With this posting, I continue my detailed look into the long-running pulp fanzine Pulpdom with #21-30.
As with the first 20 issues, these were all 28 to 32 pages, saddle-stitched, reprinting early pulp fiction with various non-fiction articles and artwork, both new and old, also focusing on the early pulps. In some issues, the non-fiction works are more prominent, and for me, these are almost more interesting. With #25, we now get color covers and some interior color, so the production will be loose sheets stapled along the edge. All are edited/published by Camille “Caz” Cazedessus, Jr., who provides some of the content of each issue. And you need to pay attention to the editorials and small additions, they provide information that often adds to items brought up in prior issues.
#21 (March 2000) is under a cover reprinted from The Popular Magazine. and focuses on a review of this long-running (1903-1931) Street & Smith pulp that was created to compete against The Argosy. Though this time, Mike Taylor looks at the 1905-20 period. As always, we learn about the stories, with examples of the covers and some interior artwork. An interesting editorial from Jan. 7, 1920, is included, that states that “fantastical” works won’t appear in The Popular Magazine, maybe a put-down of Edgar Rice Burroughs‘ work in other pulps? We do get one piece of fiction, “Babes in the Woods” by George Sterling, from a 1914 issue of The Popular Magazine. This is basically a “cave man” type story.
#22 (May 2000) is an “all fiction” issue, reprinting an H. Bedford-Jones story, “Khmer, the Mysterious.” This appeared in Peoples for Jan. 25, 1919. That issue also had HB-J’s “Captain Battle” (since reprinted in High Adventure #144), so this story appeared under his Allan Hawkwood alias. It’s about a city of apes in Borneo. I haven’t had the chance to read it, but want to soon as I find that while I love “lost race/lost world/city” stories, HB-J writes the most realistic ones.
#23 (July 2000) has a new cover by Pierre Mion with a fantastical airship and a volcano that ties to the main piece of fiction, George Allan England‘s “The Plunge” from Snappy Stories in 1916. Several pulp reprinters have put out GAE’s works of late, whose most famous work is probably the “Darkness and Dawn” trilogy.
Rounding out this issue are several non-fiction pieces. From Brian Stableford is another work looking at the origins of Tarzan. Stableford also has a review of The Man Among The Monkeys (1879). And we have a look at history of the railroad pulps.
#24 (December 2000) is the fanzine’s 20th anniversary issue, with a cover from The Argosy and several articles related to this pulp. We revisit author William Murray Graydon, with more information in him, including more books by him. We get book covers from Graydon and Edward S. Ellis. We get the first part of an author index for The Argosy, from 1894 through December 1900. Another article looks at covers and formats of The Argosy from 1896 to 1905, with sample of covers. The end of The Argosy as a pulp magazine (it became a “men’s adventure” magazine after World War II) is the subject of another article. For fiction, we get “Our Trip to Mars” by Thomas McCusker from an issue of The Argosy from 1901.
#25 (May 2001) gives us a color western cover, a painting by G.M. Farley. It’s another non-fiction issue in which we get works like Brian Stableford’s followup to his look at the origins of Tarzan. We get a review of Robert Sampson‘s excellent six-volume magnum opus, Yesterday’s Faces, and a review of The Pulp Western. Al Lybeck looks at Allan Vaughn Elston, a writer of Westerns and frontier pulp works, including covers and a bibliography. Bill Garwood looks at American Boy magazine. Peter M. Renfro looks at Stanton A. Coblentz and his rewritten/edited works from Avalon Books. And we finally got a new “The Paperback Collector,” #51, looking at The Unexpected edited by Bennett Cerf.
#26 (July 2001) gives us a giant insect cover from Fantasy (1939) for another non-fiction issue focused on British sf pulps. We have a review of Mystery Fanfare: A Composite Annotated Index to Mystery and Related Fanzines 1963-81 by Michael Cook. Mike Taylor looks at British sf pulp Tales of Wonder. Mike Ashley looks at “Booming British Science Fiction 1950-53,” and Caz looks at “Early British Science Fantasy Pulps and Digests.” And we get several pages of covers, many in color!
#27 (November 2001) focuses on Street & Smith’s People’s Favorite Magazine, with a cover from 1918. We get a list of H. Bedford-Jones’ works from People’s from 1906-24, and Mike Taylor takes a deeper look at the pulp. And we get a reprint of “The Royal Vagabond #1: The Ivory Crucifix,” the first of this series about Denis Theabod Burke from People’s (April 1916) by Bedford-Jones. Bill Garwood looks at St. Nicholas magazine from 1873-1939, and Mike Taylor reviews Hired Pens: Professional Writers in America’s Golden Age of Print.
#28 (December 2001) returns to reprints after so many non-fiction heavy issues, focusing on Clement Fezandié‘s “Throught the Earth” from St. Nicholas (January 1898).
#29 (March 2002) is a special “On the Sea” issue with an appropriate cover by N.C. Wyeth from The Popular Magazine in 1923. We get lists of works by J. Allan Dunn and Joséph Montaigue from People’s. Al Lybeck provides an article looking at the Sargasso Sea in fiction. And we get a reprint of William Hope Hodgson‘s classic “The Voice in the Night” from Blue Book Magazine (November 1907). And a poem by A. Merritt, “The Wind Trail,” from The Smart Set (March 1910). Rounding out the issue are short pieces by Caz on pulp magazines focused on sea stories (Sea Stories Magazine, South Sea Stories, Pirates), science fiction pirates, and lists of works by Patrick O’Brian (Master and Commander), Dudley Pope, Alexander Kent, and Richard Woodman. And we get several covers, many in color.
#30 (May 2002) has an aviation cover from Popular tied to “Barney of the World Police: I. Cape to Cairo” by Arthur Tuckerman from The Popular Magazine (Feb. 7, 1920). It’s the first of a three-part series, but the rest isn’t reprinted. We also get “Glued” by H. de Vere Stackpoole from the June 20, 1921, issue. Rounding out the issue is a work by Caz on fantasy in Popular from 1920-24, with several covers. And Kevin Cook looks at the question: “Is Conan a Hero? No!”
For me, while not everything in every issue is of interest, there is usually something. And I know that as I go along further in pulps, I will want to go back to these issues.
I hope to have more posts on Pulpdom, but that will be dependent on getting access to issues. As before, while you can find back issues for sale online, they are a bit too expensive. But you can purchase PDFs of issues from the Pulpdom website.
