Mystery At Movie Ranch New Pulp stories!

Mystery at Movie Ranch by Darryle Purcell

A Buckskin Editions Westerns

Pageturneredions.com

This first turned up in my emails wanting me, ME! To do a review of it.  Well, hell, why not, I mean I like western pulp stories as well as the next guy or gal.  I mean I write about plenty of the ones I get out there, so why not?  As it turns out, I don't like reading BOOKS on line, yet that is, so I asked for a print edition of it and got sent one.  Pretty cool, I must say on their part.  I just like having the thing in hand, its that collector of paper in me that's the culprit!  I'm excited about reading my first "new" pulp story, OK, I have read some in Planetary Stories and have drawn some illo's for same, and yeah, guilty of reading on line, you can read them also at Planetarystories.com   Back to Darryle's story. As it turns out Darryle is a retired reporter for a LA newspaper and  political cartoonist to boot!  He did the cover and several illustrations for the interior, not too shabby!  I would like to see a beautiful babe on the cover, like Earl Bergey would have done for say Startling Stories, brass bra's and all!  But, that's me and my pulp tastes, a cowboy, smoking gun, Bi-plane, and strange monster, will do the job nicely!  Suffice it to say there is no brass bra-ed woman in the story, but boy is there everything else!

Seems to me that Mr Purcell was out to write only one pulp western as he has everything going into this one from flying-saucers to the FBI and the mafia.  Its everything a pulp story has going for it, wild situations, oh, and a beautiful love interest too, gotta have one of those, but usually not in the pulps as a rule.  It reads like a story from Ray Palmers' Fantastic Adventures, a little humor: "That's me-Sean Woods ( the Hollywood in- house press dude/detective in the story).  Everyone calls me Curly because, well, they're assholes."  And, a lot of action, it starts right out with Ken Maynard ( yup that KM) falling out on his face, dead drunk, so much for slam-bang action, that will start tomorrow on the movie set.  Just in the first few pages alone, fast cars, snipers, the posse, movie making descriptions of a low budget outfit, fights and woman! 

I enjoyed his descriptions of how movies are made in different sequences and assembled later to fit the continuity.  His (Ken Maynard in the story) conversation of movie horses was pretty cool in and of itself, how they could make any cowboy look good, stop on their marks and smile for the camera too!

You can find Buckskin editions here with a description of their books <http://buckskineditions.blogspot.com/2014/08/buckskin-editions-catalog.html> . Can order the Kindle edition or possibly the print edition also.

I find overall that the print edition was well done, I especially appreciate the the large print size helps me plenty!  I think too, that it lives up to being a real page turner, very easy to read, love the guest appearances by Hoot Gibson, Thelma Todd and others of that era.   I had a good time reading this, recommend it to you all who like old western movies and serials too. 

Going home and ran into these pulps...

So, this morning I was headed to Lacrosse, WI. to unload and was heading back to the castle here and I get distracted when I don't have anywhere to go right away; I stop at a antique mall   It's one I stop at cause its easy to park at and I have gotten pulps there before.  But nothing turns up, a few Colliers and a Liberty, I'm trying to stay with pulps as I like the stories better.  The art in the slicks(Colliers)  is pretty cool I have to admit, but that's another story, so to speak!  On down the main drag to my hacienda and I know there is another older store down the road that I drive on every single week and its always closed, I mean its been 10 years going back and forth past that place, never, ever open.  Its Memorial Day weekend and I think, yeah, if anytime its now.  WOW, yup, by god its got an open sign out front of the joint!  Some of you may know that I drive a 80 foot long red monstrosity that's friggin' hard to park, but I ain't missing this guy being open, not in your life.  I park it on the side of the highway as far as it will fit and not be in the ditch, put the flashers on and go in.  Pretty cool when there is a very large stash of Life and Look and Colliers, and American Boy and just a huge bunch of magazines in the first row.  Got to be some pulps here, hey?  Well, the first thing I see is 2, foot high stacks of Railroad pulps, neat, but not my thing.  Next to them is the above stack of 7 nice westerns 30's and 40's!  Right on top is the Fifteen Western Tales, great cover by Robert Stanley I think, would have bought it in the day.  I love interior art in these Popular Pulps, like this:

The art could be Gerald McCann, who had a very nice style and a excellent design sense. Any time I can score a Masked Rider pulp is a good day for me, and it'll rise to the top of my pile of reads, very fine cover probably by George Rosen, kinda dark figures seems to be his color choice.  You can double click on the group shot and see his signed one on the Western Romances, I like the equal opportunity covers for the Romance titles.

