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.