Saturday, June 02, 2012

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Real Western Romances, December 1949

Here's another Columbia Western pulp edited by Robert W. Lowndes, with a cover by Milton Luros. The cowboy hero on this one is really determined to escape! Check out that noose around his neck. The biggest names among the authors in this issue are probably A.A. Baker, who published some Avalon Westerns, and Ben Frank, prolific pulpster and author of the long-running Doc Swap series that appeared as a backup in TEXAS RANGERS. The cover is pretty dynamic, though, so that's why I'm featuring it today.

4 comments:

George said...

Great cover! Love that noose!

Walker Martin said...

I've had a couple issues of REAL WESTERN ROMANCES but quickly sold them since the Columbia pulps were often bottom of the barrel. Low rates with unknown writers, though Lowndes was good at getting his SF friends to write a story as a favor, etc.

Even THE ADVENTURE HOUSE GUIDE TO THE PULPS is not sure as to the number of issues. They show 8 issues on an irregular schedule starting in 1949 and ending in 1957 but they are not sure of the number.

Jerry House said...

Lowndes told of one experiece editing reprint western magazines. He was rushed on one magazine and automatically approved (without reading)reprinting one western novel by a writer he was very familiar with. He was feeling confident with this decision until it was discovered the novel had an unacceptable word ("hell" or "damn" -- I forget which) and got into a significant amount of trouble with his publisher.

It was a much simpler time.

Oscar Case said...

As a teenager years ago, never bought ANYTHING that had the word "romance" in it. Used to read Texas Rangers when I could get a copy.