Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Mystery Novels and Short Stories, September 1939

This is the first issue of MYSTERY NOVELS AND SHORT STORIES, a short-lived Weird Menace pulp that managed six issues total in 1939, '40, and '41. I have no idea who painted that cover, but it's a wild one. [Update: The cover art is by William Soare. Thanks to b.t. for the ID!] The presence of house-name Mat Rand in the Table of Contents, as well as Abner Sundell being the editor, tells us that this is a Columbia pulp, undoubtedly a very low-budget affair, but it certainly looks intriguing. The other authors on hand, other than Rand, all seem to be real guys: Arthur J. Burks, Harold Ward, Vernon James, Dugal McDougal, and Lazar Levi. I recognize Burks and Ward, the other guys not so much. But I'd be interested in checking it out if I had a copy, which I don't, and it doesn't appear to be available on-line. I'm trying to remember if I've ever read anything by Arthur J. Burks. He wrote almost everything for the pulps except Westerns. I ought to try some of his stories. 

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: The Underworld Magazine, June 1929

This cover by W.C. Brigham is eye-catching for a couple of reasons: the sheer brutality of the scene depicted, plus the use of a swastika in the logo well before it gained notoriety for other reasons. THE UNDERWORLD MAGAZINE was an early gang pulp published by Harold Hersey, and if I recall correctly, a lot of Hersey's pulps used a swastika in their logos. There are some good authors in this issue including James P. Olsen and Galen C. Colin (both probably best remembered for their Westerns), Henry Leverage (one of the stars of the gang pulps, and he appears twice in this issue, once as himself and once under the name Carl Henry), Armitage Trail (the author of SCARFACE), veteran pulpsters Anatole Feldman and Harold Ward, and a couple of one-shot authors, Mack Ozark and W. Jeremiah Evans. Mack Ozark especially sounds like a pseudonym to me. I've read almost nothing from the gang pulps, and I really think I should explore them more. Just a matter of finding the time.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Double-Action Gang Magazine, May 1936

Here's an odd pulp cover for you, on the first issue of DOUBLE-ACTION GANG MAGAZINE, a short-lived gangster pulp. I have a feeling that they took a Western cover they had in their files (I'd swear I've seen that cowboy somewhere else) and added the guy with the Tommy gun to it. "Killer Lightnin'" by Andor de Soos sounds like a story I'd like to read. "Gangdom Invades the West" has a nice ring to it. Luckily, Adventure House has reprinted this issue, so I can read it. Also on hand in this issue are Margie Harris, a regular contributor to the gang pulps, and Abner J. Sundell, writing under his pseudonym Cliff Campbell, which later on became a house-name, as well as Harold Ward, probably best remembered for writing the Dr. Death stories under the name Zorro.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Strange Detective Stories, January 1934

Clifford Benton's cover for this issue of STRANGE DETECTIVE STORIES is pretty exciting. I don't think I'd heard of Benton before. Looks like he did only a few pulp covers, all of them either for this magazine or its predecessor, NICKEL DETECTIVE. There's a strong group of writers in this issue, too: Norvell W. Page, E. Hoffmann Price, Arthur J. Burks, Frederick C. Painton, Ralph Perry, Harold Ward, Samuel Taylor, and a couple less familiar to me, Jack Smalley and Les Tillray. This is Tillray's only entry in the FMI. Might have been a pseudonym, might've just been his only sale. I don't know much about STRANGE DETECTIVE STORIES, but based on this issue, it appears to have been a pulp worth reading.

UPDATE: I've learned from Lynn Munroe that the Les Tillray story in this issue, "Terror Trail", was actually written by none other than Erle Stanley Gardner, and that its original title was "Death Trail". Many thanks to Lynn for this great bit of literary detective work!