This fellow has a definite Buck Jones look about him. Maybe it's the hat. Is that an A. Leslie Ross cover? I don't know. Might be. But I do know that there are some good writers in this issue of POPULAR WESTERN, including Johnston McCulley, Gunnison Steele (Bennie Gardner), Tom Gunn (Syl McDowell, with a Painted Post yarn), Wayne D. Overholser, Larry Harris, and Russell A. Bankson. Looks like an issue worth reading.
A simple but very effective cover by Sam Cherry on this issue of the Western pulp with the simplest name: WEST. And of course there's plenty of red and yellow on there, too. The lineup of authors inside includes one of my favorites, Leslie Scott, with a novella, plus the always dependable Johnston McCulley, Larry Harris, and Steuart Emery. Nothing fancy, just good solid Western entertainment, I'll bet.
I find the cover on this issue of WEST interesting for a couple of reasons. First of all, the guy reminds me of Alfred E. Neuman of MAD MAGAZINE fame. Secondly, compare this cover to the cover from the January 1951 issue of MAMMOTH WESTERN painted by Robert Gibson Jones (below). It's not a direct swipe, but when I saw this WEST cover, I was reminded immediately of the MAMMOTH WESTERN cover. Had Jones seen the earlier cover and remembered it? Pure coincidence? I have no way of knowing, of course, but I find the similarity interesting. I'm sure the stories in this issue of WEST are pretty interesting, too. The authors on hand are all prolific pulpsters: Larry Harris, Dean Owen, Bill Gulick, Kenneth Fowler, and John A. Thompson. I met Gulick a couple of times. He continued writing and publishing into the 1990s, far past the end of the pulp era.
See, that's why I don't like to shave. It gives them dern bushwhackers a chance to sneak up on yuh! But I do like this cover painted by Joseph Dreany. 5 WESTERN NOVELS MAGAZINE was mostly a reprint pulp. All five of the lead novelettes in this issue were publishing originally in THRILLING WESTERN and THRILLING RANCH STORIES during the Thirties. But with a line-up of authors like Ray Nafziger, Lee Bond, T.W. Ford, Larry Harris, and whoever wrote the story as Jackson Cole, I wouldn't mind the reprints. There are also three short stories, evidently new, by Noel Loomis, Dupree Poe, and John C. Ropke.
