Saturday Morning Western Pulp: .44 Western Magazine, February 1941

This fine cover by Albin Henning is another prime example of how you couldn't sit down to enjoy a game of poker in the Old West without a gunfight breaking out. The hombre swinging in on a rope with his gun blazing is a nice twist, though. Some good authors are on hand in this issue of .44 WESTERN MAGAZINE: Stone Cody (Thomas E. Mount), John G. Pearsol, Eli Colter, J.E. Grinstead, Ralph Berard (Victor H. White), and the lesser known Archie Giddings and Jay A. Constant, whose story in this issue is his only credit in the Fictionmags Index.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Two Gun Western Stories, October 1929

TWO GUN WESTERN STORIES is a pretty obscure Western pulp, although it managed to run for about four years during the late Twenties and early Thirties. I've never seen an issue of it. The cover on this issue is by Fred I. Good, an artist I've never heard of. It has some good authors in its pages, though: L.P. Holmes, Archie Joscelyn, John G. Pearsol, Raymond W. Porter, and Arthur H. Carhart. It also has some authors whose names aren't familiar to me at all: K. Carleton Unthank, Francis W. Hilton, and Gordon E. Warnke.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Lariat Story Magazine, November 1931

Although not as common as the iconic trio of stalwart cowboy, gun-totin' redhead, and wounded geezer, or the poker game that erupts in gunplay, or the shootout that takes place inside or in front of a barber shop, there's a scene that shows up on Western pulp covers from time to time featuring some gun-hung hombre standing in front of a wanted poster bearing his name and likeness. The November 1931 issue of LARIAT STORY MAGAZINE features one such cover. I don't know who did the artwork. I tend to prefer the later issues of LARIAT STORY, but these early issues have some good authors in their pages, too. This issue includes stories by Harry F. Olmsted, Stephen Payne, John G. Pearsol, Ray Humphreys, Dabney Otis Collins, and Frank Carl Young. Miles Overholt is mentioned on the cover, but isn't actually in this one, according to the Fictionmags Index. I don't own this issue, but Olmsted, Pearsol, and Payne are always worth reading.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Dime Western Magazine, February 15, 1935

The wounded hombre on this cover doesn't appear to be an Old Geezer, but we have two-thirds of our iconic trio, the Stalwart Cowboy and the Angry, Gun-Totin' Redhead. Great work on this cover by Walter Baumhofer, one of my favorite pulp cover artists. And inside, we have stories by Walt Coburn, Harry F. Olmsted, Bart Cassiday (also Harry F. Olmsted), Oliver King (actually Thomas E. Mount, who was better known under his pseudonym Stone Cody), John G. Pearsol, and John Colohan. That's a fantastic line-up of authors, but it was just another issue of DIME WESTERN MAGAZINE. I don't own this issue so I haven't read it, but I'm confident that it's a great one.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: .44 Western Magazine, October 1940

Well, there's a cover that's coming right at you. I don't know the artist. I thought that little squiggle by the left stirrup might be a signature, but if it is, I can't make it out. Whoever painted it did a good job. .44 WESTERN MAGAZINE, like all the Popular Publications Western pulps, had good covers, good authors, and great story titles. Authors in this issue include Ed Earl Repp, Lee Floren, John G. Pearsol, Jay Karth, Le Roy Boyd, Jack Sterrett, and Eugene R. Dutcher. Maybe not an all-star lineup but probably worth reading.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Star Western, February 1942

What a great cover on this issue of STAR WESTERN! I don't know the artist, but he did a fine job. Not only do I want to read a story with that scene in it, I want to write one. Maybe I will. Meanwhile, the lineup of authors in this issue is very good, too: Harry F. Olmsted, Tom Roan, Stone Cody (Thomas Mount), W. Ryerson Johnson (with a Len Siringo story), William R. Cox, and John G. Pearsol. That's a really solid bunch of Western pulpsters.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: 10 Story Western Magazine, June 1942

