Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Short Stories, December 25, 1933

That's a nice evocative cover by Frederick Witton, an artist whose work I'm not familiar with, on this issue of SHORT STORIES. It's dated December 25, and Christmas Day was on Monday in 1933 (yes, I looked it up), so the unsold copies of this one were probably pulled off the stands on Tuesday that week. Although who wouldn't want a pulp with stories by H. Bedford-Jones, James B. Hendryx (a Corporal Downey yarn), William Merriam Rouse, George Allan England, Hapsburg Liebe, Clifford Knight, and Berton E. Cook? Well, it was the depths of the depression, after all, so I'm sure there were a lot of people who didn't have a quarter to spare, but enough people kept buying SHORT STORIES to keep it in business for a couple of decades and more after this.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Street & Smith's Western Story, August 9, 1941

We've seen plenty of poker games interrupted by gunfights on Western pulp covers, of course, but as far as I recall, this is the first one I've run across where the same thing happens during a game of pool. This cover is by H.W. Scott, who did nearly all the covers for WESTERN STORY during this particular era. As usual, there are plenty of good authors inside including Harry Sinclair Drago, Cliff Farrell, Hugh B. Cave, Frank Richardson Pierce writing as Seth Ranger, James B. Hendryx, Lloyd Eric Reeve, and Russell A. Bankson. I don't own this issue, but it looks like a good one. 

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Short Stories, December 10, 1943

This issue of SHORT STORIES is a bit of an oddity in that the cover by A.R. Tilburne doesn't feature a red sun, although there is a blob of red just above the muzzle of that nice-looking 1911. I like the cover quite a bit, even without a red sun. The line-up of authors inside this issue is really strong: H. Bedford-Jones, E. Hoffmann Price, Frank Richardson Pierce, James B. Hendryx, H.S.M. Kemp, and lesser-known Berton F. Cook and Harry Bridge. Hard to go wrong with any issue that includes HB-J, Price, Pierce, and Hendryx.

UPDATE: Yes, I suppose that could be the sun on the left, partially obscured by the foliage, but I didn't take that darker area to be a leaf. I think maybe Tilburne should have made that a little clearer. On the other hand, maybe if I was holding the actual pulp in my hands, it would be obvious. I don't mind admitting when I've missed something. I figured adding this mea culpa might be better than rewriting the whole post.
 

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Short Stories, October 10, 1935

This issue of SHORT STORIES features a good French Foreign Legion cover by Pete Kuhlhoff, although he's credited as E.H. Kuhlhoff. He was a good artist, as you can see here, but he's best remembered as a gun expert who contributed scores of articles and columns on the subject to various pulps. This issue has an excellent group of writers inside, as well: Clarence E. Mulford, Frank Richardson Pierce, J. Allan Dunn, James B. Hendryx, Bob Du Soe, Richard Howells Watkins, Henry Herbert Knibbs, and forgotten pulpsters Perry Adams, Alexander Lake, and Don Cameron Shafer. Plenty of good reading in those pages, I'll bet.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Short Stories, October 10, 1932

That's a nice, evocative "red sun" cover by Edgar Franklin Wittmack on this issue of SHORT STORIES. And you certainly can't argue with the great bunch of writers inside: H. Bedford-Jones, W.C. Tuttle, William Chamberlain, James B. Hendryx, Lemuel de Bra, and Cliff Farrell, among others. Jacland Marmur is listed on the cover but according to the Fictionmags Index doesn't actually have a story in this issue. Still plenty of good adventure reading there.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Short Stories, October 25, 1946

This is a cute cover by A.R. Tilburne, but I'm not sure how well it fits a magazine of two-fisted adventure yarns. However, there are some fine authors, including some of my favorites, in this issue of SHORT STORIES: Dan Cushman, Donald Barr Chidsey, James B. Hendryx (with a Halfaday Creek story), Jim Kjelgaard, Gordon Young, Paul Annixter, and Edward Parrish Ware. The famous "red sun" is barely visible on this one but still there.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Short Stories, July 25, 1937

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.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: New Western, September 1952

