As with so many action pulp series, the Super-Detective stories lean heavily on the outlandish inventiveness of their writers, but it was a losing game since super-hero comic books were stealing most of the younger pulp readers. In the end, comics proved a much efficient format for boy's adventure fantasies, while the hard-boiled pulpsters of the Black Mask school (from whence came, of course, Raymond Chandler and Dashiel Hammett) churned out much more satisfying crime fare. But hero pulps have their own unique flavor: an endearingly awkward excited voice ("Even Jim Anthony breathed hard and tightly through his nostrils at the sight of the utterly unbelievable thing that was.") that was often the result of cranking 'em out quickly with spare time for rewrites, a willingness to toss logic out the window for the sake of breathless thrills.
Pulp fans on the lookout on the lookout for fresh faces will probably get a kick out of the Super-Detective Flip Book, though. If Anthony's adventures aren't as violently outré as some of his colleagues', they're still good for a lazy summer afternoon read.
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