There are those who believe that the past was uniformly dark. With the pulps, this attitude leads to an unreasoning belief that all pulp authors and editors were biased, that they never challenged any social or cultural norms and tacitly endorsed the biases and prejudices of their times. That this is wrong should be obvious,… Continue reading Stereotyping in the pulps
Author: Sai S
Pulp Art: Wings, December 1932 by Rudy Belarski
From time to time, I’m going to share an original pulp cover with you. This one, like a lot of them, is from Robert Lesser’s collection. The cover for Fiction House’ Wings, December 1932 by Rudolph Belarski, possibly illustrating Derek West’s The Wash-Out Kid. The magazine cover is missing from the FictionMags Index but I… Continue reading Pulp Art: Wings, December 1932 by Rudy Belarski
The case of the unknown artists, or Who did the early covers for Blue Book?
A couple of weeks ago, as I was going through the May 1907 issue of Blue Book, I realized that the cover was signed but unidentified. Indeed, the FictionMags Index did not have artists attributed for the first few years of the magazine’s existence. From 1912 onwards, the magazine credited the cover artist in the… Continue reading The case of the unknown artists, or Who did the early covers for Blue Book?
Issue Review: Gangster Stories, December 1929
When Prohibition was enacted in America in 1920, it made production and sale of illicit alcohol very attractive. Organized crime was attracted by the high margins in this trade and the noveau riche gangsters it spawned were celebrities in their day. Gangsters and their lives were topics of public interest. The first pulp publisher to… Continue reading Issue Review: Gangster Stories, December 1929
Wild West Weekly October 14 1933
Wouldn’t this cover by Walter M. Baumhofer have been perfect for the Robert E. Howard collection Skull-face and others?
Ace Sports February 1943: Norman Saunders cover
I love the sneaky way Norman Saunders got his signature twice into this painting. One near the bottom right where you’d expect to find it and one on the player’s jersey. Do you know any of other covers like this?
The woman behind Munsey’s science fiction/fantasy pulps
Famous Fantastic Mysteries was launched in 1939. The stories were reprints from the Munsey files – stories from the early years of All-Story, Cavalier and Argosy. For fans who had grown up after these titles had died or changed direction, this was their first encounter with the best of the stories from that era. It… Continue reading The woman behind Munsey’s science fiction/fantasy pulps
Issue Review: Blue Book, 1907 May
I recently read this issue of Blue Book. It’s the very first issue under the Blue Book title, under which name it would remain in monthly publication for more than 49 years. It’s scarce; I haven’t seen a copy for sale in a dozen years. Blue Book is underrated despite being one of the Big… Continue reading Issue Review: Blue Book, 1907 May
Welcome to the new blog
Welcome. This is the continuation of my blog, started in 2012 at Blogger. I started it to share my love of stories and authors from the golden age of fiction magazines. It’s been nearly a decade now, with nearly 400 posts in that time. It’s mostly been posts about authors and magazines, with a few… Continue reading Welcome to the new blog
Inside look: How Street & Smith handled manuscripts in the early 1920s
AFTER the author has hopefully dropped his manuscript in the mail-box, what happens when it reaches the offices of the Street & Smith Corporation, the largest publishers of fiction periodicals in the world? We will assume that your story has been addressed to one of the nine magazines—Popular, Ainslee’s, People’s, Top Notch, Love Stories, Detective… Continue reading Inside look: How Street & Smith handled manuscripts in the early 1920s