The cover on this issue of 10 STORY WESTERN MAGAZINE has an unusual but very effective perspective. I don't know the artist. 10 STORY WESTERN was considered a second-string Western pulp from Popular Publications, but I've always thought it was consistently good to very good, with a lot of excellent authors appearing in its pages. In this issue, for example, are stories by Tom W. Blackburn, L.L. Foreman, Philip Ketchum, Tom Roan, Robert E. Mahaffey, John G. Pearsol, M. Howard Lane, Rolland Lynch, and George Armin Shaftel. Some of those are better remembered than others, but they were all prolific, well-regarded pulpsters.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Western Short Stories, March 1957

A Western pulp from very late in the pulp era, but judging by the authors inside, this issue of WESTERN SHORT STORIES was still pretty good: H.A. DeRosso, S. Omar Barker, Edwin Booth, Clayton Fox, William Vance, and reprints by Tom W. Blackburn, D.B. Newton, John G. Pearsol, Giles A. Lutz, and Glenn H. Wichman. That's a fine bunch of Western pulpsters no matter what the era.

UPDATE: My friend Bob Deis has identified this cover artist as Jim Bentley and tells us that the cover was used originally on the January 1956 issue of MALE. Thanks, Bob.

 

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: New Western, September 1940

I feel like I ought to know who painted the cover on this issue of NEW WESTERN. The hat on the cowboy with the red bandanna looks awfully familiar. I kind of want to say Walter Baumhofer, but I don't really think that's right. Anyway . . . There are some popular, prolific writers in this issue: Barry Cord (Peter Germano), James P. Olsen, John G. Pearsol, Rolland Lynch, Lee Floren, and Glenn H. Wichman, along with Marian O'Hearn, who appeared most often in RANCH ROMANCES and the other Western romance pulps. 

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Star Western, July 1936

STAR WESTERN nearly always had good covers, and this one is no exception. I'm not familiar with the artist, Don Hewitt, but I like his work on this cover. Inside is the usual great bunch of authors to be found in a Popular Publications Western pulp: Walt Coburn, Cliff Farrell, Oliver King (Thomas Mount), John G. Pearsol, Robert E. Mahaffey, and William F. Bragg.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Dime Western, January 1938

This cover has several of the things I love about Western pulp covers: a pretty girl, some action (there's gunsmoke coming from the muzzle of the cowboy's revolver), and great story titles. I want to read "Fugitive From Boothill's Ghost Legion". Better yet, I want to write that story! There are plenty of great authors in this issue of DIME WESTERN: Walt Coburn, Harry F. Olmsted, and Ray Nafziger are three of the top Western pulpsters, and backing them up are old pros Rolland Lynch, John G. Pearsol, and Lloyd Eric Reeve. I don't know the cover artist for sure, but I think it's Tom Lovell.

Also, I wanted to mention that I got curious and looked back to see if I could find when I started this series of posts. I had posted Western pulps covers before, but as far as I can tell, the first one that was called Saturday Morning Western Pulp was on February 5, 2011. I didn't realize I'd been doing it for that long. Since February 5 was last Wednesday, I'm going to count this as the ninth anniversary post. I've missed a weekend here and there, and it's possible I could have inadvertently posted the same cover more than once, but even so I figure I've posted more than 450 Western pulp covers in this series. Maybe I can remember and come up with a special tenth anniversary post next year, if I'm still at it (which I plan to be).

Oh, and the first Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp was June 10, 2012. I plan to mark that occasion, too.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Ace-High Magazine, May 1937

Artist Tom Lovell may have featured this iconic trio on more Western pulp covers than anyone else, and here they are, rushing into battle: the Stalwart Cowboy, the Old Geezer, and the Angry, Gun-Toting Redhead. Actually, the redhead's not toting a gun on this cover, but you just know she either recently was or will be very soon. This issue of ACE-HIGH MAGAZINE (also known as ACE-HIGH WESTERN MAGAZINE at various points in its existence) features the usual stellar lineup of authors: Walt Coburn, Harry F. Olmsted, Gunnison Steele, Art Lawson, John G. Pearsol, Foster-Harris, and Robert E. Mahaffey.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: .44 Western, January 1944

