Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Golden West Magazine, February 1937

That's a pretty graphic clinch for a Western romance pulp cover. It was painted by Harry Fisk, who did several dozen pulp covers and interior illustrations. I wasn't familiar with his name or work, but he seems to have been a decent artist. This incarnation of GOLDEN WEST MAGAZINE didn't last very long, only half a dozen issues in 1936 and '37. There's a later GOLDEN WEST ROMANCES from the Thrilling Group, but it also ran for only six issues in 1949 and '50. But to get back to this one, there are only four stories in it, three of them by fairly well-known Western authors: Charles M. Martin, W.D. Hoffman, and Kenneth Sinclair. The fourth story is by Lulita Crawford Pritchett, who published quite a few stories in RANCH ROMANCES among other Western romance pulps. I don't recall ever hearing of her, though. I was curious enough to do a little investigating and found that there's a website devoted to her and her work. Pretty interesting stuff, too. You never know what you're going to find when you start looking into the backgrounds of some of these pulp authors.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Thrilling Adventures, August 1938

Covers like this always remind me of LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, although this issue of THRILLING ADVENTURES came out long before that movie, of course. I don't know the artist. The painting might have been inspired by the story "The Desert Legion", by the only house-name in the issue, Jackson Cole, or maybe it was one that Standard Magazines had in inventory. Doesn't matter, since it does its job either way and makes me want to read this issue. I just might, if I actually owned a copy, which I don't. There's a strong line-up of authors in its pages, too: Johnston McCulley, Arthur J. Burks, Ward Hawkins, Lt. John Hopper, Charles S. Strong (who was also an editor of Thrilling Group pulps), and Kenneth Sinclair.