Fop meaning had been blunted by this time. In the 1900s (decade), fictional heroes began to pose as fops to conceal their true activities. Sir Percy Blakeney of "The Scarlet Pimpernel" is a well-known example of this tendency; Sir Percy cultivates the image of being an overdressed and ineffectual social butterfly, the last person anyone would imagine being capable of dashing heroism. A similar image is cultivated by Zorro's public identity, Don Diego de la Vega. This continued with the pulp fiction and radio heroes of the 1920s and 1930s and expanded with the coming of comic books. The fashion and
The Eel (fictional character) The Eel (fictional character) The Eel is a pulp fiction character, a gentleman thief of "courageous action and questionable morals," created by Hugh B. Cave, writing under the pseudonym Justin Case. Short stories about The Eel originally appeared from 1936 to 1942 in the "Spicy" magazines issued by Culture Publications. In the first of the series, "Eel Trap," the author introduces the character thus: Cave would later explain, in his foreword to "Escapades of the Eel", that it was his admiration of author Damon Runyon that led him to write the adventures using "the same present-tense, first-person narrative style that