Two recent reads mine are the above pictured pulp magazines of the
Culture group, sometimes known as Trojan Publishing. Trojan also published one of my favorite lines
of 50’s crime and horror comics. Being
they printed some of the best gory and violent group of comics a guy could
want! The pictured pulp of an early
nature: the Spicy Detective dated May 1941 a scarcer issue of that series and a
later publication of theirs: Speed Western July 1947. For you guys and gals who read pulps you know
that this was a publisher out to fill a part of the buying public that was of
an adult nature. So, OK, your kid goes
into buy a comic or pulp, say Doc Savage and the dad goes with him and gets a
little something for himself to read, and asks for a Spicy. Mostly, these were under the counter items, so
you got a Spicy Mystery, Detective, Adventure or whatever you liked. Cool,
now you got a piggy-back sale, like selling a candy bar with you comics or pulp
purchase. More dough, yah know? Anyway down the line Culture got cracked and
had to tame down their line and renumbered and renamed their line Speed, hence
the Speed Western from Spicy Western.
Oddly, enough at least in the Speed Western case no more “sex” but pretty
violent for a western. An example of
both of these early and late series pulps would say be from my favorite
detective writer Robert Leslie Bellem, the story is called Future Book a horse
racing tale of a bookie who takes bets on future races ( weird, I know). It’s a tale of Dan Turner Hollywood Detective. To quote Dan ( and, ladies I’m sorry about
the politically incorrect line, but its funny) “When I spoke to her, she drew a
quavery (sic) gasp that swelled the front of her suede jacket in a most
distracting way!” Alright, kind of
quaint, but, you get the idea about Spicy.
As for the Speed side, from Frontier Law by Paul Hanna: “Allan’s hand
shot up and grasped that thumb, and the crack of the broken bone sounded though
the room.” Ouch, not something I’d find
in a Western Story mag. yarn ( The cover quote: is stories as clean as the
outdoors).
Let's talk about the artists with Culture Pubs.
The cover to the Detective is by Allan
Anderson.
It’s a very nice design, the
way the two people lean to the left and the door on that side brings the eye
around over to the gun and back to the characters--a classic triangle design,
good drapery and a nice on the eyes female.
An excellent cover made to sell.
The Western is by George Rosen, not a slouch in the cover painting
department.
Notice the arms on the
female and male that make the eye keep looking at the scene, a nice
rectangle.
Makes me want to know what’s
going on in the magazine.
And as for
what is inside, well some very good pen and ink drawings by Parkhurst and Joe Sokoli.
Sokoli, had a relationship with the guys at
Culture in a round about sort of way, which I find interesting to no end.
I read a very nice article in Illustration
magazine here by David Saunders which is very long and detailed and he has the
sweetened and condensed version at his very excellent Field hunters guide to
Pulp Artists here.
To paraphrase some of
that, Joe lived the life of the Dead End Kids ala Jack Kirby ( who did some
pulp illo’s and created some character name Captain America with Joe Simon of
course).
His father was a barber to many
famous people, including Wild Bill Hickock, President Woodrow Wilson and a guy
named Frank Costello, a gangster and a good tipper!
Joe went to Pratt to get an engineering
degree, but switched to art, because of the great depression ( 1932), where the
alumni of the school were making big bucks.
The teachers included, Walter Baumhofer, H. Winfied Scott, Rudolph
Belarski, Fred Blakeslee, and John Flemming Gould.
They all returned to Platt to tell others how
to break into the pulps.
The students
included: Earl Mayan, George Gross, and Sokoli.
Seems as if Joe’s father died and at the same time the gangster Frank
Costello comes in the Culture game with partner Harry Donenfield, Costello
being the silent partner.
So, Joe needs
a job…A last note on Donenfield is how what Dave says he may have made his
money to buy National (later to merge into DC Comics) was by smuggling Canadian
booze into the US in the hollow of the paper rolls he used in publishing his
Spicy’s.
Just a rumor!
Ah, now the writers had just a little to do with the mags,
in Speed Western , Walter A Tomkins with Spawn of the Trigger Breed a story of
a father’s rep and what happens to his son, good tale.
John Jo Carpenter, Laurence Donovan a great
story on bringing Morgan horses west to sell.
William Decater, Paul Hanna and Joel McCoy about Mexico’s war with
Texas, very cool.
The Spicy Detective
has Luke Terry, Robert A Garron, Robert Leslie Bellen who has the destination
of writing for most all the issued of Spicy Detective, Max Neilson, Carl
Lennox, Walton Grey, Stan Warner and Paul Hanna again.
A lot of these guys used other names when
writing here in the Spicy’s for whatever reasons.
And Without a doubt, Culture Publications is one of the most
interesting houses of the Golden Age of pulps, comics and other material. Just scratched the surface here, more to be
read!
And Without a doubt, Culture Publications is one of the most
interesting houses of the Golden Age of pulps, comics and other material. Just scratched the surface here, more to be
read!
The above comics are notable for the way the title changed from the #1 issue with emphasis on the Western to the Crime issue #7 and the Wally Wood Art on Six Gun, great stuff hey? The Sally art on top of the Joe S. art is by Adolphe Barreaux , who is also listed as editor on the comics line, so he too was connected with Culture pubs. too.