This is the first time I've turned up any Dell Pulps,in the real world, the WR and the All Western are both by them and look like interesting reads, I mean the WR has a Anthony M. Rud  Story, the guy wrote everything from SF to Romance and was an editor also!  I love the trimmed edges lots easier to page though and looks better to me.  Still, got to have a place in your head for the rough edges too, a true pulp!

Seems to me the earlier pulps like the All Western and the copy of West, both from the 30's had less interesting art, but the stories are such Golden Age greats, that is,it doesn't matter!  More on the stories in part 2 of this and when I get to reading them.

West has a great cover, very different from the others and striking to me, would have glommed on to that right away, and really the stories look like great reads too!  I have not done any research on these yet, so will be checking them out over the next few days for info.  The Star Western claims to have 6 complete novels and its less than 100 pages,(Was issues)  about 15 to 18 pages each!  Cool!  Let's close with a interior from Star Western, another McCann pen and ink.

Good stuff, just a fun find, how can you miss on this stuff?  Anyone read any of these?

Complete Northwest Magazine and Lost Bookmarks!

I picked up a beautiful stack of great pulp magazines in Black River Falls WI. at an antique mall a few years back looking for a china cabinet.  We got the cabinet on E-bay later in the year, but the guy had a nice booth of old magazines, a lot of Fishing and Hunting mags, but a nice stack of pulps, which I picked up a foot tall stack of including some magazine sized issues of Blue Book, including the fabled Ian Flemming James Bond issue, about which later.  The rest being some nice westerns and the issue below, which I wanted to read first.

So, not the best of condition, the dreaded  athletic tape always a drag to get off, and I guess it will remain there forever, no back cover but complete and it was cheap too.  Its from March 1938 a Columbia Pub.  The cover is by an unknown artist, but I find it to be very nicely done, the painterly landscape at the bottom is very effective, OK, and the painting does not have anything to do with any of the stories as far as I can tell.  Well the Mountie does have a lanyard attached to his gun that the Cambell story refers to and it does have a woman featured in the tale, most the stories are set in the dead of winter so no use for a canoe. 

The first story up is Law of the Mounted by Cliff Cambell is a excellent tale of just 6 characters who live and work above Arctic Circle, a very cruel place to be sure.  I like the way the story unravels itself and how the people in it come together and then dissolve away again.  Very nice flow and feel for them and he really does a wonderful job of describing the Circle and its sense of emptiness.  The story is a northern mystery and everyone seems to have a secret.  It was hard to put down, very  pulply as you would expect, but well written. I could not find out much about Campbell, the Fictionmags site does not list but a few stories. He is listed on the Statement of ownership as the Editor, but above the table on contents it lists Michael Ivan.  So don't know.

Next up is Bandits Rule The Snow Frontier by Brain Loomis a pulp writer of westerns and northerns.  This is a more modern tale of the Mounties involving cars vs horses.  He tells a nice believable story of how autos might help.  I like the fact that woman play a role in both these stories and are very much in the hunt to solve the problems involved. 

The short stories here one by the hugely prolific Samual Taylor who wrote a vast amount of pulp fiction his story Gold Eating Wolves was OK, as was C V Tench's story Quits.  The better of the shorts is by Thomas Barclay Thompson its called Trail Breed a great dog story about how naturally the dog gets him out a fix.  Am a sucker for dog stories.  Thompson did not seem to publish much fiction, very little listed.  Silver Fox is the final short here is of a native and (again) his wonderful dog.  The k9 saves his life more than once.  Everyone wants the dog, but he wants to give him to someone deserving of him. As for the silver fox, you'll have to read it yourself! 

The Statement of Ownership I thought was interesting, it lists L. Miesel ( Louis K Miesel's dad maybe?  The latter is a dealer in Photo-real art and I knew him from his pin-up originals he owned), Dave Gross and Louis H. Silbertket ( of Archie Comics, which he started in 1941 with John Goldwater).  And, as mentioned early Campbell as ed and managing ed. 

A very decent mag a bottom of the barrel publisher, but I thought plenty good for 15 cents in the day! 

Lastly, to add to my list of Lost Book marks and you can see my old ones by checking out my older blogs on the subject. 

This one is kinda cool, it a ticket for Strum, WI's Steam Engine days, the town is about  30 miles from where I got the pulps in Black River Falls, WI.  I see a few things on the net about this fair, its at least been going on since 1964, but may go way back, under a different name.  Pretty cool steam tractor event.  This ticket may have been from around the days when the purchaser picked up the pulp, back in the thirties.  I think its pretty neat, looks as if he only got though the first story by Campbell where I found it! 

A pile of Science Fiction reading...

Here's some items I picked up and blogged about a few years back, and finally got around to reading some of. 