I don't recall seeing a railroad handcar on a Western pulp cover before, but I'm sure there were others besides the one on this issue of NEW WESTERN. As always with a Popular Publications Western pulp, this looks like a solid issue with stories by E.B. Mann (a reprint from a 1934 issue of STAR WESTERN), George C. Appell, James B. Hendryx (a Black John yarn), Hascal Giles, Robert L. Trimnell, and Clark Gray.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Short Stories, February 10, 1933

A classic "red sun" SHORT STORIES cover by Frank Spradling, and inside can be found stories by H. Bedford-Jones, Gordon MacCreagh, James B. Hendryx, Cliff Farrell, Jackson Gregory, Bertrand W. Sinclair, Bob du Soe, and more. Classic is nearly always the right word to describe an issue of SHORT STORIES. 

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Short Stories, April 10, 1935

A striking "red sun" cover by H.C. Murphy on this issue of SHORT STORIES, and a great line-up of authors inside: L. Patrick Greene (a Major story), James B. Hendryx (a Halfaday Creek story), William Chamberlain, Frank Richardson Pierce, Bennett Foster, and Edward Parrish Ware. SHORT STORIES published every sort of adventure fiction and most of it was very good indeed.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: New Western, November 1951

I don't believe I'd ever read an issue of NEW WESTERN until now, but this is an issue I own and read recently. Most of the Western pulps from Popular Publications are pretty much interchangeable. Their two flagship titles, DIME WESTERN and STAR WESTERN, ran more novellas, especially STAR WESTERN, but other than that the same authors appeared in all the titles across the line and the magazines featured good, solid hardboiled Westerns, for the most part.

This issue gets off to a good start with "First Stage to Sundown", a novelette by George C. Appell, whose work appeared frequently in a variety of pulps during the late Forties through the Fifties. This story uses a fairly standard plot: a stagecoach has to make a long, dangerous run in a set period of time in order to secure a government mail contract. Along the way, the coach and another wagon that accompanies it are plagued by a gang of outlaws. Appell throws in a couple of decent twists and there are several tough action scenes, along with some nice descriptive writing in places. Appell was never in the top rank of Western writers, but he seems to have produced some pretty good work. I've enjoyed the few stories I've read by him.

Next up is "Cactus-Eatin' Lady" by Robert Trimnell, an author whose name I've seen, but I don't know anything else about him. This is a humorous tale about a couple of cowpokes and a camel. It read like it might be part of a series, but I don't know for sure about that. As I've said before, with a few major exceptions, comedy Westerns just don't work for me. This is not one of those exceptions. I didn't care much for this story.

James B. Hendryx's Halfaday Creek series, featuring the good-hearted outlaw Black John Smith and Corporal Downey of the RCMP, ran for many years, mostly in the iconic pulp SHORT STORIES. "Black John—Claim Jumper" is a late entry in the series. How it wound up in NEW WESTERN, I don't know, but it's a good yarn about Black John helping out a young couple who get caught up in a mining swindle. This story could have used a little more action, but it's very well-written. This is actually the first Halfaday Creek story I've read, but I'm going to have to try some more of them.

"The Drifter Stops Off" is by James Charles Lynch, an author I know nothing about except that I think I've read somewhere he ghosted some for Ed Earl Repp. This is a pretty good story about a hobo and former printer who runs afoul of the most powerful man in town and takes measures to settle the score with him in unusual ways.

"Gun-Fighter's Brand" by John C. Colohan is a reprint from the August 1934 issue of DIME WESTERN. I've probably read a few stories by Colohan—he was a prolific contributor to the Popular Publications Western pulps—but nothing that I recall. This yarn is about a wounded lawman who has to couple of people who have a grudge against him, one a killer and the other a beautiful young woman. It's fairly well-written and has a nice twist ending I didn't see coming.

Bill Colson was actually Verne Athanas, who was more well-known under his real name. As Colson, he wrote a series about stagecoach driver and teamster Seven-Foot Sanders and his sidekick Shorty Shamrock. This sounds like a comedy series, but the entry in this issue, "Seven-Foot Sanders' Private War", is a fairly straightforward tale about trying to get a stagecoach and then a freight wagon full of supplies through Apache country. The tone is a little light in places, but there are also some gritty action scenes. I enjoyed this one enough that I'd read more in the series.

