By the end of the Thirties, ARGOSY was wrapping up its run as one of the top pulps in the business. It would still publish plenty of excellent fiction for another decade, but it wasn't as strong overall as it was at its peak in the mid-Thirties. Despite that trend, this looks like a really strong issue with a good cover by Rudolph Belarski and stories by E. Hoffmann Price, Eustace L. Adams, Allan Vaughan Elston, Louis C. Goldsmith, Bennett Foster, Frank Richardson Pierce, and an installment of one of the occult detective novels by Jack Mann (E. Charles Vivian). Those are some fine writers. I need to read those Jack Mann novels.
That's an intriguing cover by Rudolph Belarski on this issue of ALL-AMERICAN FICTION, and what a lineup of authors! It's hard to beat H. Bedford-Jones, Max Brand, Cornell Woolrich, Philip Ketchum, Richard Sale, and Karl Detzer. Also on hard are the lesser-known Eustace Cockrell, Robert Cochran, J.R. Beehan, and Thomas Nelson. The author of the featured story "Meet Me in Miami", Joseph Mickler, has only two credits in the Fictionmags Index, both in Munsey pulps in 1938, for whatever that's worth. I would read this issue just for those other guys if I had a copy.
Nothing like a beautiful blonde with a Tommy gun, as Rudolph Belarski demonstrates on this cover. There are some good authors in this issue of POPULAR DETECTIVE, including Stewart Sterling with a Gil Vine novelette (Gil Vine was a private detective in the pulps who became a house dick in a hotel when Sterling moved him to novels). Also on hand are Philip Ketchum (best known for his Westerns), O.B. Myers (best known for aviation yarns), Ray Cummings (best known for his science fiction), and detective pulp stalwarts J. Lane Linklater and Will Oursler, plus little-known, at least to me, Lew Talian and B.J. Benson.
A dramatic cover by Rudolph Belarski graces this issue of ARGOSY. I may be wrong about this, but it seems to me that snakes show up fairly often in Belarski's covers. I may have to investigate this. As always, there are some excellent writers in this issue: Theodore Roscoe, Charles Marquis Warren, Jack Byrne, Chandler Whipple, Kenneth Perkins, and one I'm not familiar with, Robert W. Cochran. Although the serials can drive a reader crazy, ARGOSY was certainly one of the great pulps.
Rudolph Belarski provides the eye-catching cover for this issue of THRILLING MYSTERY, and spinning the yarns inside are Robert Bloch, G.T. Fleming-Roberts, Carl Jacobi, Stewart Sterling, Arthur K. Barnes, house-name Will Garth, and lesser-known pulpsters Russell Stanton and David Bernard. With covers and titles like that, it's no wonder the Weird Menace pulps sold so well for a while.
I'm pretty sure I've read this issue of ARGOSY, but it was at least twenty years ago, probably longer, and I don't recall anything about it except the nice Rudolph Belarski cover and that I really enjoyed Frank Richardson Pierce's timber novella. Pierce was just about the best at that kind of yarn. Also in this issue are stories by Jim Kjelgaard, Carl Rathjen, Alexander Key, and Robert W. Cochran, plus serial installments by Robert Carse, Johnston McCulley, and Jonathan Stagge (actually the same guys who wrote mysteries under the pseudonyms Patrick Quentin and Q. Patrick, at least part of the time; who wrote what under those names is pretty complicated). ARGOSY always had great covers and great writers. If it just weren't for all those blasted serials . . .
Okay, did our stalwart hero have that six-gun with him in the diving suit, or was it waiting for him when he climbed back aboard the boat? We don't know, but either way, this is a fine cover by Rudolph Belarski. This issue of THRILLING ADVENTURES features stories by some good authors including Tom Curry, Oscar Schisgall, Carl Jacobi, and William Merriam Rouse. In a field where ADVENTURE, ARGOSY, SHORT STORIES, and BLUE BOOK were the top of the line, THRILLING ADVENTURES occupied a lower rank, but it always had vivid, action-packed covers and dependably entertaining writers.
This issue is a good example of why ARGOSY was a great magazine, even in the later years of its pulp run. Start with a good cover by Rudolph Belarski that promises action, and follow that inside with stories by E. Hoffmann Price, Theodore Roscoe, Murray Leinster, Robert Arthur, Charles Marquis Warren, Willliam Du Bois, and forgotten pulpster William Templeton. The only drawback, as usual, is that two of the stories are serial installments (Warren and Du Bois) and you're out of luck if you don't have the other parts. Well, in Warren's case you're not completely out of luck because his serial "Bugles Are For Soldiers" was reprinted as a novel, used copies of which are readily available. The title was changed, and I honestly don't remember which of Warren's Western novels it is, either ONLY THE VALIANT or VALLEY OF THE SHADOW. But I know it's one of them because at one point I had both the serial version and the novel version. And this will come as no surprise, I never got around to reading either of them. Warren is supposed to have been a pretty good writer. He wrote, produced, and/or directed a number of Western movies and TV shows, including GUNSMOKE and RAWHIDE.
Rudolph Belarski contributes a nice, action-packed cover to this issue of ARGOSY. As usual, there's an excellent line-up of authors inside, too: Walt Coburn, Carroll John Daly, Jim Kjelgaard, Budd Schulberg, William Du Bois, and Charles T. Jackson. And only two of those pesky serials in this issue (Coburn and Jackson).
