Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Street & Smith's Western Story Magazine, March 26, 1932

Here's more proof, as if we needed it, of just how dangerous it was to sit down at a poker table in the Old West. I don't know the artist on this cover, but I think it's a good one. The fellow being choked reminds me a little of Randolph Scott. (I don't know about you, but whenever I see or hear his name, I have this urge to put my hand over my heart and say, "Randolph Scott!" I don't actually do that, but the thought does cross my mind.) This is one of those issues of WESTERN STORY that's dominated by Frederick Faust. He has a novella under his Max Brand name in it, plus serial installments as by David Manning and Peter Henry Morland. I've wondered how many of WESTERN STORY's readers ever figured out that all of Faust's pseudonyms were the same guy. Also on hand in this issue are prolific and well-regarded pulpsters Frank Richardson Pierce, Hugh Grinstead, and Austin Hall.

Seven Faces - Max Brand (Frederick Faust)

(This post originally appeared in somewhat different form on May 2, 2008.)

Most of you who are familiar with Max Brand’s work know him as a Western writer, but Brand, whose real name was Frederick Faust, was also a prolific mystery author. During the Thirties his work appeared regularly in the pulp magazine DETECTIVE FICTION WEEKLY, among others, and DFW was where SEVEN FACES originally appeared as a serial in October and November of 1936.

The protagonists of this novel are a couple of New York City cops, Angus Campbell and Patrick O’Rourke, who make a formidable team despite the fact that they can’t stand each other. When a wealthy man named John Cobb appeals to the police department because he’s been receiving threats on his life, Campbell and O’Rourke are assigned to the case. Cobb has to go to Chicago on business, and the two detectives also have to travel to Chicago to present some evidence in a court case, so their superior decides they should take the train with Cobb and guard him from whoever wants to kill him.

Unfortunately, Cobb disappears on the way to Chicago, and Campbell and O’Rourke have to split up in their attempts to track him down and find out what happened to him. From there the story is a fast-paced yarn featuring torture, murder, greed, and evil coming back from the past to haunt the present. Sure, the characters are a little stereotypical – Campbell is a dour Scotsman, O’Rourke a fat, cigar-smoking, heavy-drinking Irishman – but the plot has some clever twists and Faust keeps things perking so nicely that the reader is drawn along effortlessly by the story.

While this book is obscure, it’s not that hard to lay your hands on a copy. It’s been reprinted twice, first by the University of Nebraska Press in their series of Max Brand reissues, and then in large print by Chivers/G.K. Hall. Faust wrote at least one more novel featuring Campbell and O’Rourke, MURDER ME!, and I intend to track it down and read it, too.

(UPDATE: So, in the almost exactly 14 years since this post first appeared, do you think I've actually read Faust's other Campbell and O'Rourke novel, MURDER ME? That's right, I have not. I'm pretty sure I own a copy, but now I can't find it. There are ebook editions of it and SEVEN FACES that weren't available back in 2008, so maybe I'll go that route.)

James Bama, R.I.P.

There's been an abundance of social media posts marking the passing of artist James Bama. He was a great favorite of mine as well, first for his covers on Bantam's Doc Savage reprints and then later for his many excellent covers on Western paperbacks, including the Nevada Jim series by Marshall McCoy (actually the great Australian author Leonard F. Meares, but that's another post). I loved those books. Some of the Nevada Jim covers were reused on Louis L'Amour novels, too.

While there are dozens, maybe scores, of authors who have influenced me, I think there are only a handful of artists who made me who I am today. James Bama was certainly one of them. My discovery of the Doc Savage series really made me aware of the pulps for the first time and started my on-going love affair with them. I'm grateful to him for that and for all the other great work he did. Rest in peace, Mr. Bama.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Black Mask, August 1940

BLACK MASK was past its glory days by 1940 but still producing good issues like this one, with an eye-catching Rafael DeSoto cover and some excellent authors inside: George Harmon Coxe with a Flashgun Casey story, Roger Torrey, Stewart Sterling, Wyatt Blassingame, G.T. Fleming-Roberts, and the lesser-known Eaton K. Goldthwaite. If you want to read this issue, it's available on-line.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Ranch Romances, First May Number 1957

This cowgirl's got a good-sized problem in that big cat. I don't know the artist, but whoever it was provided a nice dramatic cover for this issue of RANCH ROMANCES. W.T. Ballard appears twice inside, with a serial installment under his Todhunter Ballard name and a novella as Parker Bonner, plus stories by J.L. Bouma and the almost forgotten Art Kercheval, Margery Bradshaw, and Ted Escott.