That feller’s gonna read ’em from the book, shore enuff. He looks like he’s got almost as much bark on him as the varmint who was on last week’s cover. And speaking of reading . . . inside this issue of .44 WESTERN are stories by Fred Gipson (who was a prolific pulpster before becoming forever known as the author of OLD YELLER), John G. Pearsol, Lee Floren, John H. Latham, C.K. Shaw, and Harry Van Demark, all familiar names to readers of Western pulps.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Ace-High Western Magazine, January 1937

There's the Angry, Gun-Totin' Redhead we all know and love, not surprisingly on a cover painted by Tom Lovell. ACE-HIGH WESTERN MAGAZINE typically had very good covers and fine authors, and this issue is no exception. Inside are stories by Walt Coburn, Harry F. Olmsted, Cliff Farrell, Gunnison Steele, Robert E. Mahaffey, John G. Pearsol, and house-name Bart Cassidy. Those are all top-notch Western pulpsters.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Big-Book Western Magazine, January 1940

I'm used to the stories in Popular Publications' Western pulps having great titles, but "When It's Roundup Time in Hell" is particularly awesome, although the author, Rolle R. Rand, is unfamiliar to me. The FictionMags index lists thirteen stories by him, all in various Popular Publications Western pulps, in a period of a little more than a year in 1939 and early 1940. He has one more story in an Armed Services edition anthology in 1944, then a gap of more than forty years before his by-line appears on a single story in MIKE SHAYNE MYSTERY MAGAZINE in 1985, followed by one story in ESPIONAGE in 1986, then one final story in something called WHISPERING WILLOW MYSTERIES (evidently a small press publication) in 1997. That's an odd career, and I can't find anything about him on-line. Elsewhere in this issue of BIG-BOOK WESTERN are some much more familiar names, such as Harry F. Olmsted, Ed Earl Repp, and John G. Pearsol. There's even an appearance on the cover by the Angry Gun-Totin' Redhead, although the guy with her is a lawman, not the Stalwart Cowboy, and there's no sign of the Old Geezer with the Bandaged Head.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Detective Tales, February 1939

There's really a lot happening on the cover of this issue of DETECTIVE TALES. Action galore, which I like. And I'll bet there's plenty of action in the stories by Wyatt Blassingame (one under his own name and one as by William B. Rainey), Bruno Fischer (writing as Russell Gray), G.T. Fleming-Roberts, D.L. Champion, Robert Sidney Bowen, and John G. Pearsol (better known for his Westerns).

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: 10 Story Western Magazine, November 1939

Great cover on this issue of 10 STORY WESTERN (I don't know the artist) and a great bunch of writers inside: Harry F. Olmsted, Norman A. Fox, Gunnison Steele (Bennie Gardner), Ed Earl Repp, Leslie Ernenwein, John G. Pearsol, Richard Tooker (better known for his science fiction), George Michener, Jack Bloodhart, and Ted Fox. I'm not familiar with the last two, but the others range from great to dependably good.

UPDATE: The cover art on this issue is by Albin Henning. Thanks to Sheila Ann Vanderbeek for the information!

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Western Aces, June 1940

This issue of WESTERN ACES sports a nice action cover from Jerome Rozen. Inside are stories by some top Western pulpsters, including L.P. Holmes, John G. Pearsol, Larry A. Harris, Tom J. Hopkins, Lee Floren, Kenneth L. Sinclair and some lesser-known authors.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Dime Western, April 1933

You can't ask for much more out of a Western pulp than this issue of DIME WESTERN delivers. Start with a colorful, exciting cover by Walter Baumhofer and then add stories by Harry F. Olmsted, Walt Coburn, E.B. Mann, Gunnison Steele, John G. Pearsol, Miles Overholt, and more. And that's just a normal issue for this great pulp.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Star Western, July 1940

I don't know about you, but I want to read the story that cover illustrates. It looks great! The line-up of authors in this issue of STAR WESTERN isn't as strong as some but still pretty good. Inside are stories by Harry F. Olmsted, W. Ryerson Johnson (billed on the cover as William Ryerson Johnson, which I don't recall seeing before), Stone Cody (Thomas Mount), John G. Pearsol, Dee Linford, Charles W. Tyler, and Kenneth Fowler. Great cover, good authors, and over-the-top story titles . . . Yep, that's a Popular Publications Western pulp.