Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Masked Rider Western, January 1944

I enjoyed that Masked Rider novel by Donald Bayne Hobart I read recently enough to read another one. I don’t own the January 1944 issue of MASKED RIDER WESTERN, but I read it on the Internet Archive. (Actually, I read a downloaded PDF on my Kindle Fire. I’m not a fan of reading books or pulps on the computer.) I believe the cover is by George Gross.

The Masked Rider novel in this issue, “The Devil’s Range”, finds the Masked Rider and Blue Hawk in South Dakota, which places the action after November 2, 1889, when Dakota Territory became the states of North and South Dakota. The cattlemen in the area are being plagued by a gang of rustlers known as the Black Band because of the black masks they wear. They’re also having trouble with a price-gouging town boss who controls the flow of supplies in the area. The Masked Rider and Blue Hawk operate separately for the most part in this yarn. Blue Hawk trails the rustlers to locate their hideout and winds up in a heap of trouble. The Masked Rider, in his Wayne Morgan identity, investigates the crooked town boss and winds up infiltrating his gang—and pinning on a badge as the local sheriff. It’s an odd role for the notorious Robin Hood Outlaw to play, but Hobart spins the plot strands of this one very skillfully. While some of it was pretty predictable, there are some twists that actually took me by surprise, and that’s always a very welcome bonus. Hobart’s distinctive style has really grown on me. He’s becoming one of my favorite Western pulp authors, and “The Devil’s Range” is a very solid entry in a good series.

H.A. DeRosso has a well-deserved reputation among Western fans as being one of the finest authors of Western noir stories and novels. His short story in this issue, “Killers Also Die”, doesn’t really fit in that mold, although it does have a hardboiled tone. It’s a more traditional tale about a young man seeking vengeance on the man who murdered his father. However, things don’t turn out as they first appear to be.  What actually happens is very predictable, making this a story in need of a twist that never happens. It’s well-written, though, and an entertaining traditional Western story, but not one you’d give to someone who’s never read DeRosso before as an example of what he’s known for.

I’ve seen Clinton Daingerfield’s name in many Western pulp TOCs, but I don’t recall ever reading anything by him until now. In his story “Lone Hand for Liberty”, a young cowboy is framed for the murder of his wealthy cattleman uncle. The protagonist stands to inherit the murdered man’s ranch, so he has a good motive for murder and witnesses saw him clash with the older man, too. Even though it’s pretty obvious what’s going on in this story, and one bit of business requires a pretty big suspension of disbelief, Daingerfield keeps things moving at a nice pace and I wound up enjoying the story quite a bit.

I’ve read a few stories by Mel Pitzer and thought they were okay. “Fangs of Freedom” starts out as a humorous animal story, and I had my doubts about it. It becomes more serious as it goes along. There’s a romance angle that would have made it a good fit in RANCH ROMANCES, but it’s secondary to the story of a collie being accused of turning into a cattle killer. Things come to a satisfactory conclusion, making this a minor but reasonably entertaining yarn, which seems to be a good description of everything I’ve read so far by Mel Pitzer.

Stephen Payne was a prolific and widely respected Western pulp author. I have one of his novels and several collections of his stories but haven’t read any of them. I know his reputation, though, which is why I was pretty disappointed in his novelette “Borrowed Hosses” in this issue. It's a slapstick comedy about two cowboys named Bucko and Gumbo, in much the same vein as Syl McDowell’s Swap and Whopper stories. (The illustration that goes with Payne’s story is by the same artist who did the illustrations for McDowell’s series.) I thought this one was just terrible and only made it a few pages before giving up. However, it prompts me to want to read one of Payne’s more serious stories to see if I like it better, or if he’s just one of those popular authors who don’t connect with me for some reason.

Since most of the pages in this issue are given over to a good Masked Rider novel, I have to say that I liked it overall, although none of the other stories are particularly outstanding and there was the one I didn’t finish. I’ll probably read something else by Donald Bayne Hobart in the near future, but maybe not another Masked Rider novel so soon. I make no promises, though.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: North*West Romances, Fall 1945

I like posting snowy covers of Northern pulps during the summer when the weather is hot. This one is by the always-excellent George Gross. This issue of NORTH*WEST ROMANCES also has some fine authors in its pages, most notably Dan Cushman, Les Savage Jr., and William Heuman. Those three are enough to make any pulp issue worthwhile by themselves. Also on hand are R.S. Lerch, Kenneth P. Wood, Larry McLane, R.A. Emberg, Paul Selonke, and Michael Oblinger. I like listing the authors' names, even the ones I've never heard of, because every so often somebody will be searching on-line for mentions of a relative, and then they email that So-and-So was their grandfather or great-uncle or something, and they're excited to see the name in a post. That always makes me feel good.  

