Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Real Western Stories, October 1953

This is a pulp that I own and read recently. That’s my copy in the scan. I don’t know why the front cover is missing that strip at the bottom. That’s the way I got it. Luckily, the loss doesn’t detract too much from the cover by A. Leslie Ross. Not in the top rank of Ross’s work, to my mind, but his covers are always worthwhile. I’ll put a scan of the whole cover from the Fictionmags Index at the end of this post.

This issue opens with a novelette (probably closer to a novella, really) by Seven Anderton, a distinctly named author who’s mostly forgotten but who produced consistently good work for the Western and detective pulps. “Cactus Basin Showdown” features a pair of protagonists who fit the mold of many other Western pulp yarns: Brick Gordon is a handsome, two-fisted, fast-shooting cowboy, while his sidekick Galena Jones is a much older and grizzled old codger. If you’re thinking Buster Crabbe and Al “Fuzzy” St. John, well, so was I while reading this story. Anderton adds a nice variation to the story, though. Brick handles most of the action, but Galena is really the thinking half of the duo as they pitch in to help some homesteaders who are being run out of Cactus Basin by the local cattle baron/range hog. Yes, it’s a cattleman vs. sodbusters yarn, a very standard plot, but Anderton makes it fresh with his solid writing and characterizations. Even the main villain has a little depth to him. I enjoyed this story quite a bit.

The line at the top of the cover says “15 Action-Packed Stories”, but what it doesn’t tell you is that six of them are historical articles and features. I have nothing against such things and when I come across them in pulps, I usually skim them and read the more interesting ones, but really, I’m there for the fiction, so I’m not going to delve into the non-fiction. The next actual story in this issue is “The Haunted Town” by Lon Williams, an entry in his series of Weird Westerns about Deputy Sheriff Lee Winters. In this one, Winters encounters a werewolf—or does he? I’ve been aware of this series for years and always figured it would be right in my wheelhouse, but I’ve read several of them now, including this one, and for some reason I just don’t really like them very much. Something about the writing in them doesn’t resonate with me, and I don’t find Winters to be a very likable protagonist. Maybe I’m wrong about them. I’d be willing to try a few more before giving up on the series, but at this point, I’m not optimistic.

I’ve read several stories by Richard Brister and enjoyed them. “The Ioway Upstart” in this issue is about a tenderfoot from Des Moines who’s stranded in a rough, lawless mining camp. Either picked on or looked down upon by nearly everybody in the camp, he comes up with a clever way to win their respect, and also the heart of the best-looking girl in town. This is an entertaining, well-written story and makes me think I need to try one of Brister’s novels.

I read another story in the Able Cain series by A.A. Baker not long ago and enjoyed it, but his entry in this issue, “Able Cain’s Arena”, left me kind of cold. The title character is a judge in a mining boomtown and comes up with the idea of building a boxing arena so the miners can settle their disputes without shooting each other. It’s not a bad idea, but the story never generated much excitement or interest in me. My fault, maybe. Too soon to pass judgment on this series, but I’ve definitely had mixed reactions to it so far.

Gene Austin wrote a lot of stories for the Western pulps, but he seems to have been on autopilot in “Whistling in Boothill”. This story about the clash between two ranchers has some nice action at the end that almost redeems it, but the plot is really thin.

“The Hombre That Hell Wouldn’t Have” is a good title. The story is by Humphrey Jones, who wrote several dozen stories for assorted Western, detective, and sports pulps. It’s a decent yarn about a prospector who’s robbed and left to die in the desert. The resolution is pretty far-fetched, but overall, not a bad story.

Ralph Berard was the pseudonym of the very prolific pulpster Victor H. White. His story in this issue, “Gold Country Boothill”, is a very suspenseful tale about a young prospector framed for murder and the trial-by-vigilante that results. This is well-written, well-plotted, and has a very nice final twist that I didn’t see coming. I liked this one.

J.J. Mathews was another very prolific pulpster who turned out scores of Western, detective, and sports stories. His story in this issue is “Devil’s Homemaker”, which isn’t a very good title for this yarn about a young man’s quest for vengeance on the man who gunned down his father. But it’s got a decent plot and some emotional complexity, and the writing has a nice hardboiled tone to it. This is another good one from a forgotten but reliable pro.

Rex Whitechurch was a pseudonym that appeared on dozens of Western, detective, and sports stories, all of them published in various Columbia pulps edited by Robert Lowndes. Was it a house-name? That’s possible, I suppose, but I honestly have no idea. The Whitechurch story in this issue, “The Bronc Riders”, is a modern-day rodeo story and more of a romance than an action story. In fact, much of it reads more like mainstream fiction than genre Western. And it’s really, really good, too—until it runs smack into an ending that left me staring at the page in disbelief. Talk about a story falling apart at the last minute! This one is promising but very disappointing.