I picked up the Venture mags along with some Imagination mags at a antique mall in Mid-Ohio, a very short run on this mag 16 issues, the last 2 published in 1969 and 1970.  I have the May 1957, Sept and Nov., plus the Jan. 1958 issue, nice covers. 

The paperbacks, I picked up at a Antique mall in WI,  a big box full for $17 cheap at half the price. 

The Star Fox by Anderson was first published in The Mag. of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Feb.thru June 1965.  The book was cobbled together from the short stories in the FSF.  I had a great time reading it and others must have liked it also as it was nominated for a SF award, but wasn't a winner in '65.  The alien character ( Cynbe) is pretty cool and the kids of the story pick up its hair style, dances, and cloths, just like we did with the Beatles.  Or, at least as I did, pegged pants and Beatle boots, still remember them.  Ya gotta love fads!  The Tech is pretty spot-on I thought, he had cell phone, a desk Computer ( in the days of those giant IBM jobs I used to work at in the 70's), TV info-trive and other cool stuff.  Over all the tale is not unlike America's fight with England over independence.  Very good. 

As for the Dick book Galactic Pot-Healer, its my first read by him, I wanted to read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, but never got to get a copy.  Its one of my favorite movies, Blade Runner that is.  In any case its  a very well thought out tale unlike any other I have read.  The "Book" in the tale is very smart phone or tablet like, very cool as it turns out.  The work they do as a group is a beautiful thing indeed.  Dick must have like pottery very much!  Everyone should ( and most of you guys probably have) read this one. 

The May 1957 of Venture has a nice cover by Emsh about the first tale by James Gunn Space Is A Lonely Place.  Its the last of a series of tales about what his idea of what space travel might be like.  I think he did a very good job of visualizing space from what appears to be the space station ( like ours out there now) in a family oriented situation.  Another interesting mention is the stove they have a "shortwave" device, very cool, almost a microwave, hey?

 The next story The Corpse In Your Bed Is Me, by Walter M. Miller and Lincoln Boon.  I generally like Miller's stuff, but don't like SF stories about Comedians.  OK, it takes place in 2045 and there is a Martian in it, but not very good SF.

Night Sky Of Venus by Erik Fennel is my kind of tale; an excellent description of what Venus might be like.  And, Mike the main character who comes of age there with the planet and native people.  I very much like Fennel's  Storytelling style.  He had some tales in two my favorite pulps, Planet Stories and Blue Book. 

Cold Victory by Paul Anderson has a great title and seems to be another political SF tale, the other is Star Fox a decade later.  This tale is about 2 brothers who end up at odds with each other and how the story twists to fit it.  Interestingly told, but not my glass of beer!

Birds of Prey by Marion Zimmer Bradley is what I thought to be a superior bit of fantasy story telling.  The point of view of a woman telling a story though a man is pretty nice.  She is a very descriptive writer.  I will read more by her!  And, I have a bunch in the above mentioned box of books. 

Finally by Theodore Sturgeon Affair With a Green Monkey, not my kind of tale, its rather strange story of a guy who knows whats wrong with this, what he thinks is a gay fellow, but is really not, as his wife finds out!  But, not like you would imagine.  

Seems like a good SF magazine, but uneven, a good bunch of writers.

Great book reading

Alright the word is out, I do not read just pulps, Oh the horror!  Yeah, yeah, I get suckered into reading other stuff.  I mean take a look at these 4 I just finished, wonderful reads and some pulp tie-ins too!

I really had a good time reading this group of hardbacks, the two by Lawrence Block, I've had for a long time, especially the ginmill book which I hate to say it, have had since the time it came out 1986.  Great intentions and all.  The other book by him Small Town about New York is really awesome, quite the exotic writer, I must say!  Well, all the books have a bit or a lot of that.  The Khoury book on the Templar's, had some pretty kinky things going on as well!  OK, I live a sheltered like in the back of a truck for crying out loud and I read pulps with no sex, just romance...Alright, maybe, just maybe the Spicy line of pulps, Spicy Adventure, Detective and others had some what you might have called lurid behavior at best, but not the stuff that say the Block book had, he started life as a erotic novelist, well you get paid by the word, so works for me. 

All of the novels have something I like,  the Templar one was especially good ( it's part 2 but still a good read), I love a little historical fiction, mixed with the FBI and well, the sex wasn't too bad either.  The odd part, and it may just be me is that both Khoury and Patterson used the word beat every time something came up that you could have used say heartbeat or some such, never used a different work, "she waited for just one beat..."  not a second or a min. just a beat!  I don't know,  Someone writing under another name, or is it a catch word I know nothing about?  As for the Sacred Ginmill, excellent Matt Scudder detective story, not much action, a lot of drinking and a great ending, really twisted way of getting even. The Patterson book with his detective Michael Bennett is trying to solve a murder while on a cops vacation with his 10 kids and his dad.  Very cool and sick at times crimes the purp pulls off.

