For supposedly bottom-of-the-barrel markets, the Columbia Western pulps featured some pretty good authors. This issue of DOUBLE-ACTION WESTERN has a novella by the great Gordon D. Shirreffs and stories by James P. Olsen, Lauran Paine, A.A. Baker, Herbert D. Kastle, and W. Edmunds Claussen, all veteran pulpsters, if not what you'd call big names. And a decent cover to boot.
8 comments:
Say James, Am gonna have to read some more pulps, because after the first 2 writers I don't think I have read any of those guys! Have been reading more modern books lately, I know, tut, tut, but what ya gonna do?
And as for the bottom of the deal, in 1955 there wasn't much of a western pulp market, so where ya gonna go?
Gordon D. Shirreffs had over 100 stories in the western pulp magazines. None have been reprinted. For some reason Shirreffs is always passed over. If anything his pulp stories are more violent than his novels. Time for someone to produce some collections of Shirreffs' stories.
I suspect Jonathan is right. Columbia may have been bottom of the barrel at the height of the pulps but by '55 these guys were no doubt happy that any pulp survived to publish their work. Same for Columbia's line of detective pulps where they were publishing old hands like Daly and introducing new writers like Frank Kane. But yeah, it was a funny line. I have a Liddell story in one issue where Kane writes that the redhead "was 90 pounds dripping wet." So there's a picture of a babe in a raincoat holding a gun...and of course she's dripping wet. Lauran Paine always interested me in that I recall one of his Leisure Books bios saying something like, "He's written 1000 novels, 700 of which have been published." Now there's a guy with determination! And of course Herbert Kastle went on to be a schlock "big book" author ala Harold Robbins. In a perfect world, James, all of your love and knowledge of the pulps will someday appear in book form!
Lauran Paine was prolific for sure. Different sources credit him with between 70 and 80 pen-names. At one time, he seemed to be writing most of the UK's Robert Hale/Black Horse Western list, and I believe he still holds the record for entries in that line.
When reading the name Lauran Paine in the table of contents of magazines, I always assumed that Lauran was a woman.
I did publish a Lauran Paine short feature about Buffalo Horses as part of the bonus content for one of my recent Ben Frank titles.
@Morgan Holmes - I spent a few minutes digging and came up with 5 Gordon D Shirreffs stories. Scanning them now. Keep checking facebook.com/perilpress and they will be up soonish.
Good news on the Shirreffs stories. I'm looking forward to reading them.
The first Gordon D Shirreffs story is up, Border Guardians, from the Feb 1955 issue of Western Action. It is available on both Amazon and Barnes & Noble. And I got a Texas Rangers in the mail that had another Shireeffs story in it, so that makes at least 6 that will eventually make their way to publication.
A second Gordon D. Shirreffs story is up, Painted Death from the March 1954 Texas Rangers.
And more violent is right. It starts tough and only gets tougher. It does not pay to be the sister.
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