Xaltotun

6 hours ago, RedFury said:

I figured we could use a Lovecraft thread.

Here's a real rarity, an original photo of Lovecraft signed by himself.  The inscription reads:

To Samuel E. Loveman, Esquire
with the complements & esteem
of H.P. Lovecraft
July 1931

Samuel Loveman was a poet and critic from Cleveland who Lovecraft became close friends with.  Later, when Loveman, who was Jewish, learned the extent of Lovecraft's anti-semitism, he burned all his letters.  Somehow this photo escaped the flames.

The photo was taken on July 11, 1931 in Brooklyn, NY.  It's part of a series of photos of HPL and Frank Belknap Long taken that day by their friend Wilfred Blanch Talman.

   

Wow! Thanks for sharing! That baby yours?

Fu Manchu is a Sax Rohmer creation. The character doesn't belong to Marvel.

Still Sport Story, still bright yellow. The second Kid Allison in the Oct 25, 1931 issue

Confession time: while i really enjoy the Steve Costigan yarns, I don't like the Kid Allison ones. Howard completed 5 Allison tales, sold three, and left several unfinished. The three published stories appeared in Street & Smith's Sport Stories Magazine in 1931. Howard wrote to Lovecraft: "I’m sending you a Sport Story magazine containing a yarn of mine, the first of a new series, the continuance of which I have an idea will depend a great deal on the expression of the readers’ opinions. If you like the yarn, I’d be greatly obliged if you’d drop Street & Smith a line saying so, that is if it isn't too much trouble. If the publishers receive some letters approving my work, they’ll be more likely to continue buying stories of the series". Incredibly enough, Lovecraft did so, though the letter has not survived.

Bookery's doesn't list those issues as uncommon, but I have very rarely seen any of the Howard issues for sale.

Anyway, here is the first of three Sport Stories, containing "The Man with the Mystery Mitts". It is in beautiful condition, down to the overhang.

And the last of the original Howard Fight Stories, the March 1932 issue (with "Night of Battle").

Fight Stories ceased publication with the next issue, and wouldn't be revived until 1936. Howard was very probably working on another Costigan tale ("The Turkish Menace") when he learned that Fiction House was discontinuing the title. That story survives in incomplete form.

They are really tough to come by, and even more so in nice condition. Same goes for Action Stories. Much more so than Weird Tales. My theory on this is that despite its low print run, WT was bought by the geeks and nerds of the time, natural-born collectors. Generic pulps were read and discarded or not cared for. I don't have any data to back this up, though. Just a hunch.

And the next-to-last entry in my REH Fight Stories, the February 1932 issue, with the hilariously funny "Viking of the Gloves". Howard was quite unhappy when Fiction House started to cut down on rates and was only offered $60 for that tale. Just a few weeks later, Fiction House suspended publication of the pulp.

While I am not a frequent poster on these boards, I was utterly captivated by the Bangzoom thread. Anybody knows if he is well/better these days? Sorry if the answer to that question has been posted somewhere. I searched and didn't find anything.

Today's fistic mayhem: Fight Stories, Dec 1931, with "Circus Fists"

Today's installment, Fight Stories, May 1931, with "Texas Fists" with more Texas stereotypes than you can chew (and where I am at the moment, incidentally.)

One more installment of the REH Costigan series in Fight Stories, with the January 1931 issue, with "Alleys of Peril".

Fight Stories, November 1930, with "Champion of the Forecastle"

Funny tidbit: there's a weird white patch at the bottom right corner of this one. Over the years, I have owned three different copies of this pulp, and the white patch was present on two, but not the third, so I guess something happened at the time this was printed, and some copies have it, others don't.

I checked the bidders on the Super-Detective, and sure enough it's Oysterstew who won it, but no David against him, so he got it pretty cheap. Super-Detective and early Fight are "uncommon" in Bookery's guide, while the later Fight are not, and that has mostly been my experience. It was the second time I saw (online) a Super-Detective with the Howard story for sale. I grabbed the first one I saw immediately.

It will be interesting to watch the result of the eBay auction on this one: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Pulp-Magazine-FIGHT-STORIES-Winter-1940-ROBERT-E-HOWARD-Boxing-Yarn/224412360014?hash=item344004dd4e:g:iLAAAOSwxxlgaj8-

There's quite a lot of activity for a pulp that's not in so good condition, and we are still four days before it closes.

I know that the bunch of Fight and Action Stories from Glenn Lord's collection sold for way more than anticipated at Windy City couple years ago (2 to 4 times what they were expecting), but it was difficult to say if this was because it was Glenn's collection or simply because people wanted those pulps. I'd love to hear your theories, if you have any.

26 minutes ago, rjpb said:

I can understand the original printings of the Howard stories in Fight selling for what they do, but can anyone explain why Fights with the late 30s/ early 40s reprints of these stories often end up selling for around $300 in average condition at auction?

I have been wondering that myself. One of those fetched $825 and another $800 at the Adventure House Gobbett auction last week. Two guys engaged in a bidding war ("Oysterstew" and "David"). They are not easy to come by, for sure, but nowhere near the original printings as far as I can tell. Craziest price for me was Action Stories 04/35 in fair condition which fetched $850. The much rarer Super-Detective Stories, May 1934, fetched $330 in a nice VG. Too much cash to spend, or am I missing something here?

Not a surprise, but... Fight Stories, September 1930, with "Waterfront Fists" in a stunning copy.

You guessed it... Fight Stories, May 1930, "Fist and Fang", the 4th Steve Costigan story.

And if you happen to have high grade copies of the June and July 1930 for sale/trade, do PM me!

Fight Stories, March 1930, "Sailors' Grudge", the third Steve Costigan story.

Superman was "Ciclone" when he first appeared in Italy in July 1939.

https://www.giornalepop.it/ciclone-superman/

In France and Belgium, he had quite a lot of names, the weirdest one being Yordi.

https://www.retronews.fr/sports-et-loisirs/long-format/2020/12/07/quand-superman-arrivait-en-france

Funfact, when the war broke out, it no longer became possible to access the original material, so publishers had local artists draw and write Superman adventures for the European readers.

On 7/26/2020 at 5:26 PM, RedFury said:

Golden Fleece, Jan 1939

Howard's story in this one is Gates of Empire, an historical fiction tale set during the crusades.  I think it was probably written in the early 1930s when Howard was trying (unsuccessfully) to break into Adventure and contributing to Oriental Stories and Magic Carpet.  Even though Gates of Empire is considered by many Howard's best historical fiction story, I suppose it was rejected by all the aforementioned titles because it was not published until 1939, a few years after his death.

The cover illustration by Harold De Lay is not for the Howard story, but for Farley's.

 

"Gates of Empire" was written between November 1932 and October 1933 and was sent to Magic Carpet Magazine, which accepted it and announced it in the final issue of the mag (Jan 1934). Sometime after MCM folded for good, the ts. was sent back to Howard, subsequently landed in his agent's hands, who then sold it to Golden Fleece after Howard's death.

I rather like the story, but I don't think any Howard scholar would put this in the top tier of Howard's best Orientals. Most oft-mentioned stories would be "The Shadow of the Vulture", "Lord of Samarcand" and "The Sowers of the Thunder". Those last three definitely belong to my top-20 favorite Howard stories ever.

Fight Stories, Feb 1930, my favorite Costigan story, "The Bulldog Breed".