Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Thrilling Western, March 1953

This is a pulp that I own and read recently. That’s my copy in the scan. I’m not sure who did the cover. There’s a signature in the lower left corner that seems to match the signature of an obscure artist named J.G. Hame, whose only credit in the Fictionmags Index is the cover on the November 10, 1950 issue of RANCH ROMANCES. I can’t find anything online about Hame. Maybe some of you know more.

The lead novella in this issue is almost long enough to be considered an actual novel. “Boom-Town Bonanza” (no hyphen on the cover, but it’s there in the TOC and the text) is by Ray Townsend, a dependably entertaining Western pulp author. As you’d expect from the title, it’s a mining yarn. In the early days after the Civil War, ex-Confederate Jim Sheldon comes to Nevada in answer to a summons from his old friend who has found a profitable silver claim. But no sooner does Jim arrive than his friend is gunned down and he finds himself involved in a war between the two big mine owners (one of whom is a beautiful woman) and the owners of the smaller mines (one of whom has a beautiful daughter). It’s basically a range war story, only with mines instead of cattle, and not surprisingly, Townsend does a good job with it. His characters are well-drawn, as is the setting, and the action scenes are excellent. My only complaint is that some aspects of the plot seem to be glossed over rather quickly, as if Townsend had trouble fitting everything into 35,000 words. Townsend’s career was short, only about eight years, but in that time he produced nearly 100 pulp stories and four novels. I plan to read more by him.

I don’t know anything about Don Peterson except that he published two Western stories and had one story in WEIRD TALES, all in the early Fifties. His story in this issue, “Cradled in Hell”, is a really bleak yarn about a stagecoach shotgun guard captured by a gang of Mexican bandits. It’s fairly well-written and it doesn’t end the way I expected it to (always a plus), but it’s so dark I found it more admirable than enjoyable.

“Land of No Surrender” is the only credit for Ray Conley in the Fictionmags Index. I don’t know if that name is a pseudonym or if this is the only story he ever sold. It’s about a crippled Pawnee warrior who seeks redemption and acceptance in a battle against the Sioux. A little on the predictable side, but not a bad story.

Ben Smith’s name is familiar to me mostly from the Western novels he wrote for Ace and Bantam, but he also wrote several dozen stories for the Western pulps in the Forties and Fifties. His novelette in this issue, “Bridge of the Eagle”, is the first thing by him that I’ve read, as far as I remember. In it, drifting cowpoke Johnny Quinn is in Arizona Territory when he gets his horse stolen from him and then a short time later is arrested for holding up a stagecoach and killing the guard. He winds up escaping from jail with a hardened killer who’s on his way to join a gang holed up in an isolated stronghold in the mountains along the border. It’s a colorful, fast-moving yarn, and Smith manages to tie up the various threads of the plot in a way that makes sense. I enjoyed it enough that it made me want to dig out more of Smith’s work. I know I have an Ace Double around here somewhere with half of it by him . . .

“Mama Rides the Norther” is by one of my favorite Western authors, Lewis B. Patten, but it’s not a typical Patten story with noir elements. Instead it’s more of a homespun frontier drama about a married couple and their two young children who leave a life in the city to establish a homestead on the Great Plains. It’s well-written and somewhat suspenseful when a blizzard blows in, but overall a pretty minor entry considering the author.

The issue wraps up with “Turn Home Again”, a short story by J.L. Bouma about a dissatisfied young farm boy who wants to leave home . . . until he has an encounter with an outlaw on the run and a posse. Bouma had a long, prolific career writing for the pulps and as a Western paperbacker, as well as writing other types of novels. I’ve always found his work to be dependably good without being outstanding. That’s the case with this story, which is enjoyable to read and comes to a satisfactory conclusion. I doubt if it’ll be very memorable, though.

Overall, this is about as middle-of-the-road an issue of a Western pulp as you’ll ever find, good but not great stories, but no stinkers, either. It’s worth reading if you have a copy, especially the Townsend and Smith stories.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Max Brand's Western Magazine, July 1952

MAX BRAND'S WESTERN MAGAZINE started out as a reprint pulp, using older stories not only by Frederick Faust under his Max Brand pseudonym and other pen-names but also stories by other Western pulpsters. As time went on, though, the magazine published more and more new stories. By the time the July 1952 issue came out, there was only one reprint in the Table of Contents, a John Colohan story from the July 1936 issue of DIME WESTERN. Authors with new stories in this issue include Philip Ketchum, Ray Townsend, Lee Floren, Allan K. Echols, Cy Kees, Robert L. Trimnell, and Marvin De Vries. Most of those may not be big names, but they published regularly in the Western pulps. And that dramatic cover, which I like, is by H.W. Scott.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Thrilling Western, Fall 1953

