Prolific pulp cover artist Modest Stein (mentioned in my earlier post on prolific pulp artists) painted professionally well into his 80s. This article, a rare profile of him, mentions his pulp work as well. OF CONSIDERABLE interest to art lovers, or for that matter to anyone who likes to marvel at human accomplishment is the… Continue reading Exhibition of the work of Modest Stein in 1956
Category: Pulp Magazines
Cartoonist and Illustrator Quin Hall
This article is a combination of a slightly edited version of an article that appeared in the Miami Herald shortly after the death of Quin Hall in 1968 and an earlier profile in Editor and Publisher, May 31, 1941. Both the above articles cover his newspaper career but omit entirely his work in the 1910s… Continue reading Cartoonist and Illustrator Quin Hall
Henry Bassett Comstock – Author, Editor, Illustrator
Henry Bassett Comstock (1908 – 2003), the son of illustrator Enos Benjamin Comstock and Christine Frances Bassett, was an illustrator, journalist and editor of Munsey’s Railroad Magazine in the 1940s. This profile of him originally appeared in The Journal News, White Plains, New York, August 6, 1972. Locomotive tootles way into one man’s heartBY VIRGINIA… Continue reading Henry Bassett Comstock – Author, Editor, Illustrator
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… Continue reading Off-beat Tales: Review of Western Trails, May 1938
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… Continue reading Issue Review: Sea Stories, Feb 1922, the first issue
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… Continue reading Right To Reprint Or Not? That Is The Question
John Alan Maxwell, Illustrator of Romance
A few days ago, I was reading the first issue of Sea Stories and happened to glance through some of the covers of that magazine. The December 1925 issue, unattributed in the FictionMags Index, caught my eye. Ah! A signature on the bottom left of that cover. I squinted at it and tried to see… Continue reading John Alan Maxwell, Illustrator of Romance
The Thrilling World of Robert C. Blackmon: Man of Mystery
The depression, back in 1932, made writing sink-or-swim proposition for Robert C. Blackmon. Cast out on his own after losing a comfortable clerical position with the Atlantic Coast Line rail road, Blackmon swam and today he blesses the day his work terminated with the railroad. Today, eight years later, Blackmon is recognized as one of… Continue reading The Thrilling World of Robert C. Blackmon: Man of Mystery
Mastering Mystery: The Intriguing World of G. T. Fleming-Roberts
THE EDITORS of Better Homes and Gardens magazine unwittingly played right into the hands of G. T. Fleming-Roberts of Brown County, Indiana, when they printed a piece of advice on picking lilies a few months ago. Pull off the stamens, the magazine suggested, and the lilies won’t stain themselves—surely as innocent a tip on gardening… Continue reading Mastering Mystery: The Intriguing World of G. T. Fleming-Roberts
Pulp Magazines: A man’s world
While the representation of women authors in the western and general fiction pulps was low, it wasn’t all a man’s world. In westerns Eli Colter and Cherry Wilson appeared regularly in Western Story; in general adventure fiction Beatrice Grimshaw (54 appearances in Blue Book); and in detective fiction the names of Mary Roberts Rinehart and… Continue reading Pulp Magazines: A man’s world