I'll pound you to a "Pulp" if you don't show off yours! 23 23

[N e r V]

7 minutes ago, Scrooge said:

You're over-representing Science-Fiction in your count.

Without counting bi-weekly and weekly series or Quarterlies differently, just the titles, in that month, there were 149 different pulp titles published. Only 4 were Science-Fiction: Amazing, Astounding, Marvel Science Stories and Thrilling Wonder Stories. That's it.

The actual breakdown of the market at that time period is:

 

Genre	#	%
Western	35	24%
Detective	34	23%
Romance	19	13%
Sports	18	12%
Adventure	17	12%
Aviation	10	7%
Mystery	8	6%
Miscellaneous	4	3%
Science-Fiction	4	3%

So, Western and Detective ruled the roost as seen in the photo.

 

Wow. Thanks.

I was trying to see how some of the more “spicy” titles were placed on a newsstand back then too.

Edited May 2, 2018 by N e r V

[RedFury]

3 minutes ago, N e r V said:

Wow. Thanks.

I was trying to see how some of the more “spicy” titles were placed on a newsstand back then too.

They were often sold under/behind the counter.  You had to ask for them.

[Scrooge]

12 minutes ago, RedFury said:

They were often sold under/behind the counter.  You had to ask for them.

Right. None of the 4 spicy on sale that month are seen in the photo.

FWIW, the 4 spicy pulps on sale that month were: Spicy Detective, Spicy Mystery, Spicy Western and Spicy Adventure, which is right in line with the top market share genres to the exception of Romance and Sports. There should have been a Spicy Romance but it did not happen. Wrong intended market I guess.

[OtherEric]

For whatever reason, it was the Science Fiction fans that held onto their magazines rather than throw them away when they were done reading them; or at least it was a lot more common than the other genres.  So the SF books have a much higher survival rate than the others in general.  Certainly I see more SF pulps turn up in the wild than everything else put together.

Part of that may be the SF books actually kept running much longer than the other pulps after switching over to digests.  I also think SF, in general, was far more likely to have a sequel appear out of nowhere years down the line so there might be more reason to keep the older issues for reference.

[adamstrange]

 

[gray740]

[RedFury]

Some Hannes Bok goodness!

Weird Tales, Jul 1941

This issue is also notable for the short story I Killed Hitler, which I think is the first story ever to use that now common trope of travelling back in time to kill Hitler as a child.  Since it's dated Jul 1941, it was probably on the newsstands in May and written no later than March, at least 9 months before the US entered the war.  The author is Ralph Milne Farley, a pseudonym for Roger Sherman Hoar.

[RedFury]

Weird Tales, May 1941

More Hannes Bok

[RedFury]

Weird Tales, Mar 1940

Another Hannes Bok  

[Randall Dowling]

Hannes Bok is my current favorite artist of this period.  Something very unusual about his work.  It has a lushness in both color usage and gradient for light but the forms themselves are somehow primitive and refined at the same time.  Very cool!

[Robot Man]

[Scrooge]

I have that DFW - It's dated April 13, 1940 -

 

[OtherEric]

Today's incoming book.  A bit subdued as Brundage covers go, and the Lovecraft story is one of the collaborations published under the other writer's name.

Still, I have to consider a book with first appearance of both Brundage and Lovecraft work a fairly major addition to the collection:

[OtherEric]

On 5/3/2018 at 8:09 AM, RedFury said:

Weird Tales, Mar 1940

Another Hannes Bok  

That's the first Bimonthly issue, isn't it?  It's interesting to see the month standing out like that.

[OtherEric]

And, since people seem to be in a mood for Bok this week (and who can blame them?), here's a few other pieces.

From the reprint of "The Cats of Ulthar" in Fantastic Novels for January 1951:

Edited May 5, 2018 by OtherEric
typo

[OtherEric]

From the reprint of "The Outsider" in the June 1950 Famous Fantastic Mysteries:

[OtherEric]

And from a reprint of Pickman's Model, from the December 1951 issue of Famous Fantastic Mysteries

[OtherEric]

And I've posted the cover before, so I'll throw in an interior illustration as well.  They're both from the story "The Alien Vibration", which was the first professional story published by... Hannes Bok.  He wasn't a terribly prolific writer, but he had a fair number of stories published.

[comicjack]

Wouldn't mind having the original art to that one 

[OtherEric]

8 minutes ago, comicjack said:

Wouldn't mind having the original art to that one 

Which one?