I recommend all of them, I don't like giving away the stories or the endings, so not much of a reviewer, but by far to me and the last book I wanted and did read was Small town, is the best of the lot and recommend the most, awesome detective novel and a great romance too!

Where have I been...

Now, I ask you what is wrong with this picture?!  I mean check out this guy in front of me, I mean really, what the hell is HE thinking?  This is about a month ago at where I-55 and I-40 meet in Memphis, TN.  I was there for about 5 hours, moving about a mile an hour, really in the ballpark of the Atlanta, GA. affair where everyone abandoned their cars and walked!  Oh, and tell me America's needs do not travel by truck, look at all of them.  And, here's a shot of the other side of the road!

So, your thinking what does one do in a thing like this, well the first thing was try and get around it, routing in a big rig is hard to change, so I was told to stay on the interstate, not a good concept!  But, a i-Pod helps lots, as does a CB radio, but mostly, I'm the kind of guy who reads, especially when you have the air brakes pulled and your not moving, of course!  This then is what I reviewed, a short read in any case, but a nice mag I picked up at a antique store about a mile from my terminal in WI.

It was a in a stack of Hunting and Fishing mags and a pretty good size pile of Dime Novels  all were Tip Tops,  all by Street and Smith publishers.  So, every last one of those Tip Tops was a sports, hunting, fishing, story, not high on my list.  But, in the middle is this Top Notch Vol. 1 Number 1, March 1st 1910 and hell, its got a western cover!  I would have bought the thing if it had a fishing cover, hard to find one of these!  Cover is uncredited, and is familiar for some reason, nice comic book like drawing.  It illustrates the Albert W. Tolman story In The Coulee.  Here's the table of contents.

Really the mag was intended for it would seem about say 12 to 15 years old, back in the day.  The first story is Bob Halliday, Freshman by Edwin Larkmore, who did all his magazine fiction for Top Notch to about 1910.  Its a story that was OK, Bob is a "top notch" athlete at Princeton who take off in the middle of the season to visit the Athletic Club in New Orleans and get involved in a car chase of over 40 MPH, pretty exciting stuff.  Don't know how they could have afforded the train ride, let alone renting a car in 1910!  Its a serial and Bob meets the sister of the guy who gets hit my the other automoble-ist, and she's a mysterious one.  The guy they chase is of course involved in all this.  Not a favorite.

Second story by Gilbert Patten The Deadwood Trail is much better a western set in the Black Hills of the Dakota's.  This one is much better, a kid sets out to meet his uncle and go to his gold claim, misses him and chances after him.  He at least has a sensible explanation of why they would send so young a kid from the east out there by himself!  He meets a girl and her brother and you have an idea where it goes from there!
William George Patten is his real name and his other writing name is Burt L Standish, who as it turns out is the Editor for the mag. 

Best Story for me in the issue is In The Coulee by Albert W. Tolman a short story with a tough steer!  He wrote quite a bunch of fiction from 1910 to about 1944, which being that he was born in the 1860's was probably his last bit of wordage. 

There's a Julian St Dare Baseball story, I'm not big on, and a Robert Russell one on football, OK, but not my style. 

So, very interesting reads for back in the Pre-Pulp days of Top Notch, by October of this same year, it had switched from its 8x10 32 page 5 cent (go figure when they call them Dime novels) mag to the better known 7x10 128 page pulp mag.  With a much more diverse set of stories and more to my liking.  Oh, and I was looking at the Fiction Mags site ( you can Google it and see) where most of the info I found  was and low and behold there's my copy of the mag, tape and all.  Pretty cool, I found the issue awhile back and posted on the Pulpmags list page about it, and was placed it on the opening page. 

Blue Book March 1933

I've always liked Blue  Book, most of the ones I've turned up at Flea Markets and Antique Malls have been the larger bed-sheet size issues, that's the 8x10 inch regular size magazine issue's.  Wonderful issues and generally pretty reasonable, from Free to 3, 4 bucks.  This one is more the pulp size issue, with OMG trimmed edges!  Yeah, am a sucker for those, you can actually page though the issue, unlike all the other pulps of its ilk, with rough edges.  They still crumble the same when you read them, mostly over my jeans or the bed depending where you read the things.  This one I picked up from a friend in trade for some other books, he had about 5 or so of these, plus other pulps.