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Fight Stories, Spring 1952

I didn't realize FIGHT STORIES was still being published as late as 1952. This was, in fact, the final issue in a run that began all the way back in June 1928. The cover of this last issue is by George Gross, who did a lot of great covers for Fiction House pulps. Jack Kofoed, one of the long-time stalwarts of FIGHT STORIES has a feature inside, and there are some interesting writers on hand, including Larry Holden (who was really mystery writer Lorenz Heller, much reprinted in recent years by Stark House) and Western pulpsters Clifton Adams and Phil Richards, along with names new to me such as Barney Barnett, Burgess Leonard, and Francis Paul Pyne. I think of Robert E. Howard when I think of FIGHT STORIES, of course, but it was a decent market for other pulp writers for a long time.

Crypt-City of the Deathless One - Henry Kuttner

Henry Kuttner is one of my favorite science fiction writers. I don’t think I’ve ever read a novel or story by him that didn’t entertain me. CRYPT-CITY OF THE DEATHLESS ONE is no exception. This novella was published originally in the Winter 1943 issue of the pulp magazine PLANET STORIES (with a cover by the great George Gross) and is available now as a stand-alone e-book, which is how I read it, and as a trade paperback. Set on Ganymede, it’s the story of a drunken, tragedy-haunted Earthman who signs on as the guide for an expedition to a lost city in the middle of an unexplored wilderness. The goal is to discover the power source used by an ancient, vanished civilization, as well as finding the cure for a plague that’s ravaging Earth. Science, of course, has long since rendered the setting pure fantasy, but who cares? The story races along, the characters are interesting, and things come to a surprisingly powerful, satisfying conclusion. I really enjoyed it. Kuttner never disappoints.

George Gross: Covered - Robert Deis and Wyatt Doyle, eds.

I first became aware of George Gross’s work when he did the covers for some of the Nick Carter, Killmaster novels published by Charter Books in the Eighties. He painted some excellent covers for books in that series by my friends Bob Randisi and Bob Vardeman. Later on, I realized that Gross got his start in the pulps, doing many covers for a variety of titles, but the ones that stand out the most to me are the ones on JUNGLE STORIES, where his version of Ki-Gor’s mate Helene became the gold standard for that character.

But between the pulps and the paperbacks, Gross painted scores of covers for the Men’s Adventure Magazines, and that’s the focus of GEORGE GROSS: COVERED, the latest volume from editors Robert Deis and Wyatt Doyle of New Texture Publishing.

This is one of the most beautiful books you’ll ever see, reproducing in vivid detail many of those MAM covers Gross painted. I’d post some scans of those issues, but they wouldn’t come close to equaling the reproduction in this book. In addition, Deis and Doyle provide an informative introduction, David Saunders contributes a fine biographical essay about Gross and his work, and fellow artist Mort Kűntsler, who was mentored by Gross, reminisces about their friendship and offers expert comments about Gross’s work.

Finally, the covers themselves. Well, they’re great. The action, the details, and the emotions expressed in them combine to create a real impact, the sort of visceral reaction that drew the eyes of potential readers to those magazines on the newsstand and made those customers want to buy them. Although they were inspired by stories in the magazine (for the most part), when I look at them, I want to write stories with those scenes in them. To me, that’s the ultimate test of a cover, when I think, “Man, I want to write the story that goes with that!” Gross rises to that level, and then some.

Overall, GEORGE GROSS: COVERED is just a wonderful book, available in both hardback and paperback editions. If you’re interested in the Men’s Adventure Magazines or just great action artwork, it gets a very high recommendation from me.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Smashing Western, March 1937

Thanks to David Lee Smith for this scan of one of the most unusual Western pulp covers I've seen. The artist is George Gross, and he came up with a striking way to illustrate Forrest Brown's novella "Range Hog". In the Fifties, Sixties, and Seventies, Brown wrote numerous Western novels under the name Ford Bowne. I've read one of them, MASTER OF THE LASH, and while it wasn't very good, it was eccentric enough to be interesting. Judging by this cover, "Range Hog" probably falls into the same category. I may have to read more of Brown's work. Also in this issue are stories by Andor de Soos (not a typical Western author name), Cliff Campbell (in this case, really Abner J. Sundell, originator of the Campbell pseudonym which later became a house-name), and an author I'm not familiar with, Russell Hays.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Jungle Stories, Summer 1947

I've got to read some more of the Ki-Gor novels one of these days. In the meantime, I'll just look at this eye-catching George Gross cover for a while. I don't know who wrote the lead novel under the John Peter Drummond house-name, but there are also stories by Fiction House regulars Dan Cushman, Bryce Walton, and Emmett McDowell.