Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Complete Western Book Magazine, August 1950

Norman Saunders provides his usual action-packed cover on this issue of COMPLETE WESTERN BOOK MAGAZINE, and as an added bonus, we get another appearance of that iconic trio: the stalwart cowboy (you can tell he's stalwart, he's wearing a red shirt), a beautiful redhead (looks more frightened than angry, but she's definitely gun-toting, although her iron is still pouched), and a beleaguered old geezer (not wounded but in recent danger of being lynched, by the looks of it). And isn't the old geezer a dead ringer for Sam Elliott? Saunders was prescient. There are only three stories in this issue, but they're by good authors: Frank P. Castle, Rod Patterson, and John Callahan. Appears to be well worth reading. I don't own a copy and scans don't appear to be on-line, but I can admire the cover.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Dime Western Magazine, January 1946

This is a pulp that I own and read recently. That’s my copy in the scan. My guess as to the cover artist is Robert Stanley, but I’m not certain about that. There are a couple of things about this one I don’t like—the guy’s hands and arms don’t look quite right to me, and neither does his holster—but overall it’s an effective cover.

I’ve said this many times before and probably will again, but Walt Coburn was really inconsistent in his work, especially in the second half of the Forties onwards. But he’s still one of my favorite Western authors because when he’s on his game, he’s really, really good. “Mail-Order Outlaw” in this issue is one of his really, really good stories. The cover calls it a novel, but at 16 pages, even with fairly small print left over from the war years and paper rationing, it’s more of a novelette. Even so, Coburn manages to give this tale of a young cowpuncher who falls in with a gang of bank robbers a bit of an epic feeling. The action is great, the protagonist is very likable, and the villains are despicable. It’s also more tightly plotted than many of Coburn’s stories, which tend to sprawl around and get melodramatic. The sense of authenticity is there as always. No matter how over-the-top Coburn’s plots could get, the characters and settings always ring true. This is a superb story, one of the best by Coburn that I’ve read.

I don’t know much about Michael Oblinger, just that he wrote several dozen stories for various Western pulps. His short story “Hell-on-the-Hoof” starts out with a horse identifying a killer, but that’s just the opening act in a very convoluted tale about an accused murderer hunting down the real culprits. I didn’t think this story was well-written and didn’t care for it.

Since the cover date on pulps was the off-sale date, that means this January 1946 issue of DIME WESTERN was actually on the stands in December 1945. Accordingly, there’s a Christmas story included in the line-up, the novelette “Colt Christmas at Bitter Creek” by Rod Patterson. Last year I read a pulp yarn by Patterson that I enjoyed quite a bit, as well as his novel WHIP HAND, which I found pretty flat and uninspired. Now that I’ve read this story, I’m starting to suspect that Patterson was better at less than novel length. “Colt Christmas at Bitter Creek” is about the showdown between two feuding ranches during a blizzard. It’s well-written, moves right along, and has a nice hardboiled tone. I still want to try more of Patterson’s novels, but I’ll be keeping an eye out for his pulp stories.

Charles Handley is another forgotten pulpster. His story “The Devil’s Sky-Pilot” is a short-short about an outlaw-turned-preacher—or is he? The twist ending in this one is pretty predictable, but it still works and the story is fairly entertaining.

Tom W. Blackburn often wrote stories that weren’t about the usual cowboys, outlaws, lawmen, etc. The protagonist of the novelette “Battle Call For Big-Wheelers” is a partner in a freight company located in a Sierra Nevada mining boomtown. Double-crossed by a man he considered a friend, framed by a rival for murder, Cole Banning finds himself in a mighty deep hole and Blackburn just keeps piling more trouble on his head until I honestly wondered how in the world Banning was going to get out of this mess. But he does, and although the resolution might have been just a tad too quick and convenient, this is still a really good story with interesting characters, strong writing, and plenty of action. Blackburn’s work is nearly always good and this one is no exception.

John Richard Young wrote a couple of dozen Western and adventure stories for various pulps in the Forties and Fifties. His story in this issue, “Law of the Blizzard-Born” is an animal yarn about an old hunter stalking a wolf. This type of story with little or no dialogue and some, if not most, of the story written from the point of view of the animal is one that I just have trouble reading. I wound up skimming this one and didn’t like it.

