Pulpvault

Several beautiful issues of Weird Tales from the estate of Bob Weinberg will be in the Friday night (May 6) auction at this year's Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention (May 6-8, 2022 at the Westin Lombard Yorktown Center in Lombard, IL). They include this one, dated October 1928.

We're now just four months away from the 21st Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention! This year's show will be held May 6-8, 2022 at our usual venue, the Westin Lombard Yorktown Center, Lombard, Illinois. We've sold out all 180 of our dealer tables, to dealers spanning the U.S., from Canada and the U.K. We'll be celebrating the 100th anniversary of pulp and comic publisher Fiction House. In addition to pulps and paperbacks, there are always many dealers there with Golden Age, Silver Age and other vintage comics, as well as original comic art. At this point, we don't know what COVID requirements may be in place when the show takes place. Currently, masking would be required, but protocols may change during the next four months. We'll update those as we learn them. As has been the case in years past, this year's convention will feature some incredible material in our estate auctions. Friday night (May 6), our auction will focus on material from the estate of legendary collector Robert Weinberg (including many more issues of Weird Tales and a complete run of Planet Stories), while on Saturday night, (May 7) material from the estate of Glenn Lord, literary agent for the estate of Robert E. Howard, takes center stage. In addition, we also will have a number of interesting items from other consignors. The deadline to book your hotel room and receive the convention rate is 5:00 central on April 12, 2022. The link for con hotel reservations is: https://www.marriott.com/event-reservations/reservation-link.mi?id=1634755352743&key=GRP&app=resvlink We hope to see you there!

Here's a piece that I've owned for over 15 years which I finally was first able to identify last night. I picked this up in 2005 from my friend, Jerry Weist, who'd acquired it from Forry Ackerman. Although neither of us could identify it, we both felt that it was likely from the pulp, Planet Stories, since along the side of the board was written "Compliments of W. Scott Peacock." Peacock was editor of Planet Stories for many years. Last night, while going through some issues of Planet Stories, I finally managed to find it. The art ran in the Summer 1944 issue, illustrating "One Against the Stars" by Vaseleos Garson (pseudonym of William J. Garson). Doolin had a long career in the pulps before moving to comics, and he did art for both for Fiction House.

A few promo pieces I picked up several years ago for the All-Fiction Field, which was a group of pulp publishers who sold ads together on an aggregate basis. One is a poster sent to potential advertisers; the other (2 photos) is a map sent to potential advertisers.

Here are a few Argosy All-Story Weekly linen display banners I've picked up over the years. These were given to newsstands to put on display, promoting the issue.

A combination of lots of looking, and having friends who know what I collect who alert me when they find stuff like this. The sculpture I got at auction; the felt change pad I got in a trade with a friend, who'd found it and did a trade with the other collector who had it.

The one original Bolles painting in our collection. From Tattle Tales, November 1933.

This one is actually by Earle Bergey, rather than Bolles. I owned the original painting for a few years, until I let it go in a trade.

Here's a felt change pad that the Clayton pulp chain distributed to newsstands circa 1927. Given how fragile the felt is, I suspect that few of these have survived. This is the only one I've ever seen, but it wouldn't surprise me if other pulp publishers also issued these.