"The Hoodoo Trail Drive" by Stone Cody is another reprint, originally appearing under the title "Signed On With Satan" in the May 1937 issue of STAR WESTERN. It features a thinly disguised version of real-life cattleman Shanghai Pierce, here called Shanghai Pearson, and is about a danger-filled, seemingly cursed trail drive from Texas to Kansas. It's an excellent yarn and achieves an almost epic feel, which is hard to do in a novelette. I enjoyed it a lot, more than any of the other stories in this issue, in fact. Stone Cody was really Thomas Mount, the first husband (if I recall correctly) of bestselling author Laura Z. Hobson. I'm sure I've read his work before, but I'll be keeping a better eye out for his stories in the future after reading this one.

There's one other thing of interest in this issue of NEW WESTERN: a little house ad for the then-current issue of Popular Publications stablemate DIME WESTERN that includes the line A Riproarious "Tensleep" Story by Harry F. Olmsted. Well, other than the word "Riproarious", which I like, the interesting thing about this is that all the Tensleep Maxon stories (and there were scores of them) were published under the name Bart Cassidy. Only in the last year or so has Harry Olmsted's name been linked with that pseudonym, but here's another indication of it. Cassidy may have been used as a house-name at times, but I'm starting to believe that Olmsted was responsible for most of the stories published under that name. (Something similar happened to me many years ago, when the November 1978 issue of MIKE SHAYNE MYSTERY MAGAZINE had a house ad in it listing the next issue's Mike Shayne story: "Death in Xanadu" by James M. Reasoner. When they were making up the issue, they obviously got my name off the manuscript and forgot to replace it with the usual Brett Halliday pseudonym. As far as I know that's the only time a prose Shayne story was credited to someone other than Halliday.)

Overall, a decent issue of NEW WESTERN, with several good stories, several readable ones, and only one that I didn't finish. The scan, as usual with this sort of post, is of the copy I read, and it's a pretty good cover.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Short Stories, October 10, 1930

You don't see too many "clown with a gun" covers, or at least I haven't, but I like this one. Circus stories were pretty common in the pulps, though, and I've enjoyed the ones I've read. Thomson Burtis, who wrote this one, was best known for his aviation stories, as I recall. Elsewhere in this issue of SHORT STORIES is an installment of a serial by James B. Hendryx featuring Corporal Downey of the Mounted Police, along with stories by prolific pulpsters Foster-Harris, Bertrand V. Sinclair, and Robert E. Pinkerton, among others.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Adventure, August 1, 1935

I like the pulp covers by Hubert Rogers, and this is a good one. Inside you'll find a serial installment of THE FEUD AT SINGLE SHOT, the first novel by that "new Western writer Luke Short", plus stories by Arthur O. Friel, Theodore Roscoe, James B. Hendryx, and Arthur D. Howden Smith. That's a pretty potent lineup!

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: All Aces Magazine, May/June 1936

A short-lived pulp from Popular Publications, ALL ACES certainly had some good authors writing for it in this issue: Talbot Mundy, Murray Leinster, James B. Hendryx, and Dale Clark, along with a few others not familiar to me. That's not a particularly attractive cover, but I'll bet the stories are entertaining.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Western Story, July 13, 1940

Stampede! That's a fine cover by H.W. Scott, one of the most prolific cover artists for WESTERN STORY during this era. There's a good bunch of authors inside, too: Walt Coburn, Cliff Farrell, James B. Hendryx, and Frank Richardson Pierce with a story under his name and another under his Seth Ranger pseudonym. I'd like to see some of Pierce's work reprinted, especially the novels he did under the Seth Ranger name.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Short Stories, October 10, 1932

Looks like another fine issue of SHORT STORIES, with a red sun cover by Edgar Franklin Wittmack and stories by H. Bedford-Jones, W.C. Tuttle, Cliff Farrell, James B. Hendryx, William Chamberlain, and Lemuel de Bra. It's hard to imagine that such quality was just an everyday thing during that era.