Okay, after seeing this cover, I'm going to have to write a scene in one of my books where the stagecoach driver holds the reins in his teeth while shooting it out with the bad guys. I really like this one. There appears to be plenty to like inside this issue of DIME WESTERN as well, with the usual line-up of great authors: L.P. Holmes, Walt Coburn, Harry F. Olmsted, Tom Roan, Robert Mahaffey, and Bart Cassidy, who may or may not have also been Harry Olmsted.
6 comments:
Now that's what I call a great Western pulp cover...
I just read a DIME WESTERN last night. The story was by Walt Coburn in a 1949 issue and even after over 20 years of hundreds of western stories and hard drinking, Coburn was still capable of writing a good story. Very impressive but within a few years and by the mid fifties all his markets dried up and his writing career was just about over.
I've been told that by the late Forties Coburn's manuscripts were in pretty bad shape and had to be rewritten quite a bit by Popular's editors, but the ones of his from that era that I've read still sound like him, so I don't know. I can understand his frustration at not being able to sell anymore, but I wish it hadn't led him to take his own life. Too many writers have ended up that way.
Coburn's suicide note is a sad thing to read and it's a shame he died by hanging himself. He had a distinct writing style which is easy to recognize. His characters talk like real cowboys and dress and act like real westerners.
He was so popular and prolific that even had a magazines named after him.
August West,
A friend of mine would like to get in touch with you. Drop me an email at jamesreasoner at flash dot net and I'll let you know what it's about. I thought I had your email address but can't seem to find it, so I hope maybe you'll see this.
I think the cover was meant to publicize a new spinoff western pulp, FRONTIER DENTIST.
Or perhaps not.
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