So what we have here is an issue of REAL WESTERN STORIES that’s a very mixed bag. Several of the stories are very good to excellent, and others I didn’t like at all. I’m glad I read it and will be on the lookout for more stories by Seven Anderton and Richard Brister. Heck, I’d even give Rex Whitechurch another try, and he made me want to throw the pulp across the room! But don’t race to your shelves to look for this one.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Western Yarns, March 1943

This is a fairly short-lived Western pulp from Columbia Publications, edited, as usual, by Robert W. Lowndes. I don't own this issue or, for that matter, any issues of WESTERN YARNS. But the cover caught my eye. It's by Sam Cherry and is one of Cherry's earliest Western pulp covers. A pretty good job, too, if you ask me. All the authors inside are well-known Western pulpsters: Ed Earl Repp, Archie Joscelyn, Lee Floren, Chuck Martin, and Ralph Berard. Maybe not the same level as the usual authors in WESTERN STORY or DIME WESTERN, but still some enjoyable yarn-spinners there.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Real Western Romances, September 1950

I don't know who painted the cover on this issue of REAL WESTERN ROMANCES, but it's eye-catching, to say the least. The same artist did several other covers for REAL WESTERN ROMANCES during this time period. The style is pretty distinctive. As always with the Columbia pulps, it was edited by Robert W. Lowndes. Inside this issue, the best-known author is Lee Floren. House-names Mat Rand and Cliff Campbell are on hand, too, as well as Roger Dee (Roger D. Aycock, probably best remembered for his science fiction stories), Burt Thomas, and a few other authors I hadn't heard of: W.P. Brothers, Ennen Reeves Hall, and Val Gendron. It wouldn't surprise me if some of those are pseudonyms, but it's entirely possible they're not. I don't own this issue and it doesn't seem to be on-line anywhere. I'm not sure I would have bought it if I'd seen it on the newsstand in 1950 . . . but with that cover, I would have thought about it. 

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Crack Detective Stories, March 1944

I'm always a sucker for a good-looking redhead, especially one with a gat like the dame on this issue of CRACK DETECTIVE STORIES. I don't know who did the art. There are some mighty good authors inside this issue, too, including Bruno Fischer (as Russell Gray), T.W. Ford, Robert Turner, G.T. Fleming-Roberts, Robert C. Blackmon, Tom Thursday, and Henry Morton. I don't own this issue and haven't read it, but it's probably another example of editor Robert W. Lowndes providing a quality product on a low budget.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Double Action Western, September 1950

Since posting my review of Harry Sinclair Drago's novel APACHE CROSSING earlier this week, I've discovered that the novel also appeared in the September 1950 issue of DOUBLE ACTION WESTERN, also under the Will Ermine name. I don't have that issue so I can't compare the texts, but the book is fairly short in the Popular Library paperback edition, 160 pages, and the pulp version runs 68 double-columned pages of, I assume, fairly small type, so it may or may not have been expanded for book publication. Also in this issue are a short story by Lee Floren and a short-short by W.G. Wyatt, who has only two credits in the Fictionmags Index, the other one being a novella in the May 1950 issue of BLUE RIBBON WESTERN. It wouldn't surprise me at all if the W.G. Wyatt name was a pseudonym, maybe for editor Robert W. Lowndes. That's pure speculation on my part, though. I think the pulp cover is by A. Leslie Ross, but it's hard to be sure because the hombre doesn't have a hat on. Ross's hats are unmistakable.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Real Western Stories, August 1953

This is a pulp that I own and read recently. That’s my copy in the scan. I don’t know who did the cover. The background looks like A. Leslie Ross’s work to me, but the figures don’t. Whoever painted it, I think it’s a fairly effective cover. Since it was a Columbia pulp, REAL WESTERN STORIES had a reputation as a low-budget production, but editor Robert W. Lowndes regularly turned out enjoyable magazines, and I was eager to find out if this issue was one of them.

A friend of mine is a fan of Seven Anderton’s work, and based on his recommendation I’ve read several of Anderton’s stories over the years. His novella “Cyclone in Petticoats” leads off this issue. It opens with a determined young woman named Ruth Horn arriving from the East in the Western town where her uncle owns the bank. He’s her last living relative, or so she thinks. Actually, the bank was robbed and her uncle was killed a short time before she got there. During the journey, she’s made the acquaintance of veterinarian “Bones” Egan, who fills her in on the troubles in the area brought on a corrupt banker and a crooked cattleman, and Ruth decides to stick around, run the bank, and break the hold that the two villains have on the town and the basin where it’s located.

This is a very well-written story with lots of good dialogue, interesting characters, and a well-handled romance between Ruth and Egan. Anderton keeps things moving along at a nice pace. What there’s a shortage of is action. The story is almost over before anybody burns any powder. The big showdown/battle is pretty good, mind you. I enjoyed “Cyclone in Petticoats” mostly because of Anderton’s excellent prose.

