Introduction   On Racism   Epigraphs   A History of the Pulps   A   B   C   D   E   F   G   H   I   J   K   L   M   N   O   P   Q   R   S   T   U   V   W   X   Y   Z   

Glossary and Character Taxonomy  Breakdown by Country of Origin   Bibliography   Table of Contents    The Best of the Encyclopedia

Verchères, Guy. Guy Verchères was created by “Paul Verchères,” the pseudonym of the Canadian author Alexandre Huot (Albert Brien), and appeared in “Les Aventures Extraordinaires de Guy Verchères, l’Arsène Lupin Canadien-Français” (Éditions Police Journal #1-42, 1944-1947) and Les Aventures Extraordinaires de Guy Verchères, l’Arsène Lupin Canadien-Français #1-937 (1948-1965).

Guy Verchères is a Lupin. He used to be a gentleman thief, witty, insouciant, and uncatchable, but after he made his millions he retired and moved to Montreal. He got bored with doing nothing and began fighting crime and evil. He happily assists Lieutenant Fortin of the Sûreté Montreal and Capitaine Théo Belœil of the provincial police, and both of them are in return happy to receive his help and to do what they can for him. He is a big man, muscular but light on his feet, and is graceful and suave. He is active in Canada, the United States, the Caribbean, and Europe.

His stories often verge on the fantastic; Verchères takes on the Panther Women, Zacharie the Sorcerer, a woman possessed by Satan, cannibals, Satanists, a number of Femmes Fatale assassins and murderers, Gun Molls, white slavers, zombies, a Mad Scientist’s death ray, Yellow Peril opium lords, voodoo cultists, the Hunchback of Notre Dame, a murderous Santa Claus, an Evil Surgeon, and King Kong (I) Himself.

Vercheres appears in stories with titles like “The Longshoreman’s Hook,” “The Decapitate Man,” and “The Moving Finger.”  

* I'm including the Guy Vercheres stories in the Best of the Encyclopedia list because of their imaginative content. The ideasplosions in the Guy Vercheres stories aren't on the same level as those in the German heftromane; where the authors of the Vercheres stories are content to show a murderous Santa Claus (a good idea in itself), the authors of the ideasplosion heftromane would have springboarded off murderous Santa and made him the leader of an elf cult, or something similar. But the ideasplosions in the Guy Vercheres stories make use of enough pulp tropes, motifs, and plot devices, and make use of them often enough, that the stories end up being full of them, over the entire twenty-two-year and 979-issue lifespan of the Vercheres pulps. The Vercheres concepts are Bs and B+s and the occasional A-, but a solid twenty-two-year-long span of B+ concept stories is enough to land a series and a character in the Best of the Encyclopedia list. 

Table of Contents / Annotations / Blog / Books / Patreon / Twitter / Contact me