This is a pulp that I own and read recently. That’s my copy in the scan. I’m not sure who did the cover painting. Sam Cherry and Kirk Wilson both did a lot of covers for Thrilling Group Western pulps during this era, but to me that doesn’t quite look like the work of either of them. But I could certainly be wrong about that. What’s a little unusual is that the cover actually illustrates a scene from the lead novella, “Sundown Basin” by Ray Townsend. That could just be a coincidence, since a hanging is a pretty generic scene for a Western. But maybe not. Either way, it worked out well.

I don’t know anything about Ray Townsend except that he wrote almost 80 stories for various Western pulps in a career that lasted only six years from 1948 to 1954. He also published half a dozen Western novels, all from Popular Library (also owned by Ned Pines, who owned the Thrilling Group pulps), including SUNDOWN BASIN (1955), expanded from the novella of the same name in this issue of THRILLING WESTERN.

The protagonist of this yarn is Will Roman, a transplanted Texan who’s the foreman of a Montana ranch started by an old rancher from the Lone Star State. Will and his two best friends have a Three Musketeers (or Mesquiteers) sort of friendship until one of them up and gets engaged to the old rancher’s beautiful adopted daughter, who Will intended to marry when the time came. Adding to that tension is the fact that rustlers have been scavenging the range, and the leading suspect, who almost gets strung up at the beginning of the story, is married to a beautiful blonde Will also has feelings for. Townsend does an excellent job with this romantic rectangle, although at times it does seem to make this story more of a candidate for RANCH ROMANCES. “Sundown Basin” is a little light on action, but it’s suspenseful, the characterizations are very good, and Will Roman is a likable protagonist. I enjoyed this one a lot.

I don’t know anything about Fred Delano except that he published eight short stories in various Western pulps in 1952 and ’53. “The Fears and Albie North” is a coming-of-age story about a down-on-his-luck young man who falls in with bad company. It’s pretty lightweight but certainly a readable yarn.

I’ve seen Rod Patterson’s name on many Western pulp TOCs and on several Ace Double Western novels. Between the late Thirties and the late Fifties, he published a couple of hundred stories in the pulps, nearly all of them Westerns, the early stories in collaboration with longtime pulpster Kenneth Fowler. I don’t recall ever reading anything by him until now. “Tiger on the Range” is listed as a novelette, but it’s almost as long as Townsend’s “full-length novel”, so it’s actually more of a novella. The plot is a pretty common one for both Westerns and hardboiled novels: an ex-con, sent to prison for a crime he didn’t commit (in this case, gunning down his own brother, his rival for the girl both loved) returns home determined to stir up trouble and find out who really killed his brother. In something of a rarity for a Western pulp, at least in my experience, Patterson includes a lengthy flashback giving the details of this back-story. There’s also some rustling going on. Isn’t there always? This story sags a little in the middle as the protagonist spends a lot of time just riding around, chasing and being chased, but then there’s a nice plot twist and a satisfactory ending. Patterson has a nice terse style, and I think I probably need to dig out one of the Ace Doubles by him that I have around here somewhere.

Ben Smith is another writer who did a few Ace Double Western novels, but other than that I don’t know anything about him. His short-short “The Trail to Rocca Flat” is about some outlaws who have a falling out over the loot from their last job. It’s okay, readable but nothing special.

Finally we have “Lawman Without a Badge” by an obscure author named Vic Whitman. According to the Fictionmags Index, Vic Whitman wrote more than sixty sports and detective yarns, many of them in the pulp TOP-NOTCH, between the mid-Twenties and the mid-Thirties. Then there are no more Vic Whitman stories until two Westerns in the mid-Fifties. Same guy? I don’t know. But this story, about a young man who becomes a temporary deputy and takes the job more seriously than anybody expects, is pretty darned good.

There are also a few features and articles I didn’t read. I usually glance at them to see if there’s anything particularly interesting, but really, I’m just there for the fiction. And it’s worth reading in this issue of THRILLING WESTERN, not a bad story in the bunch. Not a great one, either, but that’s okay. Still fun to read.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Thrilling Ranch Stories, May 1950

I'm pretty sure I've never read an issue of THRILLING RANCH STORIES. It generally had pretty good covers, though, like this one, which I want to say is by Kirk Wilson, although it might be Sam Cherry's work. Some solid authors in this issue, as well, including Johnston McCulley (writing as Raley Brian), Tom Curry, Ray Townsend, Cliff Walters, and Harold F. Cruickshank (not a favorite of mine, but a lot of readers liked his work).