If you’ve never read any of Lon Williams’ stories about Deputy Lee Winters . . . well, there’s really nothing else in the Western pulps like this lengthy series. Winters is always running into bizarre situations, often with a hint, or more than a hint, of the supernatural. Sometimes, as in “A Desert Hippocrates”, the story in this issue, the threat facing Winters is just weird. The plot involves a pair of British doctors in the Old West performing some rather odd surgeries. Williams’ work has a very distinctive voice, which I like, but I’ve found the Lee Winters series to be hit and miss for me, and probably more misses than hits. This one is an average entry, mildly entertaining, but somehow it doesn’t quite work.

Lee Floren makes his first of two appearances in this issue with the short story “A Trap for a Skunk”, under the pseudonym Lew Smith. I’m not a big fan of Floren’s work, but his stories usually move along at a nice clip and this one is no exception. The plot concerns a couple of old-timers who have to take drastic action to save a young friend of theirs from the cattle baron who’s plotting to kill him. This isn’t a bad yarn, but I thought it was sorely lacking one final twist that it needed. The ending is really flat.

A.A. Baker worked for Grayhound Bus Lines and wrote Western novels and short stories on the side, publishing steadily but never achieving much fame in the genre. I don’t recall ever reading anything by him before, but his short story in this issue, “Abel Cain Strikes Back”, is pretty good. Abel Cain is a frontier judge keeping law and order in a California mining boomtown. In this yarn, a mob storms the jail not to lynch a prisoner but to free him so that he can lead his rescuers to a new gold strike. Baker throws a nice twist into the mix and comes up with an entertaining story featuring good characters and some nice action. Baker wrote more than thirty Abel Cain stories between 1948 and 1959, and I wouldn’t mind reading more of them.

Richard Brister wrote hundreds of Western, detective, and sports stories for the pulps as well as a dozen or so Western novels. His short story in this issue, “Learn and Live”, concerns an encounter between a notorious outlaw and the consumptive doctor who patches up a bullet wound for him. It’s well-written and clever, a pretty good yarn.

“Boothill Double-Cross” is by Crag Martin, an author about whom I know absolutely nothing except that he published nine stories in various Western pulps in the early Fifties. This one is about a young sheriff trying to clear the name of a friend of his who has been accused of robbing the local bank. It’s a very predictable story with nothing that stands out about the writing or the plot. Average at best, partially redeemed by some decent action at the end.

“The Lie” is by Fred Landreth, his only credit in the Fictionmags Index. That always makes me wonder if the name was a one-time pseudonym. I don’t know about that, but this short-short about a youngster visiting the camp of two notorious outlaws, bent on taking up a career as an owlhoot himself, is well-written. There’s not much to it, but I enjoyed it.

I’ve mentioned before that I’m not a big fan of Lee Floren’s work, mostly because it’s so inconsistent. I think his early novels about drifting adventurers Buck McKee and Tortilla Joe are my favorites of what I’ve read by him. Floren wrote another long-running series about two-fisted jurist Judge Lemanuel Bates and his sidekick, postmaster Tobacco Jones. More than two dozen of these yarns were published in various pulps. Floren’s novelette in this issue, “Loco Lead”, is the next to last Judge Bates story in the pulps, although he would continue to write novels about the character throughout the Sixties. This is a pretty good one featuring a would-be killer employing an unusual method in an attempt to commit murder. The plot is solid, there’s some nice action, and I found Judge Bates and Tobacco Jones to be likable protagonists. The only sign of Floren’s frequent carelessness is that one of the characters changes names almost paragraph to paragraph, sometimes called Bart Smith and sometimes Luke Smith. I suppose Stan Lee would have explained that by saying that his full name is Barton Lucas Smith. Also, Lowndes should have caught that, but I doubt that he did much diligent line editing on these stories. I don’t recall ever reading any of the stories in this series before, but based on “Loco Lead”, I wouldn’t hesitate to try another one. I might even check and see if I have any of Floren’s Judges Bates novels on my shelves.

Overall, I’d say this is a very average issue of REAL WESTERN STORIES. The best story is Seven Anderton’s novella, which is very good although I thought it could be better. Lee Floren surprised me by contributing my second-favorite story in this issue with “Loco Lead”, followed by A.A. Baker with a tale about another frontier judge, Abel Cain. The other stories are all readable with varying degrees of entertainment value. If you’re inclined to check out any of these stories for yourself, you can find the entire issue on-line here.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Crack Detective Stories, November 1945

This issue of CRACK DETECTIVE STORIES has a nice cover by Irene Endris, one of several female pulp cover artists I know of. Inside are stories by T.W. Ford (probably best remembered as a Western author although he wrote a little bit of everything in the pulps), Talmage Powell, Emil Petaja (best known as a science fiction author), Rex Whitechurch, Marcus Lyons (who was really James Blish, definitely well-known as a science fiction author), and house-names Cliff Campbell and Grant Lane. As usual with a pulp produced on a very small budget by editor Robert W. Lowndes, this is probably better than it has any right to be. I haven't read it, but if you want to check it out, the whole issue can be found here.  

