I'm not sure what's going on in this cover by Howard V. Brown, but that looks like a mosh pit in the background. Well, they do say that science fiction can predict the future. Inside this issue of ASTOUNDING STORIES are stories by some great writers: Jack Williamson, Murray Leinster, Stanley G. Weinbaum, Nat Schachner, Raymond Z. Gallun, Ralph Milne Farley, and Wallace West. F. Orlin Tremaine was still the editor at this point, but John W. Campbell has an article in this issue. The whole issue is on-line at the Internet Archive, so I guess if I'm curious enough about that cover, I can find out.
I hate snakes in real life, but for some reason, put one on the cover of a pulp or a book and it always catches my attention. Throw in a scantily clad young woman with a spear, and I'm definitely going to notice a cover like this one by Malcolm Smith. Several of the Ziff-Davis regulars show up in this issue of FANTASTIC ADVENTURES, including David Wright O'Brien (once as himself and once as John York Cabot in a collaboration with another Z-D stalwart, William P. McGivern), Don Wilcox, Robert Moore Williams, and David V. Reed. Also on hand some pretty famous names: Robert Bloch, August Derleth, Nelson S. Bond, Stanton Coblentz, Ralph Milne Farley, and future comic book scripting legend John Broome. FANTASTIC ADVENTURES always had good covers and pretty good writers. I'm not sure why I haven't read more of them.
Nothing says "pulp" to me quite as much as ARGOSY. If it weren't for all those dang serials, it would be just about the perfect adventure pulp magazine! Take this issue, for example. You've got a colorful, dramatic cover by Paul Stahr, and inside are stories by Erle Stanley Gardner (a Whispering Sands yarn), Talbot Mundy, Theodore Roscoe, Donald Barr Chidsey (with his series character Nick Fisher), George F. Worts (part of a Peter the Brazen serial as by Loring Brent), Fred MacIsaac, Ralph Milne Farley, Cliff Farrell, and Armand Brigaud. To say that's an impressive line-up is quite an understatement! And ARGOSY did that week after week. Truly an iconic pulp.
Since I seem to have a Leslie Scott theme going this weekend, here's an issue of ARGOSY containing his novelette under the A. Leslie name, "Six-Gun Railroading". In addition to that we've got an installment of a John Solomon novel by H. Bedford-Jones (haven't read any of those yet, but I need to), part of a Radio Planet serial by Ralph Milne Farley (ditto), more serials by George W. Ogden and Fred MacIsaac, and a short story by Eustace L. Adams. Plus a sword-totin' Viking babe on the cover. Looks like a pretty good issue to me.
