Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Thrilling Adventures, December 1933

The cover on this issue of THRILLING ADVENTURES was done by Emmett Watson, an artist I associate more with the Munsey pulps, but it's a fine, dynamic Foreign Legion scene that I like quite a bit. Inside this issue are stories by Johnston McCulley (his first Whirlwind story; I have the Altus Press volume that reprints the entire series and really need to get around to reading it), Oscar Schisgall, Allan K. Echols, Bob du Soe, George Allan Moffatt (really Edwin V. Burkholder), Ralph R. Fleming (who published only a handful of stories), Captain Kerry McRoberts (probably Norman A. Daniels), and house-name Jackson Cole. I'll bet if I had a copy of this issue, which I don't, I'd enjoy the stories every bit as much as the cover.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Thrilling Adventures, May 1937

Okay, did our stalwart hero have that six-gun with him in the diving suit, or was it waiting for him when he climbed back aboard the boat? We don't know, but either way, this is a fine cover by Rudolph Belarski. This issue of THRILLING ADVENTURES features stories by some good authors including Tom Curry, Oscar Schisgall, Carl Jacobi, and William Merriam Rouse. In a field where ADVENTURE, ARGOSY, SHORT STORIES, and BLUE BOOK were the top of the line, THRILLING ADVENTURES occupied a lower rank, but it always had vivid, action-packed covers and dependably entertaining writers.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Clues, November 1931

This cover is by H.W. Wessolowski, best remembered for his science fiction pulp covers, usually billed as Wesso or H.W. Wesso. But he did a number of covers for pulps in other genres, such as this issue of CLUES. Oddly enough, a number of the authors in this issue are probably best known as Western writers: T.T. Flynn, Tom Curry, Edward Parrish Ware, Oscar Schisgall, and Johnston McCulley. Although to be fair, all of those guys were very prolific in the detective pulps as well. Also on hand are John Wilstach, Richard Howells Watkins, Eric Taylor, and Lemuel de Bra, none of whom I actually think of as mystery writers. But they were good writers, and being good pulpsters, they could do a lot of different things in order to make a sale. Which makes me think this would be an entertaining issue.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Thrilling Adventures, January 1936

Seems like a lot of guys picked up tripod-mounted machine guns and waved them around on pulp covers. I know I've seen that sort of cover more than once, probably on another issue of THRILLING ADVENTURES. This issue has a fine group of writers inside, including Hugh B. Cave, G.F. Eliot (billed as Major George F. Eliot in this issue), Leslie T. White, Oscar Schisgall, Jackson Cole (who could well have been Schisgall, since that started out as a personal pseudonym for him, before it became a house-name), and Gunnison Steele (who was always Bennie Gardner). Eliot's not the only one to use his rank, either. There's also a novelette by Lieutenant Seymour Pond.

UPDATE: Annnnd the reason that cover looks familiar to me is that I've posted it before, about four years ago. So this is an accidental rerun. I've been doing this long enough that I need to start checking on that before I schedule the posts.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Western Action Novels Magazine, November 1938

This is a nice dynamic cover, although the smoke coming from their guns looks a little odd to me. I don't know the artist. WESTERN ACTION NOVELS MAGAZINE was one of what came to be known as the Columbia pulps, as you can tell from the presence of house-names Cliff Campbell and Mat Rand in the Table of Contents. Also on hand in this issue (the first in the magazine's run) are E.B. Mann (twice, with a reprint from RANCH ROMANCES under his own name and a new yarn under his Zachary Strong pseudonym), Oscar Schisgall, and William Patterson White. Looks like a pretty good issue to me, with those authors.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Detective Short Stories, November 1937

The cover by J.W. Scott for this issue of DETECTIVE SHORT STORIES looks more like it was done for a Weird Menace pulp, but hey, that's all right with me. The fumes rising from that beaker certainly are strategically placed, aren't they? Inside are stories by a couple of my favorite pulp authors, E. Hoffmann Price and Donald Barr Chidsey, along with the prolific Anatole Feldman (writing as Anthony Field), Oscar Schisgall, and assorted house-names and little known authors.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Detective Story Magazine, December 22, 1928

Street & Smith probably had more Christmas-themed covers than any other pulp publisher, such as this one on the December 22, 1928 issue of DETECTIVE STORY MAGAZINE. The art is by John A. Coughlin, who did many covers for DSM during this era, and I think it's pretty good. Of the authors inside, Johnston McCulley is almost certainly the best known today. His story in this issue is the final installment of a serial featuring a crossover between two of his series characters, the Crimson Clown and Thubway Tham. I have to confess, I haven't read anything with either of those characters. Maybe I will, eventually. Other notable authors are Cherry Wilson, a prolific contributor to WESTERN STORY, and Oscar Schisgall, also better known as a Western author who, in fact, wrote the first Masked Rider novel. I hope the Santa on this cover was able to convince the cop he wasn't up to any mischief (unless, of course, he actually was).

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Real Western, April 1937

I feel like I ought to know who did the artwork on the cover of this issue of REAL WESTERN, but I don't. The artist's style is familiar, though. Inside are stories by well-known Western pulpsters Frank C. Robertson, Oscar Schisgall, Clem Yore, and Will F. Jenkins (a reprint of a story originally published in BLACK MASK under Jenkins' pseudonym Murray Leinster). There's also a story by Fred Fincerer, a name that's totally unknown to me, probably because this may well be the only story he ever published.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Thrilling Adventures, January 1936

This isn't a great machine gun cover, but it's a good one. And the authors in this issue of THRILLING ADVENTURES are mighty good: Hugh B. Cave, Leslie T. White, George Fielding Eliot, Oscar Schisgall, Gunnison Steele (Bennie Gardner), and house-name Jackson Cole.