We have a tough-looking hombre, courtesy of Sam Cherry, gracing the cover on this issue of FIFTEEN WESTERN TALES. The collection of authors inside is pretty good, too: William Heuman, Philip Ketchum, Les Savage Jr., Tom W. Blackburn, Chuck Martin, Rod Patterson, M. Howard Lane, James C. Lynch, James Shaffer, house-names Ray P. Shotwell and Lance Kermit, and lesser known authors Frederick Bales and Joe Payne. They always counted the features in FIFTEEN WESTERN TALES, so actually there are only thirteen stories in this one.
Not many Western pulps had Halloween covers, at least that I've been able to find, and I think I've used all of them in past years. So this year I'm just going to fall back on an old favorite, Norman Saunders, with this cover for WESTERN SHORT STORIES. "All-Star Stories", it says, and based on the authors inside, that's a pretty solid claim. In this issue, you'll find stories by D.B. Newton, Dean Owen, H.A. DeRosso, Tom W. Blackburn, Gunnison Steele (Bennie Gardner), James P. Olsen, Hapsburg Liebe, Ralph Berard (Victor White), James C. Lynch, and Raymond W. Porter. Those are all prolific, well-regarded pulpsters.
The cover on this issue of 10 STORY WESTERN MAGAZINE is more proof, as if we needed it, that the barber shop was one of the most dangerous places in the Old West. I don't know who painted this one, but I like it quite a bit. There's the usual fine bunch of writers inside the magazine, too: Tom W. Blackburn, Frank C. Robertson, Tom Roan, Leslie Ernenwein, Art Lawson, Glenn Wichman, Dabney Otis Collins, and James C. Lynch. No Olmsted or Coburn, surprisingly. But solid pulpsters, for sure.