This one has a great Joe Chenoworth cover, who was from Indiana, went to the Chicago Art Ins. ( and taught there also), worked for McCall's (who was BB's publisher) which may have helped him get a job at Blue Book. A wonderful source of material on pulp artists is Pulpartists.com, its one of my favorite sites.  I really like his design on this cover, the W shape of the woman, the male figure intersects this and the shape of the land brings the whole thing around again to the figures, very nice.  I would have bought it, in the day.  The cover story is about the H. Bedford-Jones story "The Pearl of Price", 1500 miles south of Honolulu, pearls are found on a little charted reef and rats too!  A woman is found adrift with 2 dead men, a girl on a ship is found to be the "Devils Luck"!  Great story by Jones as usual.  I really find the novelette length stories are the best in a pulp, gives enough pages to suck you into.

The first story is "Power Smoke" by Roy Norton a very prolific writer of general fiction for Popular mag as well as many others.  Tells a modern western tale, mixed with Chicago style gangsters.  A decent short story of Deputy Bill Adams holding the mine down for the good guys.

One of my favorite stories contained here is "The Chief Engineer" by Bigelow Neil, a wonderful tale of a beaver and how he helps the humans.  Great teller of animal tales.  Looks like he spent his whole writing  career at Blue Book.  You couldn't go wrong writing for them, they paid very well, even in the thirties.

"Knave of Diamonds" by Henry LaCrossitt and very well done illo's by Joe Chenoweth.  The story is a good one an how a thief steals some diamonds and how they end up in the least expected place.  Seems he wrote a lot of stories, for Adventure, Complete, Sat. Evening Post and of course Blue Book.  Romantic adventure seems to be his ticket.

"Breakers Away" bu Frederick Bechdolt a well told yarn about Chineese human contraband.  An unusual choice of story matter.  Very  well done.  He wrote for everyone, Sat. Evening Post, Cosmo, Liberty, and lost of pulps.  He did very well for himself, I would think.

"Flying Justice" by Sidney Bowen a flying and sports writer, in the pulps, puts out a tale of a pilot and bank robbers.  He wrote a lot of pulp material and Blue Book was not left out of this.  The illo's by George Wert, is another blog entirely, so will get back to him soon.

"The Secret of Zorga Island" by Wm J. Makin a Red Wolf of Arabia story and a top notch spy tale.

"White Owl Milk" by Akers is a rather racist story, he wrote a lot of them for Blue Book, well told though...

"Abducted Premier"  a Freelancers of Diplomacy story by Herbert New a regular feature like the previous 2 tales.

"Murder Master" by Roy L. Hinds the featured novel in the issue is a very smooth tale of oriental murder, he's a terrific  storyteller.  He did tons of work at  Popular, Short Story and Argosy. 

All very accomplished professionals in the prime of their writing lives, this makes for a very well spent 15 cents back in the day, OK, so I spent  15 bucks on this deal, but still a very great value. 

A pulps cover...

While picking out something to write about pulp-wise, you can't help looking at the covers.  Yeah, back in the day I would have bought a ton of these things just for the cover.  Here's a good example from Populars line of Dime Mystery, this is the ones that came after the name change to 15 Mystery Stories.

I think the cover is by Sam Cherry, its a classic.  The novel in the mag is William Campbell Gault's Keeper of The Cat-Bride,  a very good tale in my opinion.  I find most everything he did here and in Dime Mystery to be unique and well written. 

Interior art pretty cool also, I don't know who's the artist, but nice.

Another classic pulp cover this time for DM, this time I think its Stan Drake he used this model a bunch of times, maybe his wife.  The novel in this issue I thought was the strongest story, it by Franklin Gregory and the title is Once in a Murderer's Moon.  He wrote some in DM and his output at this time was mostly in Adventure and Blue Book.  I also like the story Dark Inquest by Cyril Plunkett who was a very prolific writer of detective fiction writing for everyone it looked like in the pulps and a bunch for Popular, New Detective, Detective Tales DM, etc. 

An interior drawing from DM, looks to be either Everett Raymond Kinstler or Gerald McCan, they are oddly similar in style sometimes.  Both of their bio's can be found at Pulp artists field guide. 

So, if I was browsing the racks back in the late 40's early 50's, I would positively snag these 2 issues!  OK, well if I had the dough 15 to 25 cents a pop, I would have bought doubles of each for trading purposes later, just like buying doubles of all #1 issues.  An old comic book deal.  Anyone else do this?

Humorama continues!

