I don't have any idea who painted this cover, but I like it fairly well. I've still never read an issue of THRILLING RANCH STORIES. I'm going to have to, one of these days. This issue features one of my favorite Western writers, Joseph Chadwick, as well as Clee Woods, Joe Archibald (best remembered, I suspect, as an aviation pulpster, but he wrote everything), Harold F. Cruickshank (definitely best remembered as an aviation pulpster), Bruce Douglas, and Marian O'Hearn, as well as lesser-known pulpster Monica Morton. Oh, wait! Monica Morton was really Johnston McCulley, so never mind. Not lesser-known at all. Chadwick and McCulley make this a worthwhile issue.
I've read quite a few stories published originally in Street & Smith's TOP-NOTCH, but never an issue of the pulp itself. I don't own any, as far as I recall, but there are a number of issues available on the Internet Archive. Not this one, though. That cover by William Soare caught my eye, as did the fact that the lead novel is by Thomas Walsh, an old pulpster who was still active and writing for ELLERY QUEEN'S MYSTERY MAGAZINE when I was reading EQMM in the Sixties. Also on hand in this issue are Philip Ketchum, William Merriam Rouse, Bob du Soe, Bruce Douglas, and Harold F. Cruickshank. That's a pretty good bunch of writers.
Although THRILLING RANCH STORIES was considered to be a Western romance pulp, the covers often featured gun-blazing action like this one, which I think may be by Richard Lyon. The authors inside are Western pulp action aces, too: Leslie Scott (as A. Leslie), Stephen Payne, Lee Bond, Syl MacDowell, Bruce Douglas, Eugene A. Clancy, and house-name Jackson Cole, who could be any of those guys (but if I had to bet, I'd say in this case it was probably Lee Bond, for some reason). I've never read an issue of THRILLING RANCH STORIES. I'm not sure I own any. I need to check on that.
Since Robert E. Howard Days is going on in Cross Plains this weekend, I thought it appropriate to post the cover of one of the Western pulps in which Howard's work appeared. In this case it's the July 1937 issue of COWBOY STORIES, which includes Howard's Buckner J. Grimes story "Knife-River Prodigal". This is one of the stories that sold after Howard's death and appeared almost exactly a year later. I don't know the cover artist, but it's certainly a great example of how red and yellow dominated Western pulp covers. Also in this issue are Samuel Taylor, Bruce Douglas, W.D. Hoffman, and an author billed as Chief Henry Red Eagle, with a story called "Wampum Swamp 'Em", which makes me think it's probably not a serious examination of Indian life in the Old West.
This looks like a pretty good mid-Thirties issue of WESTERN TRAILS, with a cover by William F. Soare and entries in two long-running series, Duke Buckland by Frederick C. Davis and Bert Little by Clyde B. Warden. The other authors on hand are all top-notch pulpsters, as well: Philip Ketchum writing as Carl McK. Saunders, Frank Gruber, James P. Olsen, Peter Germano (as Peter Germane), and Bruce Douglas.
I think this is a very dramatic and effective cover by Rudolph Belarski on this issue of LARIAT STORY MAGAZINE. "Real Cowboy Stories by Real Cowboys", the cover copy says. I'm not sure that's 100% true of all the authors in this issue. Walt Coburn and Eugene Cunningham certainly did some cowboying when they were young. I think Stephen Payne may have, too. I don't have any idea about James P. Olsen, Bruce Douglas, Hubert Roussel, or Ralph Condon. And John Starr was a house-name, so I'm pretty sure he never forked a bronc. Whoever really wrote the story attributed to him in this issue may have, though. Real cowboys or not, I think this looks like a fine issue.
It's been a while since I posted a Mountie cover, and this is a good one (not surprising since it's on an issue of ARGOSY) by Rudolph Belarski. There's an excellent group of authors inside this issue as well, including E. Hoffmann Price, Harry Sinclair Drago, Eustace L. Adams, Bennett Foster, William Gray Beyer, and Bruce Douglas. ARGOSY was always good, often great.
A nice jailbreak cover on this issue of POPULAR WESTERN. I don't know who the artist is. Inside is a nice line-up of stories featuring L.P. Holmes, Bruce Douglas, Norman Daniels (writing as Charles Alan Gregory), William O'Sullivan, Syl McDowell (a Painted Post story as by Tom Gunn), and the house-name Scott Carleton (a Buffalo Bill Bates story; I don't recall who wrote these).
