Pulpflakes Blog: The Secrets Of The Pulps

For over five decades, the pulp magazines entertained people all over the world. Discover the people behind them; the authors, editors, illustrators and their stories. Look behind the scenes and learn the secrets of storytelling.

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  • Simple, Fast search of the FictionMags Index

    Simple, fast search of the FictionMags Index. It’s finally here. https://pulpflakes.com/fmisearch/ The FictionMags Index (FMI) is the biggest online index of English language fiction published in periodicals. Search the FMI by author or artist name, magazine title or look for a specific issue by date or issue number. Tips and tricks While search tolerates partial……

  • Off-beat Tales: Western Trails, November 1943

    Last week, we took a look at the May 1938 issue of Western Trails. Let’s now look at the November 1943 issue. Cover by John Krank, which could be a pseudonym. The content structure looks similar to the earlier issue, two novelettes, seven short stories and one fact article. Western Trails [Vol. XXXVII No. 3,……

  • Off-beat Tales: Review of Western Trails, May 1938

    Why read a second-tier title like Western Trails? Most of my western reading in the pulps has been from Street & Smith’s Western Story. I’ve also sampled Doubleday’s West, Popular Publications’ Dime Western, Star Western and a few issues of Clayton’s Cowboy Stories and Ace-High. Flirted with a few Ranch Romances. But the western was……

  • Issue Review: Sea Stories, Feb 1922, the first issue

    Following up on last week’ post on author reactions to Street & Smith’s all-reprint first issue of Sea Stories comes this review of the first issue. Let’s start with the mission statement, printed inside the issue: Sea Stories Magazine, the first number of which you hold in your hand, will deal with the adventures of……

  • Right To Reprint Or Not? That Is The Question

    The question of whether to reprint old stories or not was always a thorny one for pulp publishers. While many know about the so called “reprint menace” of the 1930s and 1940s when publishers like Harry Donenfeld and Martin Goodman pushed out pulps full of reprints without identifying them as such, few know of an……