Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Black Mask, September 1933

What would 20 cents buy in 1933? Well, it would buy a lot of things I suppose, but one possible answer is that it would buy an issue of BLACK MASK with stories by Erle Stanley Gardner, Frederick Nebel, Raoul Whitfield, W.T. Ballard, Roger Torrey, and Eugene Cunningham. That's just a spectacular group of authors. Cunningham is best remembered as a Western author, but he wrote quite a few hardboiled yarns, too. His story in this issue is the first in a series about hotel detective Cleve Corby. Nebel's story is part of his Kennedy and McBride series, Gardner's features the phantom crook Ed Jenkins, Ballard writes about Hollywood troubleshooter Bill Lennox, Torrey's story is about policeman Dal Prentice, and Whitfield's is the first of two about private eye Dion Davies. Several of the stories from this issue have been reprinted, and I'm sure they're well worth seeking out. By the way, the cover of this issue is by J.W. Schlaikjer, who did quite a few covers for BLACK MASK during this era.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: The Feds, October 1936

THE FEDS was a G-Man pulp published by Street & Smith, a company that usually was very successful with anything they put out there. Not so with THE FEDS, which lasted for only 15 issues in 1936 and '37. But its lack of longevity can't be attributed to the generally pretty good covers, including this one on the second issue which is probably collectable because of the presence of all those Ku Klux Klansmen on it. I don't know who painted it. Nor were the writers any slouches. This issue features stories by Steve Fisher, Wyatt Blassingame, W.T. Ballard, Arthur J. Burks, William G. Bogart, Laurence Donovan, Jean Francis Webb, George Allan Moffatt (Edwin V. Burkholder), James Duncan (Arthur Pincus), and house-name Bruce Harley. Probably some good reading there. I don't own this issue and it doesn't appear to be available on-line, but if I did have a copy of it, I wouldn't hesitate to give it a try. 

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Super-Detective, January 1943

I don’t own this issue, or, for that matter, any issues of SUPER-DETECTIVE. They’re not that easy to find, and they’re usually pretty expensive when you do come across one. But when Radio Archives recently published an e-book edition of this issue, I picked it up because I wanted to read the Jim Anthony novel in it. The by-line on that novel is John Grange, but that was a house-name, and in this case, I knew that two excellent authors collaborated on the story: Robert Leslie Bellem and W.T. Ballard.

For those of you unfamiliar with Jim Anthony, here’s a little background. His father was an Irish adventurer, his mother a Comanche princess. He’s a millionaire industrialist with business interests all over the world, an amateur criminologist, a brilliant scientist, and a world-class athlete. He’s Doc Savage, Bruce Wayne, and Jim Thorpe rolled into one. Veteran pulpster Victor Rousseau wrote the first dozen Jim Anthony novels in SUPER-DETECTIVE, Edwin Truett Long did the next three, and then friends and sometime writing partners Bellem and Ballard wrote ten more novels to finish off the series. “Murder Between Shifts” in this issue is the fourth entry by Bellem and Ballard. In Rousseau’s stories, he portrayed Jim Anthony as more of a globe-trotting adventurer, the Doc Savage part of the character. I’d read that Bellem and Ballard’s novels had more of a mystery angle, concentrating on Jim Anthony’s efforts as a criminologist. I was eager to read one and find out.

“Murder Between Shifts” finds Jim visiting Los Angeles with his pilot and sidekick Tom Gentry. Jim owns an aircraft plant there that’s doing vital work for the war effort, but there are rumors of trouble he’s checking out, and sure enough, when he tracks down the plant manager to a nightclub that caters to the swing shift workers, the man is murdered right in front of Jim’s eyes by one of the other plant executives. The thing is, the guy who pulled the trigger claims he’s innocent! Jim investigates, of course, which leads to attempts on his own life along with sensuous encounters with several beautiful babes. (SUPER-DETECTIVE was published by the same company that put out the Spicy pulps, so it’s a little more risque than some, although mild by our current standards.) Even though Jim is still the same tycoon/scientist/criminologist he is in the earlier novels by Victor Rousseau, “Murder Between Shifts” does read much more like a typical hardboiled detective yarn than Rousseau’s novels do. It’s well-written, clever enough, and I enjoyed it quite a bit. It also features a cameo appearance by police lieutenant Dave Donaldson, from Bellem’s Dan Turner series, which put a grin on my face.