That's certainly an eye-catching cover by Rudolph Belarski on this issue of THRILLING DETECTIVE. Inside are stories by some great authors, including Fredric Brown, Leigh Brackett, G.T. Fleming-Roberts, Edward S. Aarons (writing as Edward Ronns), and lesser known Robert C. Blackmon, Bill Morgan, and Edward W. Ludwig. I would have plunked down a dime for this one back in 1944.
"144 Pages of Fine Fiction", and that's no lie. If not for the blasted serials, ARGOSY might well be my favorite pulp of all time. Great authors and top-notch stories, week after week. In this issue, we have a Fisher and Savoy novelette by Donald Barr Chidsey (illustrated by a fine Rudolph Belarski cover) and stories and serial installments by Theodore Roscoe, Luke Short, Frank Richardson Pierce, Judson Philips, William Chamberlain, and John Hawkins. I'll bet it's a thoroughly entertaining issue.
I don't care much for falling covers. They give me the creeps. But I'll admit, this one by Rudolph Belarski is pretty effective. And there's an excellent group of writers in this issue of MYSTERY BOOK MAGAZINE, too: Fredric Brown, Patrick Quentin, Helen Reilly, Norman A. Daniels, Robert C. Dennis, and house-name Robert Wallace, who, if I had to guess, in this instance was probably Daniels, as well.
I think this is a very dramatic and effective cover by Rudolph Belarski on this issue of LARIAT STORY MAGAZINE. "Real Cowboy Stories by Real Cowboys", the cover copy says. I'm not sure that's 100% true of all the authors in this issue. Walt Coburn and Eugene Cunningham certainly did some cowboying when they were young. I think Stephen Payne may have, too. I don't have any idea about James P. Olsen, Bruce Douglas, Hubert Roussel, or Ralph Condon. And John Starr was a house-name, so I'm pretty sure he never forked a bronc. Whoever really wrote the story attributed to him in this issue may have, though. Real cowboys or not, I think this looks like a fine issue.
There's a nice dynamic cover by Rudolph Belarski on this issue of ACES. I haven't read a great deal from the aviation pulps, and I'm not sure why not. I always enjoy them when I do. This issue has just three stories, all of them novella length, by George Bruce, Joel Townsley Rogers, and Robert H. Leitfred, all well-regarded pulpsters, so I'm sure it was a pretty entertaining issue.
It's been a while since I posted a Mountie cover, and this is a good one (not surprising since it's on an issue of ARGOSY) by Rudolph Belarski. There's an excellent group of authors inside this issue as well, including E. Hoffmann Price, Harry Sinclair Drago, Eustace L. Adams, Bennett Foster, William Gray Beyer, and Bruce Douglas. ARGOSY was always good, often great.
What a great cover by Rudolph Belarski on this issue of THRILLING WONDER STORIES. It's got everything: a space babe, a raygun, guys with knives, and a giant green Medusa. And inside are three stories by Henry Kuttner (one under his own name and one each as by Scott Morgan and Kelvin Kent), as well as yarns by Oscar J. Friend (writing as Ford Smith), Ross Rocklynne, and Robert Arthur. That's good stuff. This issue is available to read on-line at the Internet Archive.
We've got a gun-totin' clown and a monkey in this Rudolph Belarski cover from DOUBLE DETECTIVE, which means, of course, that I like it. It would be even better if the monkey had a knife, but that's just me, I guess. This issue also has a great line-up of authors inside: Richard Sale, D.L. Champion, Philip Ketchum, Donald Barr Chidsey, John H. Knox, Edwin Truett Long, Wyatt Blassingame, and G.T. Fleming-Roberts. That's some high-powered stuff.
I've seen other science fiction pulp covers featuring some giant figure menacing fleeing crowds. Without reading the stories, I never know if they're meant to be taken literally or symbolically. And I don't suppose it makes a difference, if they're eye-catching and prompt a potential reader to fork over a dime (or a dime and a nickel, in this case) as this painting by Rudolph Belarski does. There's a good line-up of pulp SF writers inside this issue of THRILLING WONDER STORIES, too: Nelson S. Bond, Ray Cummings, Eando Binder (Earl and Otto Binder), Oscar J. Friend, and Alexander Samalman.
This issue of DETECTIVE NOVEL MAGAZINE features an eye-catching cover by Rudolph Belarski. And that's the purpose of a pulp cover, isn't it? The featured story in this issue is a reprint (possibly abridged) of a 1939 novel by Q. Patrick, actually Richard Webb and Hugh Wheeler, who also wrote as Jonathan Stagge and their best-known pseudonym, Patrick Quentin. There are also stories by William Campbell Gault and Arthur Leo Zagat, both top-notch pulpsters, and John L. Benton, a Thrilling Group house-name, so the author of that one was probably pretty good, too.
Another fine, colorful Rudolph Belarski cover on this issue of ARGOSY, one of my favorite pulps. This issue features an installment of the serial "Seven Footprints to Satan" by A. Merritt (reprinted from its original appearance in ARGOSY ALL-STORY WEEKLY in 1927), plus a South Seas novella by Allan Vaughan Elston and stories by Garnett Radcliffe, Walter C. Brown, and more serials by Walter Ripperger and Howard Rigsby. I'd love to have a complete run of ARGOSY from the Twenties and Thirties. So many great serials . . .
