Darwination

Woo! Westerns aren't dead, they're just playing possum Western bad guys are often missing a tooth. That one's Robert Gibson Jones, Chicago artist like some of the other Ziff-Davis peeps - prolly most remembered for the "girl in dog's mouth" cover. I like this variation of the toothless baddie, yellow tooth, Arnold Kohn, another Z-D Chicagoan.

Wild.

Cole's a trip, man, the guy's absolutely in touch with some sort of cosmic horror vibe or there's all these covers dripping in blood with monsters from the id, but then you see the Classics Illustrated Juniors or tweaked out funny animal covers. I love his art, but the guy's a total mystery.

Heh, had to go looking, not quite as subtle as some of his paperback art, and it gets even trashier via Subtropic Bob Deis' Flickr

What's the date on that, E?

Woof!

Woof!

Heh heh fish to the face cover. I laugh every time No doubt the classic covers get action, but it is very nice that you can still grab a beater copy of your average crime title for the price of a big mac meal. Hillman and Ace crime comics are great and very cheap.

I'm pretty open-minded about genres when it comes to the golden age, each of them have their own appeal. Well, except for superheros, those are for dweebs. Not to mention I seem to find crime in my romance or horror in my crime yada yada.

Ah, cheers, an interesting artist. Kirkpatrick is getting credit for interior work there (and I've no doubt she did the line-drawn covers at Ace as well). I'm not sure that she painted too much, though I could be wrong. more info on Kirkpatrick on an intriguing pulp wiki here from David Saunders (where BC snags the Lou Cameron quote from): https://www.pulpartists.com/Kirkpatrick.html and also a nice comics bibliography with a little more unique biographical info here: https://womenincomics.fandom.com/wiki/Alice_Kirkpatrick I'll keep digging. There's no doubt the paintings look damn good on these comics covers - I doubt too many of the love pulps got sacked away in such pristine condition.

Cuz Jimmy knows, writing your name only once won't keep siblings away. You need to write it many, many times. Love it.

Have you ever managed to identify the artist or artists on some of these Aces? A lot of them (if not all) are reprints of love pulp covers. It tends to be one of the hardest areas in pulp to get good artist IDs in, but once you get a name to put with a style, it's very doable. A couple from your post on the last page: It looks to me like the artist on these two was painting for Ace for a good number of years. Or the one above is from the pulps, too, April of the same year: Alec Redmond was there in early 40s and Bradshaw Crandell was there for at least a bit in the mid-40s. Crandell would sign his name to Cosmopolitan (and most things very readily) but apparently wasn't signing any love pulp (as is often the case when slick level artists would "slum" it down in the pulps). With the rise of the photo cover and decline of glamour paintings on Hollywood mags and the like it's not too surprising that Crandell would do a little pulp work. Heritage is a little off on the date of the original art: His mid 40s style is line with some of the Ace mid-40s covers: I'll get with a lady friend that does work on the romance pulps and see if she knows anything about the Ace artists. I'd definitely like to know who did the Ten-Story Love Magazine1948-02 /Complete Love comic from 1951-05 Dr. Love has in his avatar.

Heh, I was complimenting catching the swipe not the book. But, damn, if I don't appreciate that people will show their grubby PCH round here. Seems to be the one genre where people don't mind letting the freak flag fly. Even the UGs on this thread seem to be all nice and shiny, mine are brown and worn down

Yeah, there is a lot of great storytelling that happens in just one image on a lot of these. I won't lie, though, the ones that have the two or three smaller panels on the left trigger my claustrophobia. Timely/Atlas crime is totally underrated. Maybe it will catch on like the romance books have.

Nice, Jay!

Different than the others, love it.

Is there a color signature in there, or are the comics black and white? Stuff from Crime Smashers?