William B. Rainey, author of the short story “Don’t Get Killed Tonight”, was really Wyatt Blassingame, best remembered probably for his Weird Menace stories although he was a prolific pulpster who wrote a little bit of everything and wrote it well. “Don’t Get Killed Tonight” is part of his series about private detective Eddie Harveth, who works as a troubleshooter for nightclub and restaurant owners in New Orleans. It’s a good story in which Eddie gets framed for the murder of a beautiful dancer and has to go on the run from the cops as he tracks down the real killer. There’s nothing unusual or special about this story, but it’s competently written and moves right along. A tad on the forgettable side, though.

Randolph Barr was a house-name, and the real author of “The Shape of Death” is unknown, which is a shame because it really is a top-notch story featuring some fine hardboiled writing. A beautiful blonde living in a Florida trailer camp finds a dead man on her doorstep. Unfortunately, he’d made a pass at her a short time earlier in a nearby tavern, and she was heard to threaten him. The cops believe he followed her back to her trailer and she killed him, possibly in self-defense. The only one who believes she’s innocent is a young reporter who falls for her. The plot of this one is pretty traditional and even predictable, but it races along with plenty of good dialogue and excellent descriptions. I liked it a lot and wish I knew who wrote it.

The other stories in this issue are all unacknowledged reprints, a practice for which the publisher was notorious, beginning with “Carte Blanche for Murder” by Travis Lee Stokes, which was published originally as “Blonde Madness” in the September 1934 issue of SPICY DETECTIVE STORIES under the name Arthur Humbolt, which was also a pseudonym. The real author was Robert C. Blackmon, who wrote a bunch of detective yarns for various pulps, under numerous different names. It opens with its newspaper reporter protagonist discovering the murdered body of a beautiful blonde with her arms chopped off. Naturally, this ties in with the case of another blonde who was killed and had her legs chopped off. And our hero’s girlfriend is a beautiful blonde and has a connection with one of the suspects! As you can tell, this story is lurid and over the top and you know exactly what’s going on almost right from the start, but Blackmon delivers it in such breathless, enthusiastic prose that it’s enjoyable despite that.

Norman A. Daniels is the actual author of “Murder Stays at Home”, published in this issue under the name Max Neilson. It was published originally as “Murder at Lake Iroquois” by Charles Maxwell in the September 1934 issue of SPICY DETECTIVE STORIES. This one finds a bunch of theater folks and artists partying at the island mansion of a wealthy producer, and of course one of them winds up dead, seemingly an open-and-shut case of a beautiful actress murdering a rival beautiful actress. That’s not how it turns out, and the murder method is actually pretty clever. Daniels was dependable and this story is good entertainment without being outstanding.

“Post Mortem” by Walton Grey was published originally in the August 1934 issue of SPICY DETECTIVE STORIES as “Where is the Body?”, under the author’s real name, C. Samuel Campbell. It’s even more lurid and over-the-top than “Carte Blanche for Murder” as we have two police detectives running around a stereotypical old dark house complete with secret passages and a hulking monster who’s breaking people’s necks. This one is almost too silly for me to accept it, but it has its effective moments and I wound up reading the whole thing.

Looking back on the issue as a whole, it’s certainly entertaining. The Jim Anthony story and “The Shape of Death” by “Randolph Barr” are the highlights. I definitely want to read more of Bellem and Ballard’s Jim Anthony stories. Several of them, including “Murder Between Shifts”, are reprinted in SUPER-DETECTIVE JIM ANTHONY, THE COMPLETE SERIES: VOLUME 5 from Steeger Books. Not surprisingly, I’ve already ordered a copy. But if you want to sample the series, this e-book from Radio Archives isn’t a bad place to start.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Crime Busters, October 1938