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Double Action Western, September 1953

This is a pulp that I own and read recently. That’s my copy in the scan. The cover is another by A. Leslie Ross, even though it’s not credited as such. The distinctive hats make me confident that it’s Ross’s work, as does the sketchiness of the background which was common on his pulp covers from this era.

I don’t recall if I’ve read anything by Richard Brister before (and I’m too lazy to look it up), but I’m impressed by his lead novelette in this issue. “Death Rides for Doom Ranch” (I’m betting editor Robert W. Lowndes came up with that title) has an unusual protagonist: a doctor sent to prison for the mercy killing of his best friend who had cancer. After escaping, the doctor heads west, where a disastrous train derailment gets him involved with a rancher and the rancher’s beautiful daughter. At this point, I was expecting a save-the-ranch story, albeit with an offbeat protagonist, but that’s not what Brister has in mind. Instead he introduces the local sheriff, who’s in love with the rancher’s beautiful daughter, and what we get is a story that mixes psychological suspense and soap opera, with very little action. What’s surprising to me is how much I enjoyed it anyway as Brister kept me flipping the pages to find out what was going to happen. That takes some skillful writing. I’m going to have to delve deeper into Brister’s work.

As we all know from the Internet, Leo Tolstoy has taught us that there are only three plots in fiction: A man goes on a journey. A stranger comes to town. Godzilla versus Megashark. (I’m sorry. I just really like that meme.) Barney Stuart’s short story “He Just Walked Away” takes place entirely in the small town of Tall Timber, Montana, so it doesn’t really fit the first category, and there are no monsters in it, so this must be a “stranger comes to town” story. The stranger is a bad guy, too, and it looks like he’s going to cause considerable trouble until one of the locals takes action against him in an unusual manner. There’s a sort of twist ending that’s not very surprising, but it is effective. This is Barney Stuart’s only credit in the Fictionmags Index. A pseudonym? Who knows? But it’s a decent little yarn.

“Command Performance” is by David James, a fairly prolific pulpster whose work appeared only in pulps from Columbia Publications, which always makes me suspect a house-name. Be that as it may, this story has an interesting protagonist, too: a former New York City police detective who has to move west for his health and winds up becoming the sheriff of a mining town. A famous female opera singer comes to town for the opening of its new opera house. The sheriff has a crush on the opera singer and gives everybody he arrests the choice of sitting in jail or buying a ticket for the opening night performance. That results in a packed house, but cowboys and miners being what they are, chaos ensues. This is a decent setup and the story is mildly amusing, but in the end it doesn’t amount to much and seems like it needed another plot angle or two to make it interesting.

C.C. Staples wrote about 50 Western and adventure stories for various pulps between the late Thirties and the early Fifties. His story in this issue, “Golden Boy”, is about an Arizona Ranger on the trail of a horse thief turned murderer and kidnapper. It’s not bad, plenty of action and fairly well written. I’m not going to rush out and look for more stories by Staples, but I enjoyed this one.

Robert Sidney Bowen is probably best remembered for his air war stories, but he wrote quite a few Western and detective yarns, too. “Gambler’s Pot” in this issue is a rare Western pulp story in that it’s written in first person, by a crooked gambler who has a plan to bilk a successful rancher. Naturally, things don’t work as he expects. There’s really not much to this story, but Bowen was a good enough storyteller to make it readable, if not memorable.

Norman Ober wrote a lot for the Columbia pulps, mostly sports stories but some Westerns, too. His story in this issue, “Election in Creek Bottom”, is a comedy about a crooked saloon owner running his own candidate in the election for sheriff, only to have the scheme backfire on him. It’s a fairly amusing yarn and could have made a good movie starring, say, Don Knotts.

“Drygulch Range” by E.E. Clement uses the save-the-ranch plot that I thought I was going to get in Richard Brister’s story, only this novelette doesn’t have an offbeat protagonist. Instead, our hero is the usual drifting cowpoke, in this case stalwart Texan Steve Crane who is on his way to the Black Hills of South Dakota to start a horse ranch there. A reference to the Spanish-American War places the time period of this one around the turn of the century. Crane encounters a pint-size rustler hunter and then the little boy’s beautiful older sister shows up and mistakes Crane for a rustler, too, at least at first. A little bit later, a bushwhacker tries to ventilate him. Yep, our boy Steve shore is ridin’ into trouble.

While the plot of this one may not be anything new, Lowndes does an excellent job of spinning an entertaining yarn. He gives us a tough, likable protagonist, plenty of action, and a few humorous touches. Some of the “yuh mangy polecat” dialogue is so over the top, I’m convinced his tongue was firmly in his cheek as he wrote this, but if he’s making a little fun of the genre’s conventions, he’s doing it in a very affectionate way. I enjoyed this one a lot, and I’m going to have to go through my stack of Columbia Western pulps looking for more E.E. Clement stories.