Humorama was a great little pin-up and men's humor digest mag from the 50's to the mid 60's.  It was a Martin Goodman publication, who had one of his relatives Abe Goodman run the show.  It wasn't a big money maker, like his full size true detective magazines.  But, it did make enough dough for run for a long time and it was twenty five to thirty five cents, so cheap anyway.  Lets face it guys that worked for them didn't make any to much either.  Seems odd that guys like Jack Cole, who could get work at Playboy, worked there.  I would think any of the other guys I like from this mag, like Bill Ward and Wenzel etc. could have made it elsewhere too.  Who knows with Timely Pubs what the deal was.  Humorama, Joker are from 1962-3 and the Smiles is 1955 not sure of the publisher, which had offices in Silver Spring, MD. 

Years ago, 1990 or so I had the opportunity to look over great stacks of Humorama type of originals, wonderful stuff, I bought as many of the "good" ones as was possible to walk away with.  Don't know where Ferd got them, he was from Canada and had links to one the larger dealers there, can't remember who he was, but I would guess he picked them up somewhere, maybe they reprinted the things in Canada, anyone know?  In any case, cheap a couple of bucks each. 

An nice sample from Joker Nov. 1963 by Bill Ward, I have a few originals left in my collection of these large charcoal drawings, he did them on cheap newsprint, so they don't hold up so well.  His pen and ink ones do though like this original I have.  It is sighed on the bottom left.

On the back the caption is "Of course I could love a person for years and years-but I'm afraid It wouldn't always be the same person!"  It was first printed in Humorama somewhere, then reprinted in Zip for Jan. 1970 and reprinted in Joker for Oct. 1970.  They certainly got there money's worth out of the art! 

Another nice Ward from Humorama, beautiful stuff. 

A wonderful Wenzel Girl. 

Here's a the link to the Ward page<www.womenofward.net>  good material there. 
And, here is some more nice Wenzel art, very cool.  <http://www.comicartfans.com/comic-artists/bill_wenzel.asp>

There are more fellas who did work for the pin-up mags some time later I would like to get to Tim Troup, Camil,  and other favorites in the Humorama  and like mags. 

Humorama and other men's magazine art

eOK, well I really enjoy this politically incorrect art.  I know what that indicates, but that's the fun of it.  Here are some  very excellent pen and ink art that I enjoy quite a bit.  First up Kirk Styles an excellent dry brush man.  That is to say when you dip your brush ( like a #2 Windsor Newton red Sable available at any art store ) in the ink you wipe it on a piece of paper until it starts to dry and use it then on the art.  Look at these: The one on the right is Styles and the other one is Bill Wenzel.  I like both of these guys very much, one very different from the other.  Here under them on the right Dan DeCarlo and Bill Ward.  You will know DeCarlo from his Archie comics work on Josie and the Pussycats and other stuff over there.  I like the backs also of these originals, they indicate where and how many times they were reprinted, very cool.  Click on them and get a larger view, very nice.  In the middle 2 nice Wenzel's, his was the best at men's cartoons. 

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Some new Astounding Pulps

Some really nice Astounding came my way, just love reading these awesome issues from March, July Aug , Nov, Dec, 1940 and Jan. 1941.  Some excellent stories from Heinlein's If this Goes On, to Slan by A E van Vogt ( with a drawing by Schneeman).  I have only gotten though the March 1940 issue with the conclusion to the Heinlein story which was excellent.  It also has what I thought was the best story in the mag Chapter from the Beginning by Alexander M Phillips a story of early man and a later evolution of same, hunting him.  Excellent tale of possible historical cross-over of the species, very cool. 

Seems that according to Fictionmags excellent site that he did work for Top Notch in 1936, some Shortstories in the 40's, probably more Astounding than is listed. The Wiki mentions work for Amazing, Wonder and Unknown.  It also mentions his being a president of the Phily SF society.  I thought the tale was very good, but, me, I just am a sucker for this kind of yarn. 

Some really nice art here from The Stars look Down drawn W A Koll, whom I don't know much. Nice work though

And one of my favorite guys illustrating pulps Edd Cartier.  Pulpartists says he went to Pratt and studied under Harold Scott ( who influenced a lot of pulp artists and was a very prolific one himself)  and William James ( who was an art director at Street and Smith) gave him his start at S and S.  He went on to do over 800 illo's for The Shadow mag. 

Another Cartier, he did say that he likes to put humor in his work and he does come across and does a nice light job of it.

Some more nice illos's...

 
Possibly some of the most excellent reading you can get in a pulp magazine, plus some of the better pulp drawings in one mag.  You really got you 20 cents worth of entertainment back in the day!  You can't exactly end without mentioning  John Campbell the editor who made it all happen, and had a real lively letters section too!  Wonderful stuff!

Wisconsin Foodie 2 Nettles and Pasta Pesto!

