Haven’t I seen that before?

With all of the wintry weather blanketing the United States right now, I thought this might be somewhat fit to run (though a bit later than I’d intended).

The mail delivers a strikingly familiar image one day in the fall: A man grappling with a polar bear knee-deep in the snow. It was the cover for the October 2009 Duluth Trading Co. catalog.

My first thought (echoing, as I later discovered, the thoughts of folks on the Flearun group over at Yahoo Groups) was, “Hey, that’s a Doc Savage pulp cover.” I suppose I was influenced by the bronze-colored hair of the guy fighting for his life.

A quick look through several books and Web sites with Doc Savage pulp covers turned up nothing. Next thought was that it was from an Adventure pulp. Nope.

Thanks to Matthew Moring over on the Flearun group for recognizing it as being from Charles B. Stilson’s “Polaris – of the Snows” series. From there, it was easy to determine this was the cover of the Dec. 18, 1915, number of All-Story Magazine. (Click on the cover at left to see a larger version of the catalog cover paired with the pulp cover.)

– William