Western pulps weren't the only ones that favored a red and yellow color scheme. Here's an example of one on CRIME BUSTERS, a detective pulp that often featured photo covers but not this time. It also specialized in series characters, and the line-up in this issue is full of heavyweight authors. There's a Click Rush story by Lester Dent, a Carrie Cashin story by Theodore Tinsley, a Clay Holt story by Carroll John Daly, a Red Drake story by W.T. Ballard, and a Doc Trouble story by Robert C. Blackmon. I've heard of Click Rush and Carrie Cashin, but I'll admit, the others are new ones on me. Daly's Clay Holt appeared in six stories, the first four in DIME DETECTIVE, this one in CRIME BUSTERS, and a final yarn in BLACK MASK. I'm guessing Ballard's Red Drake was probably a private eye. He appeared in more than two dozen stories in BLACK MASK, CRIME BUSTERS, and STREET & SMITH'S MYSTERY MAGAZINE. Blackmon's Doc Trouble appeared in 18 stories in CRIME BUSTERS and STREET & SMITH'S MYSTERY MAGAZINE. I'll bet these are all good characters and good stories, and if any of you are familiar with them, please feel free to tell us about them in the comments.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Popular Detective, June 1943

Well, that's certainly a creepy cover. I don't know the artist, but this issue of POPULAR DETECTIVE caught my eye, so he did his job. The Dr. Zeng novella by "Walt Bruce" is actually by W.T. Ballard and Robert Leslie Bellem. Also on hand in this issue are Norman A. Daniels, Dale Clark, Joe Archibald, William Morrison (really Joseph Samachson, the guy who created the Martian Manhunter for DC Comics), Lee Fredericks, and Ted Coughlan. Not an all-star line-up, maybe, but I'll bet it's a pretty entertaining issue. The Dr. Zeng story, along with the others in that series, has been reprinted by Steeger Books in the volume DR. ZENG ARCHIVES. I have a copy but have never read it. One of these days . . .

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.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Ten Detective Aces, December 1943

Well, that's probably the best-looking gas jockey I've ever seen. Jerome Rozen did the cover for this issue of TEN DETECTIVE ACES. Any pulp that leads off with a W.T. Ballard yarn is probably going to be worth reading. Also on hand in this issue are solid pros Robert Turner, C. William Harrison, Joe Archibald, and Ralph Berard (Victor H. White), among others. The heyday of TEN DETECTIVE ACES was in the Thirties, but it was still a pretty good detective pulp in the Forties.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Lariat Story Magazine, July 1948

I like to think that if I'd been around during the pulp era, I could have written for LARIAT STORY MAGAZINE. This issue features another dynamic cover by Allen Anderson. Inside are stories by some top pros: William Heuman, W.T. Ballard, and Laurence Donovan, plus lesser-known but still prolific Al Storm, H. Frederic Young, and Costa Carousso. The lead novella is by William J. Hodgson, and the odd thing about that is that it's his only story listed in the Fictionmags Index. I'm not sure why a writer would get cover-featured with his first (and apparently only) story, but that happened some in the pulps. Or maybe Hodgson was actually a pseudonym for somebody else in that issue. Heuman, Ballard, and Donovan wrote a lot, under many different names. Likely we'll never know, but I always find these questions intriguing.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Super-Detective, June 1943

This is a later issue of SUPER-DETECTIVE where Jim Anthony, star of the lead novel, is a hardboiled detective and no longer a Doc Savage-like character, and the tale was written by W.T. Ballard and Robert Leslie Bellem under the John Grange house-name. I've never read any of this version of Jim Anthony, and I really ought to. I think one or two of them have been reprinted, but I could be wrong about that. Also on hand are Harold de Polo and three more house-names, Paul Hanna, R.T. Maynard, and Walton Grey. No telling who they were. The cover is by H.J. Ward, and I like it.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Detective Short Stories, April 1941

Are there people who collect covers with hook hands on them? Seems like there must be. I think this cover might be by J.W. Scott, but I'm not really familiar enough with his style to be sure. I'm sure there's a good bunch of authors in this issue of DETECTIVE SHORT STORIES, though: E. Hoffmann Price, Roger Torrey, W.T. Ballard, Edward S. Aarons (under his pseudonym Edward S. Ronns), J. Lane Linklater, Eric Howard, Dale Clark, Cyril Plunkett, and even legendary BLACK MASK editor Joseph T. Shaw under the pseudonym Mark Harper. Hard to go wrong with writers like that.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Ranch Romances, First February Number, 1952

