The Spicy's

                                                                                                          

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. 

Another Wisconsin Foodie

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Austin Briggs' Blue Book Pulp illo's

Since I was unable to find much on Briggs' pulp work on the web, I decided to add my own.  I find Austins work to be wonderful in this period: 1936 to 1939( a random sample of my Blue Books). I think its his top work.  Better that his Flash Gordon comics strip work, after all its really hard to be as good as Alex Raymond.  I really love pen and ink work like Briggs did in the pulps and  no one talking about his magazine work seemed to notice his work there.Well after all, he was doing work in the '40's for Saturday Evening Post, Cosmo, Ladies Home Journal and others getting paid a hell of a lot more money and getting much more exposure there than at Blue Book.  Am pretty sure he got lots of people to notice him there at Blue Book, because McCalls got very good distribution, but not like the slicks.  Lets look at these drawings from Sept. 1936 illustrating  "Jail-Bait" By Robert R. Mill an FBI story of police crime.  An excellent read, somewhat on the order of Law and Order the TV program. You know, detecting, arrest and conviction. The drawing is a beautiful example of cross-hatching, very moody and atmospheric.  Great use of black and white spaces and nice corner to corner design.  Not your average pulp illo!  Then again, Blue Book was not your normal pulp, and had a literary lean to it, as well as giving artist on the way up and down a very good pay, as opposed to the other pulps.

Blue Book had a gob of really excellent artists on their staff and is always a pleasure to read and look at.  As a plus they frequently added color to their pages, sometimes to add to the drawings sometime as a completely different bit of art to give it a ghostly appearance.  Its like how they used to show the Shadow in Shadow Comics, as a blue drawing without the black outline.    I can see why Briggs was inducted into the Society of Illustrator's Hall of fame.  Great man. 

Nafzinger connection

A Few weeks back I spoke of the Ray Nafzinger-Agnes Best Nafzinger connection, or what I thought maybe one.  I have since read "The Spell of the Turquoise" By Agnes Nafzinger From March 1954 issue of Love Book Magazine a Popular Publication its pictured in my earlier post on Love pulps, great cover of a blonde with compact.  The Story is one of a unnamed state in the south-west with a dude ranch and a very old turquoise mine found by the grandfather of the present day owner.  OK, the real story is between two woman, an old flame and his "best friend" and two other men who try to get the mine.  Very nice descriptions of the mine and a quality story too. 

Not much info was found by me on the Ray/Agnes deal but did find this<http://www.amazon.com/Colorados-Buried-Treasure-Bancroft-Booklets/dp/0933472161> on a book Agnes helped with, published in 1976, it sounds so much like the story in Love Book, the reviews seem to verify this too.  Seems that Agnes knew her stuff about that sort of activity.  Anyway figure she could be Rays daughter/wife being the age difference is a lot, he was most likely born in 1902 or so, he passed in 1946 and his first stories appeared in 1922 in Peoples Pulp with "Jes a Little Josh".  Matter of fact his first 3 publications were for Peoples and the next bunch for Ace High, seemed they were all westerns.  So that makes him maybe 20 or so writing for the pulps and then didn't live very long either.  But just a guess, there is no birthday given for him. An other bit of info comes from The Pulp Vault #14, an article written by J. Edward Leithead another excellent pulp western writer, gives his starting date at Ace High as 1924.  He said he was the youngest  guy there followed by Nafziner.  Leithead started out at the same time, he doesn't give his age but the photo of him looks like he's in his twenties. Given the date of the Colorado buried treasure book 1976, I guess it could he his daughter or wife, but lean toward it being his wife with the Best Nafzinger name, like my wife's name her maiden name and mine. She Started writing in 1943 for All Story Love and then for Rangeland Romances and what looks like the last year of Rays life 3 collaborations with him "I love Organ Music" from The Saturday Evening Post 1945, "Papa Played the Cello" from Colliers 1945, and "Lady Nightingale" from The Sat. Ev. Post 1947.  Seems a musical connection too.  So interesting stuff, but, nothing concrete, both were very good writers and I plan on reading some Ray Nafziner stuff in the near future, maybe some Holiday type of western would be good. 

Halloween Pulp Stories

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As you can see I'm ready for some horror stories and most of all the H P Lovecraft stories contained in Weird Tales for Nov. 1938. Its a reprint from the Wolverine Nov. 1921 a fanzine out of Detroit, MI.  I look forward to the other stories as well, including: The Hound of Pedro by Robert Bloch, Lynn Foster is Dead by Seabury Quinn, The Thing in the Trunk by Paul Ernst and even a Robert E. Howard poem!  Can't beat the A R Thileburn cover of  I found Cleopatra by Kelley, too bad its only PT. 1.  OK, it was a find I made in an old store, and no not for 5 buck either, but a good trade for some Good House Keeping from the 30's and some other comics as well.  I got about 30 pulps, including these 2 Weird Tales. 

The next issue, March 1938 has a fine M Brundage  cover, and some awesome interior illo's, especially for the Jules de Grandin story by Seabury Quinn, and is the cover feature as well.  The Lovecraft story is Beyond the Wall of Sleep, and contains a ton of other great material such as:
The Ancient Mariner an illustrated poem  by Virgil Finlay, a Robert E Howard poem, The Thing on the floor by Thorp McClusky, Dreadful Sleep by Jack Williamson, Shadow on the screen by Kuttner.  Great tales of wonder if you ask me.  What are you all gonna read for the Trick or Treat season?

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.