Smoking isn't good for you, especially when you have to pause in the middle of a gunfight to roll a quirley. This fine, slightly humorous cover is by Sam Cherry, who always delivered the goods. There are some good authors in this issue of FIFTEEN WESTERN TALES. William R. Cox has two stories, one as himself and one under the name Joel Reeve. Also on hand are C. William Harrison, Theodore J. Roemer, Al Storm, James Shaffer, M. Howard Lane, and four house-names: Lance Kermit, David Crewe, Ray P. Shotwell, and Logan C. Claybourne. Often when I'm stuck for the name of a minor character in a manuscript, I'll use a pulp house-name or pseudonym. Or I'll mix and match the real names of pulp authors. Obscure little references like that always entertain me, help keep me sane, and help keep the pages rolling along.
I've read several issues of BIG-BOOK WESTERN MAGAZINE over the years, but I've never read or even seen an issue of BIG-BOOK DETECTIVE MAGAZINE, Popular Publications' attempt to launch another detective pulp. Unlike its Western cousin, BIG-BOOK DETECTIVE MAGAZINE wasn't successful and ran only eight issues from December 1941 to February 1943. This is the second issue, and based on the good cover (don't know who painted it) and the lineup of authors, the magazine's failure wasn't warranted based on its quality. Authors on hand in this issue are T.T. Flynn, W.T. Ballard, Russell Gray (actually Bruno Fischer), Robert Sidney Bowen, Jackson Gregory Jr., and house-names Daniel Winters, Ray P. Shotwell, and David Crewe. The thing about those house-names is that this being Popular Publications, the actual authors were probably pretty darned good.
WESTERN ACE HIGH STORIES was one of the last Western pulps from Popular Publications and managed only six issues in 1953 and 1954. It's not to be confused with ACE-HIGH MAGAZINE, which was published by Clayton and then Dell from 1921 to 1935, then from 1936 to 1951 by Popular Publications, where it was known variously as ACE-HIGH WESTERN MAGAZINE, ACE-HIGH MAGAZINE, and ACE-HIGH WESTERN STORIES. WESTERN ACE HIGH STORIES, which we're concerned with today, lacks the hyphen in the title. Maybe Popular was trying to cash in on some nostalgia for the earlier versions when they brought back a similar title in '53-'54, or maybe they just had a lot of stories in inventory they needed to burn off. I don't think the cover of this issue is a particularly good one, but it is another example of the iconic "poker game interrupted by a fight" scene that's so common on Western pulps. There are actually some really good authors in this issue: Gordon D. Shirreffs, Frank Castle, J.L. Bouma, Roe Richmond, Bruce Cassiday, and house-names Lance Kermit and David Crewe. I suspect Bouma wrote one or both of those house-name yarns, but that's just a guess on my part. Really, the authors could be almost anybody. I don't own this issue, and I don't recall ever seeing any issues of WESTERN ACE HIGH STORIES. That's a lineup of authors worth reading, though.
And so another Old West poker game comes down to a powdersmoke payoff on the cover of this issue of FIFTEEN WESTERN TALES. Sam Cherry was doing most of the covers for FIFTEEN WESTERN TALES during this era, but this one doesn't strike me as being Cherry's work. Whoever painted it, it's effective, no doubt about that. Inside are some excellent authors, including William Heuman, Tom W. Blackburn, Rod Patterson, Lee E. Wells, M. Howard Lane, Glenn Shirley, James Shaffer, Thomas Calvert McClary, house-names David Crewe, Ray P. Shotwell, and Logan C. Claybourne, and lesser-known authors Edwin K. Sloat and Byron W. Dalrymple. That poker player's left hand seems oddly misshapen. I'd like to think that plays into one of the stories inside, but I doubt it.
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