MAX BRAND'S WESTERN MAGAZINE was a reprint pulp, but it had new covers including this dandy one by Norman Saunders. Once again, trouble has reared its ugly head at an Old West poker game! MAX BRAND'S WESTERN MAGAZINE usually included a story by Max Brand, naturally, but not this time around. The stories are reprints from various 1920s and '30s issues of ARGOSY and ARGOSY ALL-STORY WEEKLY. The best-known authors are Bennett Foster and Kenneth Perkins. Also on hard are Christopher B. Booth and Carroll Lichty, neither of whom is familiar to me. Even though the stories are reprints, chances are few if any of the readers of this pulp had read them in their original appearances, so they probably got their quarter's worth.
Many of the pulps had military-themed covers during World War II, such as this one by Rafael De Soto, and some of the stories in this issue of ARGOSY are war-related, too, judging by their titles: "Armchair Admiral No. 2" by Fletcher Pratt, "WACS, Macs and Warlocks" by Theodore Roscoe, "Always Victorious" by Jacland Marmur, "Red Sun Over Bengal" by Kenneth Perkins, "Flight to Nowhere" by Leslie T. White, "Hell Afloat" by Eustace L. Adams, and "Somali Contraband" by E. Hoffmann Price. I don't own this issue, so I can't check those stories to make sure they're actually war yarns, but they sound like it. I'm old enough to remember when Memorial Day was on May 31, no matter what day of the week it fell on, but I don't want to be too much of a curmudgeon and complain about how they've gone to moving holidays around.
A dramatic cover by Rudolph Belarski graces this issue of ARGOSY. I may be wrong about this, but it seems to me that snakes show up fairly often in Belarski's covers. I may have to investigate this. As always, there are some excellent writers in this issue: Theodore Roscoe, Charles Marquis Warren, Jack Byrne, Chandler Whipple, Kenneth Perkins, and one I'm not familiar with, Robert W. Cochran. Although the serials can drive a reader crazy, ARGOSY was certainly one of the great pulps.
One of Popular Publications' flagship Western pulps, along with DIME WESTERN, STAR WESTERN was still going strong in the late Forties, with this issue being a prime example. Behind that dramatic Robert Stanley cover are stories by a really fine group of writers: T.T. Flynn, Tom W. Blackburn, Frank Bonham, Van Cort (Wyatt Blassingame), John Jo Carpenter (John Reese), Kenneth Perkins, and writer/editor Art Lawson with two stories, one under his name and one as by William Fargo.
I don't recall seeing many aviation-themed covers by Herbert Morton Stoops, but this is a good one. I really like the blend of colors on it. Not surprisingly for BLUE BOOK during this era, there are three H. Bedford-Jones stories in this issue--one under his own name, one under his name as well as that of his fictional collaborator Captain L.B. Williams, and one as Gordon Keyne. Other notable writers on hand are Warren Hastings Miller, Leland Jamieson, Kenneth Perkins, William Chester (with a Kioga story), and Robert R. Mill (with a Tiny David story). As a blend of the pulp and slick sensibilities, nothing else came close to BLUE BOOK.
ARGOSY was still a full-fledged pulp in 1940, as you can probably tell by this octopus-fighting cover by Rudolph Belarski. Despite Foster-Harris's name being on the cover, he's not listed in the contents for this issue in the Fictionmags Index. However, there are stories by Donald Barr Chidsey, Johnston McCulley, Borden Chase, Robert Arthur, Jack Byrne, Kenneth Perkins, and David V. Reed, so that's no shortage of good authors.
WESTERN ROMANCES was Dell's attempt to compete with RANCH ROMANCES, I supppose, and judging by this issue, they did a pretty good job of it, at least where the quality of the cover and fiction is concerned. That's a nice Oklahoma Land Rush cover by Sidney Riesenberg. Inside are stories by top-notch pulpsters Murray Leinster, F.V.W. Mason, J.E. Grinstead, Anthony M. Rud, and Kenneth Perkins. The editor was Archibald Bittner, who also wrote pulp fiction as Wayne Rogers.