There are also several fact-based features by Lauran Paine, Lee Floren (writing as Lee Thomas), and A. Hyatt Verrill, but as usual I just skimmed these. I don’t actually read features in a Western pulp unless they’re about some historical subject in which I’m particularly interested.

This is a pretty solid issue of DOUBLE ACTION WESTERN, another good example of how Lowndes, as an editor, could make something out of almost nothing (the magazine’s tiny budget). There are no truly outstanding stories, although the Brister and the Clement novelettes come close, but they’re all readable and entertaining.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Double Action Western, September 1952

This is a pulp that I own and read recently. The hat brim and the sketchiness of the background have me convinced that this cover is the work of A. Leslie Ross. He must have been knocking out these pulp covers pretty quickly, but I don’t care, I still like them. I think this one is quite effective.

The first story in this issue is “No White Sheep”, a novella by Burt Thomas. That title is a little odd, but it refers to a family of outlaws—a grizzled old owlhoot and his four or five sons (I lost track). The youngest son decides to give up the life of crime after a deputy is killed right in front of him during a robbery, so he runs away and establishes a new identity and a respectable life for himself in a small town. There’s even a girl he falls for . . . But then his past comes back to haunt him, as you knew all along it would. This is a fairly standard plot, but Thomas does an excellent job with it. The story is well-written, has some good action, and a few nice poignant moments as well. Burt Thomas wrote about three dozen stories published in various Western pulps from the late Forties to the mid-Fifties, but that seems to be the extent of his work. I couldn’t find any record that he ever published a novel. I suspected at first that the name might be a pseudonym for Lee Floren, who also wrote at Lee Thomas, but this story doesn’t read like Floren’s work to me. It could be that Burt Thomas was just a reasonably talented writer who never published much and is now forgotten.

The short story “Black Shemwell” is about a man who takes up the mantle of a gunfighter even though he’s not suited to it in order to avenge the death of his brother. Like the other story by Ben Smith that I read recently, this one is well-written and engaging, with a fairly traditional plot that still manages to be a little offbeat. I don’t know if Smith will ever be a favorite of mine, but I’ve enjoyed what I’ve read by him so far.

J.J. Mathews published more than 100 Western, detective, and sports stories from 1950 to 1960, all of them in Columbia pulps edited by Robert W. Lowndes. That makes me suspect very strongly that the name is a house pseudonym, and so does another fact I’ll get to momentarily. The long novella under the Mathews name in this issue is a real oddity. The protagonist of this story is Ace Champion, “wandering town-tamer”, as the author puts it. The tale opens with action, as Ace comes across a rancher’s daughter (a beautiful blonde, of course) being pursued by three gunmen. He steps in and rescues the girl, of course, and we’re off on another save-the-ranch-from-rustlers yarn. The villain of the piece is the notorious Mexican bandit leader Don Pesco . . . or is it? There’s some sort of connection between our hero Ace and the mysterious bandido. A love/hate relationship quickly develops between Ace and the blonde as he sticks around to help her and her father out of their dilemma, but a neighboring rancher is the third side of that romantic triangle.

This is a very schizophrenic story and leads me to wonder if there were two authors involved. The action is fast and furious and for the most part pretty well done. Ace and Judy nearly get caught in a stampede. Ace is captured by the bad guy, buried up to his neck, and left for the sun and the buzzards to finish off. Ace is ambushed numerous times and wounded more than once (said wounds being forgotten almost right away). But despite the very traditional plot and the hero’s eyeroll-inducing name, the writing is actually pretty good for the most part and the story moves along at a nice pace.

But then there are the scenes that are just terrible, and those are because everybody suddenly lapses into almost incomprehensible pseudo-cowboy dialect. I’m used to what I call “yuh mangy varmint” dialect, I’ve been guilty of it myself, but whoever wrote this story takes it to another level. The word “ter” substitutes for both “the” and “to”. “Yer” is both “you” and “your”. Then there are the things that make me think the author must have been British, like when the hero tells his horse “Away with you now, old fellow.” But it’s not always like that. Some of the dialogue reads normally.

I was curious enough to hunt up a couple of on-line scans of other Western pulps that have J.J. Mathews stories in them, and there’s no sign of such odd stuff in them. That’s the other thing I mentioned that makes me think it’s a house-name. I’m sure the truth is buried in the mists of time, but it’s the sort of thing I like to ponder. At any rate, for all its weirdness, “Through Ticket to Boothill” is kind of an enjoyable story. Whoever wrote it, there was some talent involved. Unpolished, maybe, but still there.

Lon Williams is best remembered for his long series of Weird Western pulp stories starring Deputy Lee Winters, but he wrote quite a few stand-alone yarns, too, such as “Stranger at the Gates”, which wraps up this issue. It’s about a couple of corrupt deputies whose crooked schemes run afoul of an unexpected visitor in town. It’s a short, unmemorable story.

