Part Sherlock Holmes, part Professor Challenger, Doctor Bird faced sixteen encounters with the strange and fantastic and inspired such characters as Doc Savage.
Captain Sterner St. Paul Meek (1894-1972) was the perfect writer to create a scientist-adventurer. Meek was a military chemist who worked on ordinance in WWI and wrote as a hobby. He sold his first story to Field and Stream in 1928. Only two years later he would be a prolific producer of Science Fiction adventure yarns.
It was in 1930, for the very first issue of the Clayton Astounding Stories of Super Science that Meek created his alter-ego in scientist-adventurer, Professor Bird. Part Sherlock Holmes, part Professor Challenger, Doctor Bird and his military side-kick, Operative Carnes, faced sixteen encounters with the strange and fantastic.
“The Cave of Horror” (Astounding, January 1930) introduces Doctor Bird :
“Carnes sat on the edge of a bench and watched with admiration the long nervous hands and the slim tapering fingers of the famous scientist. Dr. Bird stood well over six feet and weighed two hundred and six pounds stripped: his massive shoulders and heavy shock of unruly black hair combined to give him the appearance of a prize fighter– until one looked at his hands.”
If you’d like to read the rest, please check out Monster 2: From the Pages of Dark Worlds Quarterly.