I'm not super familiar with Chiriacka (or the full cast of paperback artist alternatives) but I think Sin Street looks like one of his. In fact, I think it looks more typical of his work than The Girl Out Back (the one signed Darcy) that Lowell's got the solid ID on. It's the eyes, man. And Chiriacka is at least a little bit of a chameleon, too, in that he worked in different mediums and contexts and with (imo) an evolving style. The pulp artist's life under a deadline and for low pay is always a truism (ofc, there's the stories of Frazetta cranking out masterpieces the night before they were due), but I find paperback art particularly hard to identify. Part of it is the "fast and loose" style in vogue in the 50s and (do forgive pb fans!) there's the often horrible print quality and small reproduction (and this is coming from a guy that spends all his time in pulp ). Here's one from back in 1942 for Dell from an old scan of mine (with an edit from McCoy): https://archive.org/details/sweetheart-stories-316-1942-08.-dell-d-m-ia David Saunders has a nice entry for him in his wiki (with a great artist photo and a series of different signature styles) here: https://www.pulpartists.com/Chiriacka.html There is absolutely no way I would have pegged Chiriacka for some of the early 40s pulp work in the cover gallery there (especially the westerns), and I suspect Saunders picked some of those since they're commonly misidentified as his dad's work. I'll toss a few more up here from people I follow on Flickr while we are at it that I like Esquire Calendar 1953 / Alabama cover 1956 1960 Back cover, Mission for Vengeance, 1958 Esquire Calendar 54 Interior illo, Argosy July 1949 No date on this one from Heritage, but I'd say late 40s early 50s slick illustration and my favorite of the batch (low prices realized even on the stunners Randall posted, damn): A pity you can't get to it, Randall, but it's fantastic so many of his originals survive. There's a great in-depth article on the artist by Saunders with an interview in Illustration #8 (2003).

My understanding is Ground Advantage is just rebranded first class mail. Through eBay, the cost is dirt cheap, not so much at the counter (and it seems like it's not just the eBay discount). My experience is on par delivery times with Priority Mail (and at most a day or two more) and that the main factor in delivery time has to do with local operations from where you send it to or send it from. FWIW, I hear that Ground Advantage is operating at a loss right now (i.e. we're getting a good deal cuz the prices are rock bottom) The sweet spot seems to be for lighter packages like a pound or less and then for heavier packages. The PM "whatever fits in this box" is probably a better deal for in between.

Bolles and *fine* pin-up art

Killer mags. They're in nice shape, too, which tends to be pretty rare. It's a weird collecting area because it attracts all different sorts. I mostly hunt painted covers and early crime content (Dillinger, Capone, etc) or "keys", but you also get collectors that go after girl photos (of which these are some great examples), or collectors that like juvenile delinquent or fifties kitsch, or collectors that are into gore/crime photos I've picked a lot up in cheap lots, but sellers tend to figure out when they have an extra cool one and list those singly. My fave here is the May 53 Daring Detective with the classic Spirit #22 or Breezy Stories April 1935 sort of pose. Your prices are reasonable and maybe even low. It's an area where people impulse buy based on their love of a particular cover. I was going to tell you that the bottom True Detective is priced too high (even as a file copy with WW2 appeal) as the mailing label can detract, but note the recipient. Walter Gibson, author of The Shadow ;) Gibson also was a frequent contributor to true crime mags. Tagging Lowell here, too. @Surfing Alien I know he likes some of these as well.

Egad!

Awesome post, thanks for the breakdown. That Complete Gang is a peach. You should get a good comp (or at least an initial comp) on that Saucy, saw one in a similar grade in the April HA auction. No mention of staple rust is not good, but it's not like you get that mentioned in pulp listings often anyways. I like a nice pic of the ifc spread in eBay listings (and even the ibc spread), gives an idea of page color for inner covers and pulp pages as well a look at the staples. The color touch denotation is necessary for sure, and I'm guessing they note glue on cover but not glue at the inner binding? I think Weird Tales prices will take off (as if they hadn't already). So many people have collected those for so long, if you had the dough you can actually get a set - don't doubt we have members that already do or are close. Probably my favorite pulp but I already don't even pick them up except for later issues (read non-Brundage or beater Brundage) cuz they are pricey.