A really nice cover on this issue of RANCH ROMANCES. I think I want to write a story with that redhead in it! I don't know the artist. There's a signature in the bottom right corner, but I can't make it out. There's a great group of writers inside, too: Wayne D. Overholser, Todhunter (W.T.) Ballard, Giff Cheshire, Elmer Kelton, Tom W. Blackburn, and Arthur Lawson. It would be hard to go wrong with that bunch.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Western Short Stories, December 1938

We have an Angry, Gun-Totin' Blonde on the cover of this issue of WESTERN SHORT STORIES, but the Stalwart, Red-Shirted Cowboy and the Wounded Old Geezer are right there with her. Inside is a very solid line-up of Western pulpsters including Harry Sinclair Drago, W.T. Ballard, Ed Earl Repp, Nels Leroy Jorgensen, and Rolland Lynch. This isn't really a well-known Western pulp, but it looks pretty good to me.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Ranch Romances, First January Number, 1955

I don't know who did the cover on this issue of RANCH ROMANCES, but I'm quite fond of it. That is one beautiful woman. Inside are stories by Parker Bonner (who was really W.T. Ballard), Michael Carder (who was really Vernon Fluharty, who also wrote Westerns as Jim O'Mara), J.L. Bouma, Harold Preece, Elsa Barker, and a writer I'm not familiar with, Lloyd Kevin.

UPDATE: That great cover art is almost certainly by Everett Raymond Kinstler. Thanks to Sheila Ann Vanderbeek for the ID.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: 10-Story Detective Magazine, May 1943

I love the way this cover by Jerome Rozen jumps out at you, as well as the way the guy is carrying the skull like a football and stiff-arming the other guy. That's a pose right off one of the sports pulps, but I don't remember ever seeing any of those that involve skulls. Inside this issue of 10-STORY DETECTIVE MAGAZINE are stories by some fine pulpsters including W.T. Ballard, Norman A. Daniels (once as himself and once as by David M. Norman), Joe Archibald, and Lee E. Wells. With that cover and those authors, I'd read that one.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Detective Tales, October 1947

Okay, that's got to be one of the weirdest pulp covers I've ever seen, but man, it's hard to take your eyes off it, isn't it? The authors inside are great, as well: Day Keene, Robert Turner, William R. Cox, Talmage Powell, G.T. Fleming-Roberts, and W.T. Ballard writing as Parker Bonner. I would have grabbed this one off the newsstand in a second.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Super-Detective, November 1942

I've never read any of the Jim Anthony stories, not the early ones by Victor Rousseau writing under the house-name John Grange, or these later ones by Robert Leslie Bellem and W.T. Ballard where he's more of a standard hardboiled detective. But knowing Bellem and Ballard's work, I'll bet the stories are at least entertaining. The cover of this issue of SUPER-DETECTIVE is certainly eye-catching. There are three short stories in this issue as well, all of them under Trojan Publishing Corporation house-names, so there's no telling who actually wrote them.

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

This is a pulp that I own and read recently. It’s in really good shape, too. The scan is from my copy, and that nice cover is by Sam Cherry, who painted nearly all of the RANCH ROMANCES covers from the Fifties.

The issue gets underway with the featured novella “Woman at Wagonwheel” (despite what the cover says, there’s no “The” in the title on the actual story) by Ray Gaulden, a fairly prolific Western pulpster and novelist who had at least one book made into a movie (FIVE CARD STUD). This is a pretty good hardboiled yarn with a standard save-the-ranch plot that’s elevated by Gaulden’s smooth prose, some interesting characters, and a well-handled romantic rectangle. I’ve read and enjoyed several of Gaulden’s pulp stories, but I don’t think I’ve ever read one of his novels. I really ought to.

Todhunter Ballard is best remembered today as mystery writer W.T. Ballard, but he was a very prolific and well-regarded Western writer, too. His short story in this issue, “To Know the Truth”, is a mining boomtown yarn involving an attempted swindle, a two-fisted miner, and the beautiful female editor of the local newspaper. It’s minor Ballard but still well-written and entertaining.

