I think I'll start using this Malvin Singer cover as my author photo. There's a certain resemblance, and that's the way I feel a lot of days when I'm trying to write. By this point in its run, ADVENTURE featured a mix of well-known authors and others whose names aren't really familiar to me. This issue includes Sidney Herschell Small with a Koropok story (I have the collections of that series but have never read them), Nard Jones, who wrote some well-regarded historical novels and historical non-fiction, veteran pulpster Kenneth Perkins, Ted Stratton, who wrote paperbacks as Terry Spain, and Dave Grubb, who as Davis Grubb wrote the popular novels THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER and FOOL'S PARADE, both of which were adapted into movies. Also on hand are R.G. Emery, Douglas F. Young, and Henry John Colyton, the authors who fall into the unfamiliar category for me.
I had to look at this BLUE BOOK cover by the great Herbert Morton Stoops for a while before I figured out what was going on, because at first I thought the guy in the center at the bottom of the picture, in the middle of all these knights in armor, was firing a flintlock rifle. Well, that could make for an interesting story, I figured. But then I realized it's actually a crossbow he's shooting. Still a fine cover. And inside is the usual outstanding line-up of authors, including BLUE BOOK stalwarts H. Bedford-Jones (with a story in his Arms and Men series . . . and hey, it's called "The Conquering Crossbow" . . . well, that explains everything), William J. Makin with a Red Wolf of Arabia story, and Robert R. Mill with the first story in his Shock Troops of Justice series (I have the reprints of both those series published by Black Dog Books but haven't read them yet). Also on hand are the classic Western author Willliam MacLeod Raine, Leland Jamieson, William J. Makin again with his other series featuring gypsy sleuth Isaac Heron, Sidney Herschell Small, and William L. Chester with an installment of a Kioga of the Wilderness serial. That's a really impressive issue.
