This issue of FAMOUS WESTERN has a good cover, but I'm afraid I don't know the artist. The only guess I can venture is A. Leslie Ross, and I'm not convinced of that at all. There are some good writers inside this issue, with the best-known being Harry Sinclair Drago with a novella called, "The Gun Notch That Didn't Count", a great title. There's also a story by Abner J. Sundell under his "Cliff Campbell" pseudonym that later became a house name when other authors besides Sundell began using it. Another house name, James Rourke, also has a story in this issue, plus yarns by some apparently real but completely forgotten writers: Wilcey Earle, Brian Loomis, Gratton Boone, and Thomas Tyler Jackson. I don't know anything about Gratton Boone, but it would be a great name for an evil gunman character. I don't own this issue of FAMOUS WESTERN. The scan and the author information come from the Fictionmags Index.
I can't find anything on Gratton Boone either beyond the name showing up in other Western and a few detective pulps, but I suspect a pen name at work. Gratton is a uncommon English surname, but extremely rare as a first name. The most noteworthy individual I can locate with it being Gratton Hanley Dalton, a member of the famous Dalton Gang. He apparently went by "Grat" as a nickname, which is arguably an even better moniker for a Black Hat villain than Gratton. :)
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grat_Dalton
Boone suggests Daniel Boone, of course. Between the two it seems like something a less memorably-named author might choose for a pseudonym when writing Westerns.
The fact that Gratton Boone shows up only in pulps published by Columbia Publications, or imprints associated with Columbia, makes me think it's probably a house name. But at this late date, who knows? I may use it as a character name, if I can remember.
ReplyDelete