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?

Real World Pulp Finds

Here's some real world finds that I located out in W.Virgina one my way home, nothing too exciting, but to me I find lots to dig into when I get new stuff, as I'm sure you all do too.  The Star Western is from Feb 1954, the cover artist is unknown to me, one thing to notice is above the title is Big Romances of the West, kind of sets the tone of the issue.  As you can see from this fine illustration that these are not your push over women, like my wife says "built to pull plows".  The second story by Dan Kirby, Night Rider, has a opening blurb to the effect of "Outlaw Jack McCord wanted a slim, Blonde, lovely Melissa more than anything.  And, Like everything else, he has to get her away from another man---at the point of a gun!"  The next story by William E Cook The Failure, has a opening line: "There was only one place a man could trust that double-crossing daughter of hell Dan Keene pursued--smug and tight and helpless--in somebody else's arms!"  I see a pattern of the kind of stories you or I are going to read.  

And here too, is something that I don't see everyday in a pulp mag: The Cattle Queen Pin-up!  Very cool, I must say, a lead into Lee Floren's Cattle Queens Die Proudly!  Finally, my favorite artist over at Standard pubs in the Dec. 1952 issue of Texas Rangers Gerald McCann who illustrates Giles A Lutz' Throw Lead Or Die. I haven't read any of his work, but look forward to that one.  The lead off story of the Rangers is by Peter Germano writing under the Jackson Cole name, the story is Land Of The Lost.  Other stories are by Robert Horton with the Wedding Gift and Gordon Shirreffs' Face of Fear. The cover by Sam Cherry is a classic boarding of the bat wings!  Over all a nice find, look forward to some more reading.