Brand Rider - Ed La Vanway

Ed La Vanway’s name was only vaguely familiar to me, but I came across this Dell paperback by him, with a nice cover by John Leone, and was intrigued enough to pick it up and read it. Further investigation into the author reveals that he published a couple of dozen stories in the Western pulps from the late Forties to the late Fifties, when that market was drying up, and also wrote five or six Western novels, most of them from library publisher Avalon Books.

BRAND RIDER appears to have been La Vanway’s first novel, published by Dodd, Mead in 1958 and reprinted by Dell in 1961. It’s a save-the-ranch yarn, and also a cattlemen-versus-sodbusters yarn, as gunman John Lane is hired by a cattle baron to take over a ranch in which the cattle baron has a financial interest. The ranch actually belongs to a beautiful young woman, the daughter of the cattle baron’s recently deceased partner. In a nice twist, she’s the one who wants to go after the sodbusters and run them out by force if necessary, and the gunman/protagonist who’s reluctant to do so, because in this case he believes the farmers may be within their rights.

In addition to this, there’s a banker who may or may not be crooked, a deputy sheriff who’s definitely crooked (he’s an old enemy of the protagonist), a couple of different romantic triangles, a murder for which our hero is framed, and a stampede. Plenty of elements for a solid traditional Western.

Is that what La Vanway delivers? Well . . . sort of. The plot is good, the characters are interesting, and La Vanway does a fine job with the Texas setting, which makes me think he probably was a Texan. I couldn’t find any biographical info about him on-line. The action scenes, when they eventually break out, are handled well. But the book is very slow-paced and John Lane spends a lot more time thinking and brooding than he does riding and shooting. Call me shallow, but I like plenty of powder-burning in my Westerns.

Overall, I’d say BRAND RIDER is a slightly below average traditional Western, but there was enough I liked that I don’t consider the time spent reading it wasted. And La Vanway’s Texas feels authentic enough that I’m tempted to read something else by him, although I won’t rush right out to do so. If any of you have read his work and have any recommendations, I’d be glad to hear them.

Mad For Kicks - Jack Lynn (Max van derVeer)

Pint-sized private eye Tokey Wedge returns in MAD FOR KICKS, published by Novel Books in 1960 and just reprinted by Grizzly Pulp. The novel opens on a grim note, with two young thugs raping a woman, and this brutal beginning tells us right away that this isn’t going to be as light-hearted a yarn as NYMPHO LODGE, Tokey’s debut.

Tokey is hired by the rape victim’s father to find the two men responsible for the crime. Actually, he wants Tokey to find them and kill them, but Tokey draws the line at outright murder. Instead, he takes the case and promises to turn the two rapists over to the police when he corrals them.

However, his investigation quickly uncovers something bigger. There’s a whole gang of thrill-criminals operating in the unnamed city where Tokey lives and works. They’re not just rapists, they’re also hold-up artists and killers, and in addition to the loot they gain, they’re also after the perverted kicks they get from their crimes. Tokey and his police detective buddy hatch a plan where Tokey will infiltrate the gang, discover who’s the mastermind behind it, and bring the whole degenerate bunch to justice.

Naturally, not everything goes according to plan.

MAD FOR KICKS is more of a crime/suspense novel than a mystery, and as such it’s a much bleaker tale than NYMPHO LODGE. Tokey is still quick with a wisecrack and beds multiple women in the course of the book, but mostly it’s a dark ride with plenty of suspense generated by Tokey’s dangerous masquerade as a professional assassin who falls in with the thrill-crazed gang. I got the feeling that author Max van derVeer was experimenting with this second Tokey Wedge novel, trying to decide what he wanted the series to be. I guess reading the succeeding volumes will answer that question.