The novelette that wraps up this issue, “The Phantom Hangman of Yellow Jacket”, is another mining camp story. Somewhat unusual for a Western pulp, it’s also a murder mystery as a ruthless vigilante known as The Citizen is killing people in the camp for no apparent reason. The son of a mine owner who is one of the victims returns from San Francisco, where he’s been something of a wastrel, to grow up and get to the bottom of things. As it turns out, this story isn’t a particularly strong mystery, but it does have a good protagonist and some nice action as it moves along at a fast pace. The author, Harry F. Olmsted, is one of my favorites. Olmsted was known to farm out some of his work, much like Ed Earl Repp, so there’s no way of knowing if some other author had a hand in this one. The story reads like the other Olmsted stories I’ve read, but that may be because even on the ghosted stuff, he did a lot of editing and revising. Regardless of the details, which we’ll likely never know, this is a solid, entertaining yarn.

Overall, this issue of DIME WESTERN MAGAZINE is quite a mixed bag. There are a couple of stories I didn’t like, but the others range from good to excellent and include one of the best Walt Coburn stories I’ve read. So I’d say that if you have a copy on your shelves, it’s well worth reading.

Whip Hand -- Rod Patterson

I read a Western pulp story not long ago by Rod Patterson and enjoyed it enough that I wanted to read more by him. His first novel is WHIP HAND, published by Lion Books in 1954 and expanded from the novella of the same title published by RANCH ROMANCES in the Second October Number, 1953. I don’t know who did the cover on the first paperback edition, but the novel was reprinted in 1957 with a cover by Mort Kunstler, and that’s the edition I read, pictured at the top of this post.

This is a save-the-ranch yarn, as Cole Brazee, forced to flee from Wyoming with a murder charge hanging over his head (the killing was actually self-defense, of course), comes home to seek justice and vengeance when his father is gunned down. This puts him in the crosshairs of his old enemy, cattle baron Doane Williams, who marries Cole’s old sweetheart just as Cole gets back in town. Many ambushes, shootouts, and brutal fistfights ensue as Cole tries to get to the bottom of the troubles in the area. Oh, and there’s a romantic triangle, too.

Patterson springs an effective plot twist late in the book, but for the most part WHIP HAND makes use of a very traditional plot, the sort of thing you’ve read many times before if you’re a long-time Western fan like me. Plenty of other writers, such as L.P. Holmes and William Heuman, do the same thing. Unfortunately, Patterson wasn’t as good a writer as Holmes and Heuman were, so this novel sort of just plods along despite the occasional nice line or bit of business, so it never really engaged my interest.

Patterson wrote a handful of other novels, all of them published as halves of Ace Double Westerns, and I own several of them. I might give one of them a try someday, or I might not. Your mileage certainly might vary, but I wasn’t very impressed by WHIP HAND. That’s a really nice cover by Mort Kunstler on the second edition, though.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Western Short Stories, May 1942

I've seen plenty of guys clench a knife between their teeth in movies and on paperback and pulp covers, but a six-gun? That's got to be more uncomfortable. This stalwart, red-shirted hero doesn't look like he's enjoying it that much. This looks like a Norman Saunders cover to me, but it's not listed on his website, so maybe not. But I like it no matter who painted it. WESTERN SHORT STORIES isn't remembered as one of the top Western pulps, but there's certainly plenty of fine writers in this issue: Peter Dawson (Jonathan Glidden), Gunnison Steele (Bennie Gardner), H.A. DeRosso, D.B. Newton, Kenneth Fowler, Rod Patterson, Raymond W. Porter, Norrell Gregory, and Mojave Lloyd. Dawson, Steele, DeRosso, and Newton are enough to make any Western pulp worth reading. 