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Western Short Stories, June 1952

With all the action on this cover, you know it has to be the work of Norman Saunders. Seven guys, a beautiful girl with a quirt and a six-gun, and two stampeding horses. I'm not sure anybody but Saunders could have packed that much into a cover and made it work. As for the authors inside this issue of WESTERN SHORT STORIES, it's a fine group: H.A. DeRosso, D.B. Newton, Joseph Chadwick, Stephen Payne, Ray Gaulden, Joseph Payne Brennan, Ray Townsend, Roger Dee (Roger D. Aycock, probably better remembered for his science fiction), and a number of lesser-known authors including John Lumsden, Clem Yager, Jay Arrow, and house-name Ken Jason. Steve Frazee is listed on the cover but doesn't actually have a story in this issue, according to the Fictonmags Index.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Big-Book Western Magazine, June 1948

What a great cover! I think the art is by Robert Stanley, but I'm not sure about that. The artist has really piled trouble on this guy. Evidently he's being shot at, he has a knife wound in his arm, he's in jail, and he's about to get blown up! What's next? A coyote's going to drop an anvil on his head? The stories in this issue sound pretty darned good, too, with authors like Harry F. Olmsted, Giff Cheshire, Joseph Chadwick, Rod Patterson, C. William Harrison, and Ray Townsend. Like the other Popular Publications Western pulps, BIG-BOOK WESTERN was consistently entertaining.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Ranch Romances, Second April Number, 1949

That's a pretty, um, sultry cover for a late Forties issue of RANCH ROMANCES. But not surprisingly, I like it. I don't know who the artist was. Inside this issue are stories by some excellent authors, including L.P. Holmes, Wayne D. Overholser, Ray Townsend, Wilbur S. Peacock, and Walt Sheldon. Clearly RANCH ROMANCES was starting to take on some of the hardboiled tone that was common in it during the Fifties.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Star Western, November 1948

Another action-packed STAR WESTERN cover with a really villainous-looking bad guy. He reminds me a little of Glenn Strange. Even this late in STAR WESTERN's run, there are some excellent authors inside: Clifton Adams, Tom W. Blackburn, Van Cort (Wyatt Blassingame), Rolland Lynch, Bob Obets, John M. Cunningham, Ray Townsend, and Rod Patterson. Looks like a solid issue.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Big-Book Western Magazine, August 1949

I really like this cover: the lighting, the colors, and of course, it's an Injury to a Hat cover, as well. Harry Olmsted, Eli Colter, Robert Trimnell, and Ray Townsend are the only names I recognize among the authors. The other stories are by Wallace Umphrey (the lead story, "Brand Him Marshal Murder!", a title I really like, too), John C. Ropke, and Mel Holt. Oh, and the house-name Dave Sands. I'll bet it's a good issue.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Western Novels and Short Stories, September 1951

That's a colorful, eye-catching cover on this issue of the long-running WESTERN NOVELS AND SHORT STORIES. Once you get past that action-packed scene, there are stories by Walker A. Tompkins, Joseph Chadwick, Dean Owen, Ray Townsend, and a few other lesser-known writers. WESTERN NOVELS AND SHORT STORIES was considered a third-string Western pulp, at best, but most of the time it had pretty good writers in its pages.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: West, January 1953

I'm not really an art guy, but I like the composition on this cover. I have no idea who did the art. Inside are some good authors, including Gordon D. Shirreffs, Ray Townsend, and Ross Rocklynne. I think of Rocklynne as a science fiction writer and didn't know he had done any Westerns. Turns out he wrote a few over the years.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Star Western, January 1950

The last few years of its existence, STAR WESTERN rather blatantly went after the RANCH ROMANCES readers. Not only do all the covers prominently feature female characters, most of the story titles do, too, such as this issue from January 1950. You've got "The Strip's Too Hot for Blondes!" by Leslie Ernenwein, "Girl Strike in Jubilee" by Joseph Chadwick, "Bride of the Killer Legion" by Talmage Powell, "The Queen, the Wench, and the Devil" by Ray Townsend, "Two Roses for Dead Man's Range" by Dean Owen (Dudley Dean McGaughey), "Girl for a Fighting Man" by Everett M. Webber, and "Brand Her Señorita Killer!" by John Jo Carpenter (John Reese). With those authors, I'll bet most of those stories are pretty good!