Right, the above is Pasto D'urtaica which is to say Pasto with Stinging Neddles.  Yup, thats the stuff when you touch it gives you a hell of an itch.  It grows in our yard like a weed, I pick the new growth off the top with gloves and yank the rest of it out of our garden.  It comes  back like a vengence.  To make this dish, I blanch the whole bunch in a  pasta pot for a few minutes and the stingers go away.  Let cool and remove the stems.  Blend it in a food processor, with about 3 cloves garlic, olive oil, fresh basil, chives and oregano, till smooth.  Add Parmasean cheese to blender.  We added popcorn cauliflower, cut into small pieces and roasted with some olive oil, turning frequently in a large pan and finish in a 400 degree oven to caramelize,  tossing well, add the Pesto and any kind of pasta you may wish, we added Cellentani, awesome, and stir until combined.  Free, fresh food out of the yard!  Google the Stinging Neddles if you don't know what they are, I bet you have some too!  To die for,  really excellent stuff!  Ya, gotta love the Italians for thinking this up!  And my wife, CBJ, did her take on it, with the fresh herbs and the roasted cauliflower.   

Interesting Pulp magazine uses...

Here is a really unique item I ran across in The Richmond Bookstore, Richmond, VA and a cool story to go with it.

OK, its a purse, it has two clapboard images to it, the back was a bra ad or something.  It has the strap, clasp, and sides that made it about 3 inches wide inside and really looked professionally done, never seen one of these things before.  I really like the idea of including the dice with the Gambling Lady cover!  Bob the owner of the store and a buddy of mine tells me that when he was at one pulp show or another and I think it was the one in New Jersey that a guy came up to him and was interested in romance pulps which Bob had a bunch of, but not with him.  So the guy buys what he has, tells him about using them for woman's handbags, and he never hears from him again.  Well Bob shops everything from Fleas to backyard sales and right in Richmond, runs across 2 of these things, at a yard sale, the other one wasn't a pulp cover, but had the same 7 x10 image from another mag.  He couldn't remember if this was one of the pulps he sold to the guy in New Jersey, and Fiction Mags does not have it in that site either.  There are 3 or so Gambling Lady titles, one by Frank Gruber no less, but not this cover.  The cover image looks to me like it should be the 1950's, but the 10 cent price tag seems of question for a 50's pulp.  So it could be a composite image, even if it is its a nice one. And, no I did not buy it, if anyone wants it, its still there I would think. 

Old school, now New school

OK, As you can tell my old school ways have transformed into a much more easy to handle form of music.  Sampling is so much easier to do with the iPod Touch, and instant email, maps and a ton of music on the road, where I spend all my time.  Also I became a part of the portable hard-drive gang, with this preloaded rock and roll bonanza , all 1.5 terra bites of it.  About, what? 35 years of continuous listening?  Who would have thunk?  And for all those who know of these things, yes, the song Thunk by The Jefferson Airplane/Starship is on there!  So, the Decemberists, Springsteen's Waiting on a dream, Dylan's Tempest, Charlie Musselwhite, David Bowie's Hunky Dory, and Neil Young's After the Gold Rush, are going on shuffle for a good 8 hours or so!  Nice to plug in in my dash on the semi and cruise on down the road!  Yeah, I love it, gotta get some wireless speakers and use it at the house too!  Oh, it came as a very nice gift from my wife ( the iPod) and the hard-drive from my good friend Mike, nice when things work out like that!

New tunes

There are days when I want to go out and get some new music and end up not caring much for my choices.  So with my old school ways went to the library and checked them out to listen to them first.  Here are the 3 new ones I took with on the road.

I know you can down load samples of the above and get the whole deal burned to your Ipod or whatever you use, BUT, I prefer the real thing yet, love to read the notes.  The Clapton Album has a lot of wonderful tunes on it that he must love.  Its an album that at first listen, I didn't like, and some Clapton heads probably won't either.  But, the second times the charm, the guest artists on this album make it for me Taj Mahal on Harp on the opening tume Further Down the Road, also written by him.  Angel has J J Cale on Guitar, possibly one of the best songs here is Gotta Get Over with Chaka Khan on vocals, its written by Doyle Bramhall the other guitarist on the CD, very good too.  All of  Me is a song I've heard a few times, notable by Willie Nelson, here with Paul McCartney on bass and vocals.  And, one of my favorites is Goodnight Irene done old school a wonderful tune written by Huddy Ledbetter, better know as Leadbelly for a fight he got into in prison, got stabbed 5 times in the gut and survived!  Overall, the guitar playing is excellent and I really got into the various styles he plays here, including some Peter Tosh, Otis Redding and the Gershwin Brothers. 