I enjoyed MAD FOR KICKS. It races along at a satisfying pace, Tokey is still a very likable protagonist, and as always, it’s a great snapshot of the era in which it was written and published. Thanks to Grizzly Pulp for bringing it back with another great cover by Jim Silke. You can order it directly from the publisher.

Original Novel Books Edition

Outcast's Doom Patrol - L.P. Holmes

This short novel appeared originally in the March/April 1937 issue of BIG-BOOK WESTERN MAGAZINE, was reprinted as “Doom Patrol” in DOOM PATROL: A WESTERN DUO (Five Star, 2013), and exists on-line as a PDF of the original pulp appearance, which is how I read it. In recent years L.P. Holmes has become one of my favorite Western authors, so when I needed a quick break between other things, “Outcast’s Doom Patrol” seemed well-nigh perfect. As it turns out, that was an excellent choice.

This yarn begins where it might seem more likely to end: with rancher Buck Comstock found guilty of murder for gunning down another rancher and sentenced to 25 years in prison. Since it quickly becomes obvious that Buck is the hero of this tale, you might suspect there’s more to the story. And you’d be right, because only a few pages later, we discover that Leek Jaeger and Frank Cutts, owners of another ranch in the area, have paid off the jury to convict Buck. Buck committed the killing, all right, but it was self-defense, not murder, because Jaeger and Cutts set up the shooting by framing Buck for rustling. Buck escapes from jail and sets out to prove what really happened and who’s behind it.

That proves to be complicated, because the new owner of the dead man’s ranch is his beautiful niece, and Buck falls for her as soon as he encounters her, vowing to protect her ranch from Jaeger and Cutts, who have their eyes on that spread, too. Buck not only has to dodge the sheriff and his posse, but also a deadly, snake-blooded gunman brought in by his two enemies to make sure he doesn’t survive to expose them.

As you can tell from that plot, “Outcast’s Doom Patrol” is about as traditional a Western as you’re going to find, but that’s typical of L.P. Holmes, who seldom if ever broke any new ground in his plots. But he was among the very best at working within those plots and elevating them with his smooth, vivid prose and his excellent character development. That’s evident in this story from the complicated, realistic relationship between Buck and Jean Harper. They’re both drawn to each other, but the undeniable fact that Buck killed her uncle stands between them, despite the circumstances of the shooting.

“Outcast’s Doom Patrol” has plenty of what I love about the pulp Westerns going for it: a likable, stalwart hero; a strong heroine who’s not whiny or clingy; some colorful sidekicks; not just one but three despicable villains; and numerous scenes full of well-described, breakneck action. The final battle is excellent. Maybe things go on just a tad bit too long after the gunsmoke clears, but I’ll cut Holmes some slack on that because of how entertaining the story is overall. I raced through this one and had a great time reading it. If you’re a fan of traditional Westerns, I give it a high recommendation.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Thrilling Wonder Stories, August 1936

This is the first issue of THRILLING WONDER STORIES after Ned Pines bought WONDER STORIES from Hugo Gernsback and changed the title. That's certainly an eye-catching cover. I don't know the artist. Equally eye-catching is the lineup of authors in this issue: A. Merritt, Ray Cummings, Stanley G. Weinbaum, Otis Adelbert Kline, Paul Ernst, Eando Binder (Earl and Otto Binder), Arthur Leo Zagat, and Mort Weisinger, who also happened to be the editor. That's just an excellent group of writers. You can read this issue on-line here, along with a lot of other issues of THRILLING WONDER STORIES. You know, between the issues I own and all the issues that are available on-line, I could just about spend the rest of my life reading pulps of all kinds. And when I retire, I might just do that.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Star Western, September 1948

One of Popular Publications' flagship Western pulps, along with DIME WESTERN, STAR WESTERN was still going strong in the late Forties, with this issue being a prime example. Behind that dramatic Robert Stanley cover are stories by a really fine group of writers: T.T. Flynn, Tom W. Blackburn, Frank Bonham, Van Cort (Wyatt Blassingame), John Jo Carpenter (John Reese), Kenneth Perkins, and writer/editor Art Lawson with two stories, one under his name and one as by William Fargo.