So this is a very mixed issue, with one really good story by Burt Thomas, one good story by Ben Smith, one weird but somehow entertaining story by J.J. Mathews, and one weak story by Lon Williams. If you have this issue of DOUBLE ACTION WESTERN on your shelves, the first three stories are worth reading.

The Digest Enthusiast, Book Sixteen - Richard Krauss, ed.

For those of us who are long-time fans of genre fiction, this is kind of a Golden Age. Not only are there more readily available reprints of vintage material than even the most devoted fan could ever get around to reading, there are also a number of magazines and journals devoted to the fiction we love. For example, MEN’S ADVENTURE QUARTERLY, THE SHADOWED CIRCLE, THE BRONZE GAZETTE, and the subject of today’s post, THE DIGEST ENTHUSIAST. Book Sixteen in that series is now available, and it’s one of my favorite issues so far.

It starts off with a very nice keyhole cover featuring pinup model Jeanne Carmen, who’s featured in a long article about her career, lavishly illustrated (as they say) with many photographs and magazine cover reproductions.

Inside, regular contributor Steve Carper starts things off with an in-depth article about Handi-Books and their publisher James Quinn. Handi-Books published one of my favorite Harry Whittington novels, SLAY RIDE FOR A LADY, as well as good books by Robert Leslie Bellem, Cleve F. Adams, Paul Evan Lehman, Leslie Ernenwein, and others.

TDE editor Richard Krauss examines the first year of Howard Browne’s tenure as editor of FANTASTIC and returns later in the issue with a look at Robert A.W. Lowndes’ editorship of various magazines published by Health Knowledge. I’ve long been interested in Lowndes, who was known for editing some entertaining pulp magazines on next-to-nonexistent budgets. Krauss’s article about the Health Knowledge magazines is fascinating. Those magazines were never distributed to any of the stores and newsstands I frequented as a kid, or I would have picked them up for sure. I have a few in my collection now and always find them interesting.

Peter Enfantino continues his survey of MANHUNT, the best crime fiction digest of the Fifties, and Anthony Perconti takes a look at some of the digest-sized comic book reprint collections published by DC in the Eighties. I enjoyed both of these articles as well. Perconti’s stirred up some nice nostalgic memories because I bought and read quite a few of those digest comics collections when they were new. I actually remember seeing some of the very late issues of MANHUNT on the stands when they were new, but I never bought any of them. I’m not sure why, unless my allowance and the money I earned just wouldn’t stretch quite that far. EQMM was my mystery digest of choice in those days.

So there’s something for just about everybody in Book Sixteen of THE DIGEST ENTHUSIAST, and it’s all well-written, informative, and entertaining. This is a great series, and the latest volume is available on Amazon in both a full color and a black-and-white edition. Highly recommended.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Real Western Stories, August 1950

This is a pulp that I own and read recently. I think the cover is by A. Leslie Ross. The hat and the face look like Ross’s work to me, but maybe someone who is better than I am at artist identification can pin this down for us.

The lead novella in this issue is “Gun-Hung Range” by W. Edmunds Claussen. In a 12-year career from the mid-Forties to the late Fifties, Claussen produced around 80 stories for the Western pulps. Most of his output appeared in various Columbia Publications pulps, such as this issue of REAL WESTERN STORIES. But he also sold to some of the other publishers and authored half a dozen Western novels for Lion Books, Avon, Pocket Books, and Dodd, Mead, plus several volumes of historical non-fiction. I don’t recall reading anything by him before this novella, which uses the old plot of a villain trying to force out some small ranchers and grab their land because the railroad is coming through. The protagonist is a fairly interesting character, a rancher who is emotionally tortured because he’s married to a saloon floozy with whom he has a son but is actually in love with a beautiful schoolteacher. Unfortunately, the writing isn’t very good, with clunky prose that sometimes doesn’t flow very well and is hard to follow. The big battle at the end isn’t bad but doesn’t fully redeem the story. I have a couple of Claussen’s novels on my shelves, but I’m not going to be in any hurry to read them.

M.G. Baker published a dozen stories in various Columbia Western pulps in the late Forties and early Fifties. I suspect that the name might be a pseudonym or house name, but that’s all it is, a suspicion. Baker’s story in this issue, a novelette called “A Target For His Coffin”, is a first-person yarn, somewhat unusual for the Western pulps, narrated by the sheriff of a mining town who has 24 hours to uncover the identity of a killer and save a young visitor from the east from being lynched. It’s an okay story, a little predictable but reasonably entertaining.

T.W. Ford was a very prolific pulpster, turning out hundreds of Western, sports, and detective tales, as well as being an editor and writing a few novels, sometimes under the pseudonym Weston Clay. He has a novelette called “Boothill Brand” in this issue, and it’s a good hardboiled Western yarn in which an outlaw answers a call for help from an old flame and returns to the town where he was betrayed and framed for rustling. Plenty of action, the writing is decent (Ford was never much of a stylist), and I enjoyed this one quite a bit, not surprising since Ford was pretty consistent in his work.

