On this issue of WESTERN NOVEL AND SHORT STORIES, J.W. Scott gives us his version of the Iconic Trio: the Stalwart Cowboy, the Gun-totin' Redhead, and the Old Geezer. The Old Geezer is tied up instead of wounded, and the Redhead doesn't look particularly angry, but the Cowboy is definitely stalwart and wearing a red shirt, to boot. (Red shirts on Western pulp covers don't have the same meaning as red shirts on STAR TREK, by the way.) A fine bunch of writers can be found inside this issue, too: Eugene Cunningham, Harry Sinclair Drago, Larry A. Harris, Raymond S. Spears, and Ken Jason, a house-name but usually used by one of the top authors. I don't own this one, but it looks like a top-notch Western pulp that's probably well worth reading.
This issue of QUICK TRIGGER WESTERN NOVELS MAGAZINE sports an evocative cover by H.W. Scott and contains only two stories, a novella by Charles M. "Chuck" Martin that's long enough it probably ought to be considered an actual novel, as the magazine's title suggests, and a short story by James P. Olsen, as well as a poem by Raymond S. Spears. All three of those authors were top-notch pulpsters, so I'm sure this is a fine issue and I wouldn't hesitate to read it if I owned a copy.
I don't think this cover is as good as many others by Herbert Morton Stoops, but this is an important issue of BLUE BOOK anyway. It's the last one that was a true pulp. Trimmed, maybe, but still a pulp. The next issue it went to the larger quarto size. As usual with BLUE BOOK, H. Bedford-Jones is well-represented in the Table of Contents with three stories, one under his own name and one each as by Gordon Keyne and Michael Gallister. Also contributing to this issue are Richard Wormser, Georges Surdez, Lemuel de Bra, Robert R. Mill, Raymond S. Spears, Jacland Marmur, and little-known writers John Upton Terrell, George Agnew Chamberlain, Charles Wellington Furlong, and George Weston. With Bedford-Jones anchoring their stable, BLUE BOOK always had good authors in its pages.
A.G. Peck, an artist I'm not familiar with, painted the evocative cover on this issue of ADVENTURE. As usual, the line-up of authors inside is very strong: Harold Lamb, J. Allan Dunn, Georges Surdez, Hugh Pendexter, J.D. Newsom, Karl W. Detzer, Bill Adams, and Raymond S. Spears. Arthur Sullivant Hoffman was still the editor at this point. ADVENTURE was a great pulp, issue after issue.
That's a pretty dramatic cover on the final issue of a fairly short-lived detective pulp, DETECTIVE ACTION STORIES. I don't know the artist, but he came up with an eye-catching scene there. Inside are stories by Richard Wormser, Anthony M. Rud, Raymond S. Spears, and a couple of authors I haven't heard of, B.B. Fowler and Oscar Graeve. That's not really a sterling line-up, although Wormser and Rud were pretty darned good. Might explain why DETECTIVE ACTION STORIES didn't last all that long.
