Holiday images from the past

Here is a nice group of images from my collection of stuff, kind of gets me in the mood, maybe it does you too!
The Above original pen and ink drawing I got from Brad W. Foster, who was behind our table at one of the Chicago Comics Cons in the 80's, its dated 1985  Its a calender obviously, on the back is a note that the gal is Sandy Henson, nice ornament that. 

I bought the Foster because it reminded me a Virgil Finlay, who is one of my favorite pulp artists, his pen and ink drawing are outstanding.  He is one of his from an Astrological Mag, nice Holiday theme.  He said at one time he used his daughters as models.

Long as I'm talking about calenders, he is an Al Moore December page 1951 nice image here too!  If you can't read the caption it says:
December's queen is never mean,
But her kindness has its causes--
Would you believe the gifts she received

Are from a dozen Santa Clauses!

These 2 pages from the same calender , I'm not sure of the year or artist, nice bit of classic pin-up work, probably 50's.



Here is my last years Christmas read, had some good holiday stories and illo's too.  The art could be by Nick Eggenhoffer, he was know for great western art.  Front cover art by N F Soare. 

Lost and Found Paperback Science Fiction

Today's stash of Lost and Found comes from an antique store, I have always driven by, but never stopped at.  You know the kind, looks like it could be an interesting joint to take a look at.  This one happens to be the sister store of the one I found the copy of Top Notch #1, which is another story.  This place didn't turn up any pulp magazines but did have a nice box of 45 or so vintage 1960 to 1970 paperbacks in a large box.  I glommed on to that at a nice Christmasy 50% off!  It makes for a tough decision on which one to read first, you can tell by looking at all the covers that they make it even harder.  

The Asimov book has cover art by Berkey and reprints material from Fantasy and Science Fiction mag, Amazing, If, and The Saint Detective Mag.

The Gardner F Fox book has a cover signed JB, is from 1973 and has that notoriety of the Saturday night Live characters, one influenced the other. 

The Leigh Brackett has a cover by Grey Morrow, 1967, reprinting stories from Planet Stories, Startling Stories, Amazing Stories and Fantasy and Sciencefiction.  All great pulp stories

This one by Marion Zimmer Bradley has a cool looking cover by Jack Gaughan, who did a cover or two for my old fanzine Cloak and Dagger, as well as a bunch for my pal's Harry's mag Fantasy News.  It has interior illo's by Jack too, his tour-De-force was his pen and ink drawings I think. 

The Delany has a great cover and 400 and some pages from 1966.  The Dick book from 1974 looks like a good read from the back cover blurb, "he was a skilled mender-or, as he liked to think of it , healer-of ceramic pots.  In a mostly plastic world, he was unemployed"...Another cool cover too. 

The De Camp book is the third in a series, looks like, I'll be looking for the other 2 from 1977 or so, another well  done cover, signed at the bottom cut off  J. Ha-something.  The De Camp-Fletcher Pratt book The Incomplete Enchanter with the really fine Jeff  Jones cover, the fact that its a fantasy book, and because its a reprint of the May and August  1940 issues of The Unknown a Street and Smith pulp, make it my first choice to read.  Oh, and was dedicated to John W. Campbell too! The third  DeCamp-Pratt book with a awesome cover by Esteban Maroto and interior illo's by Edd Cartier, is from Oct. 1941 issue of Unknown Worlds, this would be my second choice for reading.  Its from 1979.

That's the first 9 of 25 covers I have of the 43 I bought, the next bunch tomorrow.  Any one have a favorite from these please give me your opinion, thanks!

Forgotten Bookmarks/Pocket Magazine

I was listening to NPR the other day and they were reviewing books and the one that stuck me was called Forgotten Book- Marks. A booksellers collection of odd things lost between the pages.  Its a photo collection of cool stuff left in old books plus the books they were left in.  I think the most unusual thing he found was razor blades and 2 tickets to a 1904 masquerade ball.  So, the odd thing I found in a magazine I picked up was gotten a few years back at a Flea Market here in Wisconsin.  It was a copy of The Pocket Magazine March 1898, a paperback size, 100 page, 5 cent magazine.  In it I found two nice bookmarks, a star with a name on it  ( Lillian something) and what looks to be a hotel plan with who was going to room with whom, one of which is Lillian, on the back it says "be grateful for this."  Not sure anymore which story they were stuck in.
The five stories are:
Eunice and the Doll by Mary E Wilkins
Prince Pavio's Love Cup by Osmond Shillingford
Key of the Broadway Gate by Percie W Hart and excellent historical fiction of New Amsterdam, NY He wrote in Sea Stories, Munsey's and other pulps as well, this tale would have in any of those mags as well. 
Nirvanna by Davis Turner
John Esterbrooke by Louis Vincent DeFoe Which is an early story of an Englishman in the old west, excellent story.  It appears he was a drama critic, and editor of the Chicago Tribune.  He also wrote  for The Red Book a pulp magazine from 1907 to 1913, mostly articles but some short stories.  He was as I said, a very fine teller of tales of the west.  His story would have fit in any of the days western pulps. 

So, any of you find any neat bookmarks, there must be a ton of  things that have been found, I always look for money as a bookmark, but no dice! 

Western Story Magazine articles on Western writers

I'd like to start out my blog with a find I made at the local Flea Market several years ago.  It was about 150 or so issues of Western Story Magazine form about 1925 to 1930 or so.  Wonderful covers and even more amazing stories.  From Max Brand to Johnston McCulley, some of the best reading you can find.  I picked up several of these mags at the Flea and asked if they had more, and go figure, they did.  So went out next week and you should have seen the kitchen table filled with stacks of Western Story, fantastic covers abounded. I've read many of these and found that in the Feb 11, 1928 issue,  D C Hubbard started writing articles about famous western writers. That issue featured George Washington Ogden.  That one was missing from the collection I bought, but, the next issue March 3, 1928 was present and featured Roland Krebs, Who seemed to be the master of the short humor story for WSM, he started out in Argosey 1923, went to Detective Story 1924, graduated to the slick, The Saturday Evening Post for 1925 and 1926, and then hit off a long relation with Street and Smiths WSM, until 1936.  He had a few issues of Popular and Complete pulps also form S&S toward what seems to be the end of his writing career for the pulps, 1937.  But, from Krebs' interview  of which I post here, with a nice drawing of him also, he lived a very interesting life as an artist, reporter ( in St. Louis), and at the time of the article was living in the Ozarks of Mo.in a cabin of some sort.  Says he gets inspired from newspaper articles he reads and goes from there!

His story in the March 3rd,1928 issue is a good one, all of 3 or 4 pages and talks of free lunch at a prohibition bar in Montana.  You have to love an up to day western story, really a pretty neat story of cowboys, food and near beer! 

Over all the articles seems to promote the writers in the magazine, but gives them a human face instead of a name on the cover, which to me I find very interesting.  The are about 12 more of them, the next issue, March 24, 1928, featuring Clem Yore interview, writers Austin Hall( Silvertip), Ray Humphreys(Shorty McKay)  and others, great reading.  

Next up would like to talk abut the Spicy Mystery I'm reading, especially one of the interior artist  contain there in, and like to talk about food, trucking, comics, illustrators and what all ever comes to mind!