Seven Anderton was a fairly prolific pulp author for three decades, from the late Twenties until his death in 1958. He wrote in nearly every genre but was probably best known for his Westerns and detective stories. As far as I know, he never published a novel or published outside of the pulps. He’s mostly forgotten today, but there are still fans of his work around, including me. His novelette in this issue, “Queen of Jacob’s Kingdom”, appears to have been his last Western story. It’s a good one. The protagonist is a young man who has gone west to make his fortune in the ranching business, but he runs afoul of the local cattle baron and makes things worse for himself by falling for the man’s beautiful daughter. There’s actually more romance than action in this one, something of a rarity during the Fifties despite the magazine’s name, but the writing is top-notch and the story works well.

J.L. Bouma wrote quite a few Western novels, but during the late Forties and on through the Fifties, he was busy writing dozens of pulp stories, first in the detective pulps and then the Westerns, becoming a regular contributor to RANCH ROMANCES. His story in this issue, “Canyon Crossing”, is also heavy on the romance angle, as a young woman who’s about to get married has to deal with the return of an old beau who deserted her. There’s also some horse rustling and a twist ending that very predictable, leaving us with a story that’s readable but maybe a little too much on the mild side.

T.V. Olsen had a long, successful career as a Western novelist and is still highly regarded by many Western readers. He was never very prolific as a short story writer, turning out only a couple dozen of them, and most of those appeared in RANCH ROMANCES. “Stampede!” is, not surprisingly, a trail drive story with some good action and characters that are more complex than you usually find in a story of this length. I’ve read a few of Olsen’s novels and am not much of a fan of them, but I liked this story quite a bit.

The least well-known author in this issue is probably Robert E. Trevathan, and long-time Western readers might even recognize that one, since he wrote a number of novels for Avalon Books, the library market publisher. I’ve even read a few of ’em, but I don’t remember anything about them. He wrote a few stories for the Western pulps during the Fifties, including “Prairie Wind” in this issue. It’s about a young wife who has a hard time coping with the hardships of life on the frontier, and having the local cattle baron causing trouble for the homesteaders in the area just makes things worse. Trevathan writes fairly well, but the ending of this story is a little abrupt and not really believable.

There’s also a serial installment by Joseph Wayne (probably Wayne D. Overholser) that I didn’t read since I don’t have the whole thing, and the usual assortment of features like Western movie news, horoscope stuff, and requests for pen pals. Overall, this is probably the mildest issue of RANCH ROMANCES from the Fifties that I’ve read. All the stories are well-written and reasonably entertaining, with the stories by Gaulden, Olsen, and Anderton taking top honors, but several of them are really lacking in action and drama. It’s worth reading if you have it close to hand, but I wouldn’t go digging for it in your collection.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Black Mask, October 1934

Another classic issue of BLACK MASK, with a fairly provocative cover by Fred Craft and stories inside by Raymond Chandler, Horace McCoy, W.T. Ballard, Nels Leroy Jorgensen, and Thomas Walsh, who was still writing new stories for EQMM and AHMM as late as 1983. I remember reading them, but at the time I didn't realize his career stretched back as far as it did. Quite an accomplishment.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Thrilling Detective, October 1943

With a cover as lurid as this one by George Rozen, shouldn't the stories in this issue of THRILLING DETECTIVE have titles with a little more, I don't know, pizzazz than "Death Drives a Bus" and "Murder Sets the Stage"? The titles of the other stories aren't much snappier: "Eye-Witness Testimony", "The Motive Goes Round and Round", "A Toast to Victory". "Murder Meat" and "Ashes of Hate" are a little better, but not much. The authors are pretty solid, though: Fredric Brown, W.T. Ballard, Norman A. Daniels, and James P. Webb, among others.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Ace G-Man Stories, Nov.-Dec. 1937

That's a nice action cover on this issue of ACE G-MAN STORIES. A lot of good writers turned their hands to this sub-genre while it was popular, including, in this issue, Wyatt Blassingame, best known for his Weird Menace yarns, W.T. Ballard, one of the top Western writers for many years, W. Wirt, whose adventure stories showed up in many issues of ARGOSY and SHORT STORIES, and the prolific and enigmatic Emile C. Tepperman. (Some of you will remember the fanzine article "The Tepperman Quest".)