I'm not crazy about the cover by Duncan McMillan on this issue of SHORT STORIES, but it has a certain evocative quality about it. And the list of authors inside is great: H. Bedford-Jones, James B. Hendryx, F.V.W. Mason, Jackson Gregory, and George Bruce Marquis. With writers like that, I certainly would have been willing to give it a try.
An action-packed Norman Saunders cover graces this issue of SUPER WESTERN, a pulp that lasted only four issues before its name was changed to VARIETY WESTERN (which wasn't that successful, either, running only eight issues before another name change). But SUPER WESTERN had some excellent covers while it lasted, and stories by some good writers, too, including in this issue Tom Roan, S. Omar Barker, George Bruce Marquis, and Kenneth L. Sinclair.
I'm trying to be more diligent about updating the cover scans on the WesternPulps website, so I thought I'd go ahead and post here the one I just put up there. It's from the September 20, 1926 issue of WEST, which features a Bat Jennison story entitled "Odds Are Even". This was prompted by an exchange of comments between Jerry Page, Walker Martin, and myself about Bat Jennison and the author of the series, George Bruce Marquis. I've never read any of these stories and probably ought to. Anyway, I like the cover. (By the way, this image is from the Fictionmags Index, surely one of the most important and useful sites on the web.)
