I know Blue Book magazine is the pulp that is supposed to have the best illustrations of all of the pulp magazines, and from the few 1940s issues I’ve read, I’ve no doubt that on average the illustration quality was much better than other pulps.
But I’ve also read Adventure in the 1940s and think that was an amazing decade as far as illustration quality. I know these weren’t the peak days of the magazine, but the stories are still very readable, and most of the illustrations were quite good, and some are stunning.
I have here an illustration for a poem. Can you guess who the artist was for this amazing illustration? Leave your answers in the comments. I’ll post the answer next week along with the poem itself.
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| Illustration of Mayan priest in Adventure magazine |
I agree with you about ADVENTURE in the 1940's. We all talk about how great the Hoffman years were in the teens and twenties but the thirties were good under Howard Bloomfield and the forties under Ken White were also of high quality. During the forties the magazine just did not use one illustration per story like most pulps, but instead followed BLUEBOOK's practice of having several illustrations for the long stories and serials.
Since you make of point of saying the illustration is of a Mayan priest, maybe this art is by Earl Mayan! Otherwise I'll go with the great Flanagan. I'm glad to see some attention being paid to ADVENTURE of the forties.
It's not Flanagan, it's by another artist more known for his fantasy/science fiction art.
ADVENTURE in the forties had one or two humorous stories in each issue in addition to the regular adventure stories. That plus the illustrations make it stand out.