All day yesterday was Record Store Day, a day of old albums on vinyl.  I heard a ton of music on that format coming though Indiana and Chicagoland ( Wxrt)  Great stuff made me look though some of mine, am gonna hafta dust of the record player and check some out, like the above!  Man, I have some great ones, I have not heard in a long time, like the Masked Marauders ( said to have Mick Jagger on the first tune) they were a great garage band, gotta love it, lots more.  Fodder for another day...

The David Bowie CD is another I had a hard time liking the first time though, but, man does it grow on you its awesome!  Its been 10 years since his last album, he's had a heart attack to recover from but, back like a great rocker.  The album is a pretty quiet affair, heck the cover is a post-it note over his Heroes album, no notes here, no musicians listed.  Great tunes, The Next Day, The Stars, Valentines Day ( reminds me of Pete Droge's 4th of July is a good day to die, they'll remember you each year, your departure from here).  BTW, the video of The Stars is a very good short film, can be seen on YouTube.  OK, the album is a rocker, not quiet, it has Earl Slick on Guitar pretty good if you ask me, he replaced my favorite guitar player in Bowie's band Mick Ronson a great player on Ziggy Stardust and other albums.  He died at age 46 of liver cancer, way to young. 

The Heart Album on the other hand is one that I like all the way though the first time, a fine bit of hard rock, these woman can do it all, even with strings the ladies rock.  This year they were inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  I think this album is to prove that they belong there.  Dear Old America and Skin and Bones both excellent tunes.  You can't go wrong getting this CD. 

Its really great when your bands of the past still can produce good music, I have the new Niel Young and Springsteen albums that I find to be really good also.  In this day and age when people are retiring it feels good to hear them doing their art and on the road.  Heart is out and about, close to me, in Highland Park, Il. Bowie, on the other had is not out promoting his new one.  Clapton probably is.  The last time I saw him live was at Alpine Valley, WI. (1992)  It was with Stevie Ray Vaughn and Robert Cray.  It was a wonderful show, with a great jam in the end, you can not believe how good that was!  The sad part was that was the night Stevie Ray went up in a helicopter and crashed in to the side of the hill there and was killed.  It was a very foggy night.  Man, that was hard to take, one of our favorite  guitar players was gone.  Clapton rocks on...

Pulp Stuff

The below is  part of the reason I don't seem to get anything done.  This is the top of my desk, I'm sure one or two of you have about the same kind of room that I have there.  Geeze, all's I want to do when I get to it is look at all this cool stuff, like the stack on the left which is pretty much Doc Savage for 1934 and  up to 1938 or so, on the right a bunch of Adventure for the 20's and 30's, Some Spicys, Short Story and Thrilling Wonders among others.  Of course in the back, some Street and Smith Thick Books, vintage paperbacks and what have you!  OK, I do get to some reading, like these below. 

The Doc on the left is January 1934 with the 1st appearance of Pat Savage story Brand of the Werewolf,  a very up to date gal for 1934 and an excellent story for an early Doc.   Classic Baumhoffer Werewolf cover and some good stories on British Guianna,  and Pearl Divers.  The issue on the right is April 1934, Classic Baumhoffer cover for The Monsters, great use of what is more modern tech, TV and 2 way wrist radio's!

The 2 consecutive issues of the Shadow, I've read recently and a while ago, with some excellent covers, like the Chest cover for Sept. 1944 by Modest Stein is excellent, I like the Shadow shadow.  I love oriental stories of mystery.  The second story in the issue is by Ralph Andrews a tale of oriental Double-cross, which I like also.  The third tale is by Talmage Powell about a killer retuning home, it sucks you right in, good yarn.  Several more tales by John Roebert about 2 guys looking to get out of crime, James Bent a story of black market meat (its the war years after all) and Death lays and Egg By Ted Stratton about a perfect crime but the husband fails to remember one thing!

The other issue of the Mask for Oct. 1944 is great, don't know the artist for the issue, but could be Stein, very nice.  The story I found to be excellent with a nice twist ending.  Also a very good Nick Carter Story by Bruce Elliott. 

Here too I have to add some nice art by Jack Gaughan, boy, double click on this and take a look at what would have been the cover to my issue of Cloak and Dagger # 3 or so around 1969 or 1970 can't remember anymore, but really fine art.  He said to me that he got up over coffee and did these drawings to warm up!  Pretty cool.  I found these drawings when my mother died, buried at her house, she never though out much.  OK, the rest of the issue on ditto masters was there too!  Here too, is the back cover to it. Ah, and one more illo from that issue, one of mine from 40 years ago!