table and say hi and pick up our latest releases!

IT’S HARD to believe it’s already been ten years since we introduced you to Jed Garrett, aka Captian Babyface, and his faithful dog Click, the hell-hound, but it has. It was ten years ago today Age of Aces Books published it’s first—Captain Babyface: The Complete Adventures, gathering together all 10 of Steve Fisher’s tales of Captain Babyface and his battles against the skull-visaged Mr. Death that ran in the pages of Dare-Devil Aces in 1936.

Over the past ten years we’ve published the best names in weird World War I fiction from the tattered pages of the old pulp magazines. In addition to Steve Fisher, we’ve published work from the illustrious likes of Robert J. Hogan (The Red Falcon and Smoke Wade), Donald E. Keyhoe (Captain Philip Strange, The Vanished Legion and The Jailbird Flight); C.M. Miller (Chinese Brady), Ralph Oppenheim (The Three Mosquitoes), William E. Barrett (The Iron Ace), Robert M. Burtt (Battling Grogan), O.B. Myers (The Blacksheep of Belogue), Arch Whitehouse (Coffin Kirk), Harold F. Cruickshank (Sky Devil), William Hartley (Molloy & McNamara), and Frederick C. Painton (The Squadron of the Dead). That’s quite a list and we’ve got more to come!

We’ve tried to make our website a place to help you Journey back to an Age of Aces by not only featuring content about our books—the authors we’ve published and artist we’ve printed, but also other aspects of the old air pulps that don’t make it into our books as well—The pulp covers and the stories behind them, the lives of the aces in pictures, and their most thrilling sky fights!

And there’s free fiction Fridays when we frequently post stories that can be downloaded and read! Since it’s our tenth year we’re trying to have more frequent content up on the site and more stories—trying to increase from one or two a month to practically every Friday—and from the authors we’ve published as well as recurring website favorites—Joe Archibald’s Phineas Pinkham and Lt. Frank Johnson’s Silent Orth.

So stop back often to journey back and here’s hoping for 10 more great years bringing you the best of old air pulps in a new package!

First, we have the lastest in our Captain Philip Strange series—back with six more weird WWI stories in Strange Spectres! A mental marvel from birth, who used his talents on stage as a boy, Philip Strange is now known as “The Phantom Ace of G-2″ by the Allies during WWI. “Horrors of war” takes on a whole new meaning when WWI erupts with paranormal activity: Flaming planes piloted by charred skeletons; Battleship crews that mysteriously vanish; Medieval knights falling from the sky; The spirit of the Red Baron himself haunting the frontlines! When World War I gets weird, only America’s own “Phantom Ace of G-2” has a ghost of a chance against the supernatural slaughter. Captain Philip Strange in his strangest cases yet from the pages of Flying Aces magazine!

Our other title is from the pen of Frederick Painton, a prolific pulp author and venerated newspaper man. We’ve collected eight of his stories that ran in the pages of Sky Birds magazine in 1935 and are publishing them under the title Squadron of the Dead. The Squadron of the Dead contained all the hellions of ten armies! Men without hope; men courting death; men who loved to kill; men who laughed and fought, drank and cursed, lived hard, and died harder. Americans, British, Russians—even Germans—made up their ranks, and only one bond held them together: Death lay ahead of them. They were assigned the grim missions no other squadron dared to take—for they had all been condemned to die!

Painton’s Squadron of the Dead is a departure from our usual titles that feature a scrappy band of aviators flying through various adventures. Each of the eight stories in Painton’s Squadron of the Dead is the story of a different pilot who has been condemned to death and sent to the squadron to serve out his sentence. And die they did, dropping spies, bombing impossible places, strafing infantry for harassed Allied battalions. These men flew recklessly, savagely, knowing they could live again only when death really claimed them. Then their names would shine once again in the casualty announcements and they would be posthumously awarded the Legion d’Honneur.

In addition to these two volumes we’ll have all of our other titles that are still in print as well as our convention exclusive—Arch Whitehouse’s Coffin Kirk. So if you’re planning on coming to Columbus for PulpFest this year, stop by our table and say hi and pick up our latest releases!

This year at PulpFest we’ll be premiering our latest two volumes. Both are from the pen of Donald E. Keyhoe, noted aviator, author, and ufologist. In 1931, Keyhoe created a number of long-running characters for as many aviation pulps. There was Philip Strange in Flying Aces; The Devil Dog Squadron in Sky Birds; and The Jailbird Flight for Popular Publication’s Battle Aces.

With The Jailbird Flight: Dead Man’s Drome, we reprint the first seven stories of Keyhoe’s condemed suicide squadron that ran in Battle Aces in 1931 and ‘32. Hand picked from the bowels of Blois, saved from a living death, outcasts—all of them—branded with the convict’s arrow. Braving danger with the recklessness of men who know they are doomed to die! They are dishonored war eagles who chose a chance to die in action rather than rot behind prison bars. Hot tempers, liquor, and the madness of war had brought them low—but beneath it all they still were men!

The Flight, at is core, is comprised of Bruce Kirby—Below the Rio Grande he had once been known as “The Killer,” now he flew through hell skies, leader of the strangest squadron that ever dared face death from flaming Spandaus; “Big” Durgin, the hugest Jailbird of all, a mountain of a man with pile-driver fists and a fierce, battered face that masked the gruff kindness beneath his hard exterior; “Tiger” Haight, whose dark eyes ever smoldered as at some hateful memory, perhaps of the day which had turned his hair to silver, though he was but thirty—no one knew his past—no questions were asked in the Jailbird Flight; Cartwright, the tall, urbane Englishman who looked like a British lord; the lanky Tinker with his drawling humor and comical, homely face; and last and by no means least—Kid Denison who reminded Kirby of his ill-fated young brother who had been brutally sacrificed by a drug-mad S.C.!

We also have our fourth collection of Captain Philip Strange—Strange Staffels! America’s enemies have assembled squadrons of flying furies, exploding skeletons, and invisible airplanes to turn the tide of the First World War. But when things get weird, we get Strange. Captain Philip Strange, that is—ace pilot and so-called “Brain-Devil” of G-2 Intelligence. His assignment? Journey from the backalleys of Paris to the skies over Germany, taking down flying fortresses, cursed aerodromes, strafing skulls, and other wild weapons of mass destruction!

In addition to these two volumes we’ll have all of our other titles that are still in print as well as our convention exclusive—Arch Whitehouse’s Coffin Kirk. So if you’re planning on coming to Columbus for PulpFest this year, stop by our table and say hi and pick up our latest releases!