Allan K. Echols is another very prolific Western pulp author/novelist. His story “Renegades Die Twice” is another pretty hardboiled yarn about the meeting between an old outlaw who’s dying and wants to make amends for his crimes and a younger owlhoot who has a clever plan. As usual in this type of story, things don’t work out as either man plans. You can see the twist coming, but it’s still effective and makes this a good story.

C.H. Cogswell authored several dozen stories during the Fifties, all appearing in Columbia Western pulps. His story in this issue, “Just One More Raid!”, is a well-written, poignant tale about an honest rancher and his best friend, an outlaw who wants to go straight and settle down, but before he does, he has to pull one more job . . . You know this story isn’t going to end well, but Cogswell does a good job with it.

Lon Williams is best remembered for his long-running series of supernaturally tinged tales about Deputy Sheriff Lee Winters, but he wrote quite a few stand-alone Western stories, too, including “Poady Hangs a Multitude” in this issue. It’s about a meek little hombre who’s elected sheriff as a joke, but he comes up with a bizarre way to bring law and order to a wide-open mining camp. This one maybe stretches credibility a bit too far. It’s an interesting story but not a particularly good one.

“Gun Mission” by W.F. Day is about a young man who teaches himself to be a fast gun in order to get revenge on a man who humiliated him. But when he returns to his hometown to accomplish this, he finds himself mixed up in something more complicated and has to change his plans. Lots of action in this one, and it’s pretty well-written. Day published only a handful of stories and I don’t know anything about him, but based on this yarn, he was a decent writer.

The issue wraps up with “Boothill Medico” by Brett Austin, a pseudonym for Lee Floren. This is a short-short about a doctor having to operate on a patient he has a grudge against. The writing is decent, but it seemed to lacking a final twist it should have had.

Overall I’d say this is a below-average issue of a Western pulp with a few good stories but nothing outstanding, and some mediocre but not terrible stories. I don’t consider the time spent reading it wasted, but it’s probably the weakest issue of a Robert Lowndes-edited pulp that I’ve read so far, proving that he couldn’t always work miracles on an almost non-existent budget.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Smashing Detective Stories, May 1955

This is an issue from late in the pulp era that I own and read recently. That’s my copy in the scan. I think the cover art is okay, not great but effective enough. I don’t know who the artist is.

This is also a momentous issue, although you wouldn’t necessarily think that an issue of SMASHING DETECTIVE STORIES, a low-budget, last gasp pulp from Columbia Publications, would ever fall into that category. But it contains the final Race Williams story by Carroll John Daly. That’s right, 32 years after the character made his debut in “Knights of the Open Palm” in the June 1, 1923 issue of BLACK MASK, the series comes to an end with “Head Over Homicide” in this issue.

I’d never read any of the later Race Williams stories, even though I have the Black Dog Books collection RACE WILLIAMS’ DOUBLE DATE and the massive complete stories collections from Altus Press. The only ones I’ve read come from the Twenties and Thirties. So I found “Head Over Homicide” pretty interesting. The story opens with Race rescuing the beautiful, kidnapped daughter of an oil tycoon. But when he returns her to her family, he quickly realizes that not everything is as it seems, and it’s not long until murder rears its ugly head. Or does it?

The writing is a little smoother and more polished than in the early stories but still unmistakably Daly. Nobody else’s writing ever sounded like his. And honestly, it seemed a little out of place to me in a story obviously set in the Fifties with several references to television. But I still enjoy Daly’s voice. This is a cleverly plotted yarn, too, going back and forth on what’s true and what’s not, and Daly keeps a nice final twist on reserve for very late in the story. It could have used more action—there’s hardly any—but all in all, for a final story in the series it’s hardly an embarrassment. I rather enjoyed it.

I was familiar with Arnold Drake as a comic book writer—how can you be a comics fan and not know the guy who co-created The Doom Patrol, Deadman, and the Guardians of the Galaxy?—but didn’t realize he turned out a few pulp stories as well, including “The Lady and the Lawyer” in this one. It’s a private eye yarn, with the detective narrator hired by a lawyer to shadow a beautiful young socialite who he insists is homicidal. The story moves along well, has just enough twists in the plot to be intriguing, but then the ending is completely limp and lacking in drama, a surprise from somebody with Drake’s talent.

Betty Brooks turned out only a handful of stories, all for Columbia detective pulps. Her story in this issue, “The Cocky Robbins Kill”, is about a murder in a small-town hotel during a blizzard. There are a lot of characters, but the plot is well-handled and she did a good job with the hotel setting. This one’s nothing special but well-written enough that I enjoyed it.

I read a science fiction story by Basil Wells a while back that I didn’t care for. His story in this issue, “Red is the Tower”, is about murder on a farm (the tower in the title is a silo), and while it was better than the SF yarn, I still didn’t like it much and found it overly literary and pretentious. Wells may be one of those writers whose work just doesn’t resonate with me. That’s not really his fault.

