Dime Detective, launched to compete with Black Mask, was the most popular of Popular Publication’s detective pulps. It featured stories by Raymond Chandler, Erle Stanley Gardener, Max Brand, John D. MacDonald and Cornell Woolrich. This editorial, in the first issue, is a mix of rah-rah cheerleading for the magazine’s contents and an anecdote about putting together the first issue.
NOW, if you’ve got your breath back—if the goose flesh has stopped crawling and the shivers ceased racing up the old spine—
How do you like it?
We hate to begin patting ourselves on the back at this stage of the game— it’s only the first issue of Dime Detective Magazine after all — but we rather think we’ve done ourselves proud taking everything into consideration.
How about it?
Honestly now—-no hedging—have you ever run into a finer line-up of action-mystery-adventure stories than we’ve gathered together for you in this first number of Dime Detective Magazine?
And it’s going to be this way from now on.
On the 15th of every month it’s going to be waiting for you on the newsstands , thrill-packed from cover to cover, with the fastest-moving yarns that the modern masters of detective fiction can concoct. And all for the astonishingly low price indicated in the title.
For only ten cents you will be able to get stories by such writers as Erie Stanley Gardner, J. Allan Dunn, T. T. Flynn, Edward Parrish Ware, Earl and Marion Scott, Frederick Nebel and a score of other favorites whose work continually appears in magazines that sell for twice the price of Dime Detective Magazine.
We are confident that never before in magazine history has there been planned such a month-after-month fare of headliners as we are going to give you in Dime Detective Magazine. And we want to know what you think of the idea.
You won’t find any reader’s contests, space-filling “departments” or prize puzzle pages in the issues which are coming. Dime Detective Magazine is going to be without any bolstering props, firmly planted on a solid foundation of the best stories money can buy by the best authors we can find to write them.
You won’t find any coupon on the next page but if you feel like writing in and telling us what you think of Dime Detective Magazine, pro—yes, and con, too, it will help to guide us in making the magazine the sort of magazine you want it to be. What authors would you like to see on the contents page? We’ll get them for you. What type of stories do you like? We’ll go after them if you’ll give us the word. Do you prefer novelettes to short stories? We want your help in making that decision.
In order to give the readers the high type of fiction we want to give them at the amazingly low price of only ten cents per copy of the magazine it is going to be necessary for the circulation to be large and steady. We are confident that this first issue of Dime Detective Magazine is going to make for just that state of affairs and that you readers are going to be watching avidly for the 15th of next month when another striking new cover will let you know that the second issue of Dime Detective Magazine is ready to thrill you.
AND speaking of covers, a story is back of this month’s masterpiece. We wanted something extra special in which to dress the new baby and everyone around the office was frantically cudgelling his or her brain for a swell idea. But even editors and art directors draw blanks, it seems, and no one could hit on anything that would fill the bill.
Finally, one rainy afternoon, after much prolonged and footless argument over innumerable bowls of chop suey, sent up from down-stairs, it began to look like the new magazine was going to have to go coverless. Each idea put forth seemed to have less merit than the last and time was getting short if the publication date planned on was to be met.
At last Mr. Reusswig, the artist, wandered in. Noticing the baffled, careworn faces of the staff his pity was aroused.
“If you’ll trust me until tomorrow,” he said, “I’ll have a cover idea for you in the morning.”
We told him we wouldn’t trust him around the corner with a plugged dime —he was helping himself to someone else’s chop suey at the moment—but he seemed to be a last resort so we told him to go ahead and do his worst.
The chef d’oeuvre in blue on the cover was the result. He walked in the next day with the “Shadow of the Vulture” tucked casually under his arm and walked out five minutes later with the enthusiastic cheers of the whole organization ringing in his ears.
But that isn’t all! J. Allan Dunn who happened to be in the office when the cover arrived was so taken with it that he promptly went home and wrote the lead story that opens this issue. The Shadow of the Vulture is unique in that it was inspired by the artist’s illustration instead of, as is usually the case, the illustration being drawn to fit the story. The combination turned out so successfully that we’re thinking of putting our carts before our horses as a regular procedure! How about it?
Curious chances often combine to create a story and this was just such an occasion. Sometimes it may be an apt title that may start the leaven to working in an author’s mind. Other times it may be an item from the daily newspaper or an incident from the personal experience or knowledge of the yarn spinner that gives the initial impetus to his pen.
Mr. Dunn, the author of The Shadow of the Vulture, is himself in many ways as interesting a character as the fictional figures he draws to move through his ingenious and thrilling yarns. South Sea trader, world explorer, traveler and holder of navigation certificates he has led an action-crammed life.
It takes more than the merely unusual to excite him, but when he first saw Mr. Reusswig’s cover the reaction was immediate.
“Great!” he said. “I’ve been kneading a story in my subconscious for a long time. It’s tied up with the subterranean water conduits and channels of New York.”
“Got a title?” he was asked.
“A dozen,” said Dunn. “Take your choice!”
The Shadow of the Vulture was finally decided on. We thought it was a pip of a choice. Dunn thought so. Reusswig thought so. We hope you’ll think so. Let us know now that you’ve read it. How about it?
Next month at the end of the magazine we’ll have some more interesting material on the men who are making Dime Detective Magazine a success. How they write their stories, who they are and what they do when they’re not pounding out thrillers for your hungry eyes. You’ll like it.