Most of the WESTERN STORY covers during the 1920s were on the sedate side, but here's one that has some nice action. I can't read the artist's name in the scan, but maybe someone among you can identify who painted this cover. Inside this issue are two stories by Frederick Faust, one as by Max Brand and the other as by John Frederick, plus stories by Frank Richardson Pierce, Hugh Grinstead, Ray Humphreys, Austin Hall, Reginald Barker, and Kenneth Gilbert, all regular contributors to WESTERN STORY.
11 comments:
I know I'm in a minority, but I like the WESTERN STORY covers from the twenties. Sedate yes, but not the typical shoot 'em ups that so dominated the covers in the thirties and especially the forties. I love scenes from ranch life or out on the trail. A couple of my favorite covers show detailed chuck wagon scenes and I find it fascinating to study the wagons.
We've talked about this before, but artist Gayle Hoskins painted over 20 covers in the early thirties showing scenes from a cowboy's life. The series was so popular that Street & Smith reprinted as prints suitable for framing and gave the set to subscribers.
It's a shame we now live in an era where there are practically no fiction magazines.
I like those Twenties covers, too, Walker. As you say, they're so different from what came later and there's just something so peaceful about them. Even this cover, with its chase scene, has such nice pastel colors in it. And I've always loved that "Big, Clean Stories of Outdoor Life" line from that era. It really evokes a simpler time.
Nobody has time for fiction anymore. It's their loss.
The "sedate" covers on WSM in the 1920s I find, in many ways, preferable to the action-packed, garishly colored covers that dominated pulp covers in the 1930s and beyond. The over-the-top action covers that came to dominate westerns (understandably focused on drawing attention and thus to draw purchasers) emphasized the melodramatic aspects of the western genre and linked to the action-packed B-movies of the era. AND, as a result, ended up from the current era of Hindsight, creating a sort of generic sameness--what I call visual white noise--so that their good qualities end up diluted (reinforced in part because of the VOLUME of this type of cover painting). So the WSM covers of this earlier period stand out.
An early issue with a wonderful cover. I haven't seen but one other of these Twenties covers, I'd sure like to see more!
I believe the artist is Paul Strayer, the scan is not very clear. For comparison, look at the signature on this one.
I agree with Sai, this is Paul Strayer, an artist who lived almost a hundred years, 1885-1981. I was hoping that David Saunders had an entry on Strayer on his Pulp Artists website but no entry yet. I'll mention it to David for a possible future entry.
Rick, if you check out Galactic Central, they have thousands of pulp covers on view. Just google GALACTIC CENTRAL, pulp.
Thanks, Walker.
Sai and Walker, thanks for the identification on the artist. I'll have to check out more of Paul Strayer's work.
And Galactic Central is keyed to the FictionMags Index, so usually the images there are placed alongside the given issue's index (when the given issues are indexed). http://www.philsp.com/homeville/fmi/0start.htm#TOC
There are a number of little magazines, perhaps as many as there ever were (though entirely too many have migrated to the web), and still a slew of semi-professional items in fantastic and crime fiction at least (including webzines) but the more purely commercial fiction magazines at the pro level are pretty scarce compared to what they were, and they, too, number among them a fair if small amount of webzines. The abandonment of fiction by most general-interest magazines, when they themselves haven't given up the ghost (ink?) is more disheartening to me, but, then again, THE ATLANTIC is so poorly edited now that this is perhaps not the worst fate. Likewise ESQUIRE and COSMOPOLITAN. But the few that keep up their end, even if less vigorously than they did in years past, are still worth supporting.
David Saunders has just completed the biographical details for artist Paul Strayer. This excellent research can be viewed at pulpartists.com. David has been doing some great and ground breaking work on many pulp artists.
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