“He Had To Be Tough” is about a young, scientific-minded police detective trying to convince the grizzled veterans he works with that they ought to give up their strongarm tactics. Then something happens that makes him rethink that, and it’s furious action the rest of the way in this yarn. This is a good, entertaining story despite a late twist that may come from a little too far out in left field. The author is J.J. Matthews, who wrote approximately 120 Western, detective, and sports stories during the Fifties, all of them appearing in various Columbia pulps. Even though this isn’t an acknowledged house name, I have a strong hunch that it is.

If not for a few sales to Fiction House’s JUNGLE STORIES, I would think that Francis C. Battle was a Columbia house name, too. Nearly all of his several dozen detective and Western stories appeared in Columbia pulps. “Ju-Ju for the White Man” is a jungle story, too, as well as an “Off-Trail Crime Story”, as the blurb says. A big game hunter schemes to use witchcraft to get rid of a rival. The ending, while predictable, is effective, and it’s not a bad little yarn.

Mat Rand is a well-known and widely used house name, so there’s no telling who actually wrote “Jailbreak”. It’s about a convicted murderer trying to come up with an escape plan before he’s executed. Like the previous story, the ending is pretty obvious, but again, it’s well-written and reasonably entertaining.

Despite the presence of Race Williams, nobody is ever going to mistake SMASHING DETECTIVE STORIES for BLACK MASK or DIME DETECTIVE (where Race also appeared), but I had a pretty good time reading this issue. The Arnold Drake story is disappointing because of the ending and I didn’t like the Basil Wells story, but all the others kept me turning the pages and entertained me. If I come across any more issues, I wouldn’t hesitate to give them a try.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Western Action, January 1947

The cover on this issue of WESTERN ACTION is credited to Robert Stanley. It doesn't look exactly like a typical Stanley cover to me, but maybe I'm just used to his Mike Shayne covers. Archie Joscelyn has two stories in this issue, one under his own name and the lead novella as by Al Cody. Also on hand are T.W. Ford, Ralph Berard (Victor H. White), and Cliff Campbell, the last of those a house-name who could have been any of the other guys in this issue, or even none of them, although that doesn't seem likely. The Columbia pulps edited by Robert W. Lowndes were low-budget affairs but often quite good.

As a bonus, here's the cover of the Pocket Books edition of the novel BITTER CREEK, under the Al Cody by-line. There was also a hardback edition published by Dodd, Mead.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Complete Cowboy Novel Magazine, February 1950

Now that's a close range shootout in this cover by A. Leslie Ross for COMPLETE COWBOY NOVEL MAGAZINE. The complete novel in this issue is by Cliff Campbell, a common house-name in the Western and detective pulps edited by Robert W. Lowndes, and I have no idea who actually wrote "Six-Gun Harvest". Could've been Lowndes himself, I suppose. There are only two other stories in this issue, by James A. Hines and Ward Raymond, and neither of those names are the least bit familiar to me. With all that yellow, red, and blue, though, and its dramatic composition, this is certainly an eye-catching cover.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Western Action, March 1957

For some reason, I've always liked the scene in Western movies where the hero goes diving across the screen with a gun in each fist, blasting away. Here we have the pulp cover equivalent of that scene, and not surprisingly, I like it, too. Gordon D. Shirreffs is the top author in this issue of WESTERN ACTION, but there are also stories by Lon Willliams, A.A. Baker (never read his work, that I recall, but he was prolific), E.E. Clement (who was actually editor Robert W. Lowndes), and someone named Warner Austin, who I never heard of. By 1957, WESTERN ACTION was one of the few Western pulps left. I would have read it. (I was around then, but I hadn't learned to read yet.)

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Famous Fantastic Mysteries, October 1941

FAMOUS FANTASTIC MYSTERIES was primarily a reprint pulp, bringing back science fiction, fantasy, and horror stories originally written and published before such genres truly existed as we know them now. I seem to recall reading that some of the reprinted novels were abridged, but I don't know that for a fact. FFM was also noted for its good covers, many of them by Virgil Finlay including this one. As you can see, the lead stories in this issue are "The Colour Out of Space" by H.P. Lovecraft and "Palos of the Dog Star Pack" by J.U. Giesy, neither of which I've ever read. There's also a short story by L. Patrick Greene, better known as the author of the African adventure series featuring a character called The Major, and a poem, apparently original in this issue, by Robert W. Lowndes. I really ought to read more of this stuff.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Famous Western, March 1943

We're right in the middle of a saloon gunfight on the cover of this issue of FAMOUS WESTERN. Looks like the work of H.W. Scott to me, but I could be wrong about that. Inside are stories by Chuck Martin, Archie Joscelyn, Lee Floren (twice, once under his name and once as Cliff Campbell), and Fred Gipson, the author of OLD YELLER his own self, among other, lesser-known scribblers. Edited by Robert W. Lowndes, of course.