In the spirit of the season, a pulp Christmas anecdote… Competition was always fierce among the pulp publishers when it came to soliciting stories from authors. The top chains always wanted the best writers to think of them first, and for authors to submit their manuscripts to them first. Obviously, factoring into an author’s decision on where to send a manuscript were such things as the payment rate, whether payment was on acceptance or on publication, and the response time back from an editor with respect to acceptance. Since it was a fairly small universe of editors and established authors, personal relationships developed over time also played a role. As did how a publisher might treat its authors well in other ways, particularly in the mid to late 1920’s, pre-Crash, when word rates were high and publishers had the money available to show authors in other ways that they were valued.One of the leading chains in that mid to late 1920’s period was The Clayton Magazines. Around 1927, Clayton got the idea of sending its authors a specialized Christmas gift. So they commissioned one of their regular artists, Charles L. Wrenn, to create a sculpture which they sent to their authors (as well as presumably distributors and others that they wanted to curry favor with) as a Christmas present.They did this for at least two different Christmases, which I suspect were for 1927 and 1928. It’s possible the tradition continued for longer than that (or began earlier) and that there are others as well. For the one I believe was for 1927, the sculpture was a cowboy on a bucking bronc, for the other (which I think was 1928), it was a cowboy wrestling a steer. These were fairly heavy, cast in some sort of metal that was bronzed, with bases over one foot long. Along the base of the bucking bronc sculpture were the Clayton titles “Ace-High Magazine”, “Ranch Romances” and “Cowboy Stories” (joined by “Rangeland Stories” on the 1928 sculpture), which represented their western pulps at the time. These were pretty impressive presents, and certainly would have kept Clayton in the mind of any author who received one. I don’t know if other pulp publishing houses did something similar, though it wouldn’t be surprising if they had. I’d love to hear of any other items of this nature that folks know of.I don’t have the sculpture of the cowboy on the bucking bronc, but I do have one of the cowboy wrestling the steer. That is posted here, nearly 90 years after it would have been delivered as a present from the Clayton pulp chain.

Back in 2003, my book on the spicy pulps, "Uncovered: The Hidden Art of the Girlie Pulps," was published by Adventure House. Hard to believe that was 18 years ago! The book contains over 400 spicy pulp covers in full color, along with around 40,000 words of text detailing the history of the spicy pulps. I thought that I'd long since sold out of any copies I had, but in cleaning our basement I found an unopened box of them. If you're interested in buying a copy, or learning more, shoot me a message. They're $40 postage paid (media mail) within the U.S.; shipping charges to other countries will vary.

One of my purchases from the Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention earlier this year. It's the second issue of the scarce pulp title, Gun Molls, dated November 1930, with cover by Chris Schaare.

The October 1941 issue of Spicy Mystery, shown here, featured a cover by H.J. Ward. The cover was swiped two months later, with artist Harold Bennett's take on it gracing the cover of the December 1941 issue of the Canadian pulp, Sure-Fire Detective. That Canadian pulp reprinted a Black Hood pulp story, though it's not mentioned or depicted on the cover.

The other Black Hood pulp story was reprinted in the December 1941 issue of the Canadian pulp, Sure-Fire Detective, though this time the Black Hood didn't nab the cover. The cover itself, by artist Harold Bennett, was a swipe of a cover by H.J. Ward, which had appeared two months earlier on the October 1941 issue of Spicy Mystery.

The other Black Hood pulp story was reprinted in the December 1941 issue of the Canadian pulp, Sure-Fire Detective, though this time the Black Hood didn't nab the cover. The cover itself, by artist Harold Bennett, was a swipe of a cover by H.J. Ward, which had appeared two months earlier on the October 1941 issue of Spicy Mystery.

The costumed hero, The Black Hood, started off in comics in 1940, but he also appeared in three issues of his own pulp (Black Hood Detective, retitled Hooded Detective after the first issue) from the Columbia pulp chain in 1941 and 1942. In 1941 and 1942, the stories were reprinted in the Canadian pulp, Sure-Fire Detective, with the covers repainted based on the American covers. Two of the three Canadian issues feature the Black Hood on the cover, which I'll post here.

The costumed hero, The Black Hood, started off in comics in 1940, but he also appeared in three issues of his own pulp (Black Hood Detective, retitled Hooded Detective after the first issue) from the Columbia pulp chain in 1941 and 1942. In 1941 and 1942, the stories were reprinted in the Canadian pulp, Sure-Fire Detective, with the covers repainted based on the American covers. Two of the three Canadian issues feature the Black Hood on the cover, which I'll post here.

I'm scanning some pulps today, so thought I'd scan a few Weird Tales issues. I've been fortunate to have had, over time, around a half dozen of each of these issues, so have been able to keep upgrading for condition.

Great issue. Here's the original Ward cover for it.