This is certainly an odd cover by Ray Quigley on the May 1942 issue of WEIRD TALES. But it's eye-catching, so it did its job. There are some fine authors inside this issue, too: Seabury Quinn (with a Jules de Grandin story), Robert Bloch, Henry Kuttner, Robert Arthur, George Armin Shaftel, Greye La Spina, Malcolm Jameson, Dorothy Quick, and several I hadn't heard of: Weston Parry, Alice-Mary Schnirring, and Alonzo Deen Cole. There are interior illustrations by Hannes Bok and Boris Dolgov. I realize WEIRD TALES was past its peak by the Forties in the opinion of many fans, but I've enjoyed the issues from that era I've read. I haven't read this one, but I'll bet there's plenty to like in it.
This issue of DETECTIVE TALES starts off with a good, dramatic cover by Walter Baumhofer and has a strong line-up of authors inside: top pulpsters Frederick C. Davis, Norvell Page, Paul Ernst, Wyatt Blassingame, Franklin H. Martin, J. Lane Linklater, R.T.M. Scott, and George Armin Shaftel (once as himself and once under the pseudonym George Rosenberg), plus lesser-known George Edson and Wilton Hazzard along with house-name Emerson Graves. Davis, Page, Blassingame, and Ernst would make this pulp well worth reading for me if I owned a copy, which I don't.
I don't know who did the cover for this issue of TOP-NOTCH, but it's eye-catching, that's for sure. And there are some good writers inside this issue, including Philip Ketchum, Richard Sale, Nat Schachner, and George Armin Shaftel. Despite having seen Schachner's name for decades now, I don't think I've ever read anything by him. I have e-books of some of his science fiction stories. I suppose I ought to read them one of these days.
The cover on this issue of 10 STORY WESTERN MAGAZINE has an unusual but very effective perspective. I don't know the artist. 10 STORY WESTERN was considered a second-string Western pulp from Popular Publications, but I've always thought it was consistently good to very good, with a lot of excellent authors appearing in its pages. In this issue, for example, are stories by Tom W. Blackburn, L.L. Foreman, Philip Ketchum, Tom Roan, Robert E. Mahaffey, John G. Pearsol, M. Howard Lane, Rolland Lynch, and George Armin Shaftel. Some of those are better remembered than others, but they were all prolific, well-regarded pulpsters.
There's a nice sinister cover on this issue of DETECTIVE FICTION WEEKLY. I don't want anything to do with that operating room, thank you. Leading off this issue is a novella by T.T. Flynn, one of my favorite Western writers, featuring his series characters Mike Harris and Trixie Meehan. I've never read any of this series, but I expect I'd enjoy it. Other well-known pulpsters on hand are Richard Sale, Dale Clark, Cyril Plunkett, and George Armin Shaftel. Other authors are prolific but little known (to me, anyway) H. Randolph Peacock, Thomas W. Duncan, Donald S. Aitken, and Milo Ray Phelps. I don't think DETECTIVE FICTION WEEKLY is considered one of the top pulps these days, but there was plenty of good reading in its pages, and a great deal of it has never been reprinted.
This issue of STAR WESTERN has a variation on the cowboy/wounded geezer/girl with a gun trio that appears on so many Western pulp covers. (The girl's not a redhead, and she doesn't appear that angry.) The art is attributed to H.W. Scott, and it may well be his work, but it's a different style than what I'm used to on his many covers for WESTERN STORY.
Inside, this is almost an all-star issue, with stories by T.T. Flynn, Harry F. Olmsted, Ray Nafziger, Oliver King (really Thomas Mount, better known as Stone Cody), C.K. Shaw, John G. Pearsol, and George Armin Shaftel. That's a very solid line-up.
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