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: Fifteen Western Tales, November 1943

And so another Old West poker game comes down to a powdersmoke payoff on the cover of this issue of FIFTEEN WESTERN TALES. Sam Cherry was doing most of the covers for FIFTEEN WESTERN TALES during this era, but this one doesn't strike me as being Cherry's work. Whoever painted it, it's effective, no doubt about that. Inside are some excellent authors, including William Heuman, Tom W. Blackburn, Rod Patterson, Lee E. Wells, M. Howard Lane, Glenn Shirley, James Shaffer, Thomas Calvert McClary, house-names David Crewe, Ray P. Shotwell, and Logan C. Claybourne, and lesser-known authors Edwin K. Sloat and Byron W. Dalrymple. That poker player's left hand seems oddly misshapen. I'd like to think that plays into one of the stories inside, but I doubt it.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Fifteen Western Tales, January 1944

We have a tough-looking hombre, courtesy of Sam Cherry, gracing the cover on this issue of FIFTEEN WESTERN TALES. The collection of authors inside is pretty good, too: William Heuman, Philip Ketchum, Les Savage Jr., Tom W. Blackburn, Chuck Martin, Rod Patterson, M. Howard Lane, James C. Lynch, James Shaffer, house-names Ray P. Shotwell and Lance Kermit, and lesser known authors Frederick Bales and Joe Payne. They always counted the features in FIFTEEN WESTERN TALES, so actually there are only thirteen stories in this one.

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: Star Western, October 1947

Another Injury to a Hat cover on this issue of STAR WESTERN. I'm not sure of the artist. Looks to me like it might be Robert Stanley. Inside are some fine authors, including Walt Coburn (although rumor has it that by this stage of his career, his work had to be edited heavily because of his drinking problem), Giff Cheshire, William R. Cox, Dee Linford, John M. Cunningham, and Rod Patterson. I like the title of the Coburn story: "The Devil Sent His Gun-Angels!" Probably a Popular Publications editor came up with it, but whoever did, it sounds like my kind of yarn.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Western Short Stories, December 1942

There's so much happening on this cover, I thought at first it might be by Norman Saunders. But it's not listed on his website and I don't think the style is quite right to be one of his. However, lots of action there and I still like it. Inside is a pretty good bunch of authors, including Tom W. Blackburn, James P. Olsen, Gunnison Steele, Ralph Berard, Archie Joscelyn, Kenneth Fowler, and Rod Patterson. 

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Fifteen Western Tales, September 1948

We have what looks like a Deliberate Injury to a Hat cover on this issue of FIFTEEN WESTERN TALES. And a really strong line-up of authors inside, too: Peter Dawson, Steve Frazee, Tom W. Blackburn, Talmage Powell, Rolland Lynch, Joe Archibald, and Rod Patterson. Some well-respected pulpsters and paperbackers there.

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: 10 Story Western Magazine, April 1947

And thus another Old West poker game comes to a violent end. Not only that, but look at the bullet hole in the guy's hat brim. Injury to a Hat Alert! I love this cover, which I'm pretty sure is by Robert Stanley. It's the little details that really make it work, like the two matches tucked in the cowboy's hat band and the royal flush laid out on the table. A lesser artist might not have even thought of those things. 10 STORY WESTERN MAGAZINE always had a good group of authors, and this issue is no exception: Tom W. Blackburn, Joseph Chadwick, Gunnison Steele (Bennie Gardner), Carl McK. Saunders (Philip Ketchum; "Saunders" is a pseudonym he used mostly for mystery and detective yarns), John Jo Carpenter (John Reese), Rod Patterson, Richard Brister, and Harrison Colt, a name I've always thought must be a pseudonym, but I don't know if it really was. Plus the familiar, instantly recognizable yellow-and-red color scheme. I'm a big fan of 10 STORY WESTERN and this looks like an excellent issue.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Detective Short Stories, October 1947

This issue of DETECTIVE SHORT STORIES features a number of authors better known for other types of fiction instead of mystery and detective yarns. Lee E. Wells and Rod Patterson wrote mostly Westerns in their careers. Bryce Walton was a triple threat but more highly regarded for his science fiction tales, along with being a prolific contributor to the Western pulps. Eric Howard and Ralph Berard (who was really Victor H. White) wrote a lot of Westerns. Ken Jason was a house-name used on all sorts of stories. The only authors in this issue I think of first and foremost as mystery writers are William Campbell Gault and Herbert Brean, and to be fair, Gault wrote a lot of other stuff, too. However, this sort of versatility is one of the things I admire the most about the pulpsters, so I'm sure this is a pretty good issue.