Most of the Operator #5 covers are pretty pedestrian compared with, say, The Spider, Doc Savage or the other hero pulps. They featured Jimmy Christopher, alias Operator #5, along with various supporting characters, confronting a horde of armed monsters/demons/Purple invaders.
The first cover was painted by Jerome Rozen and features a larger-than-life depiction of Christopher, which brings to mind the sorts of covers that H. Winfield Scott would later paint for The Avenger pulp. All subsequent Operator #5 covers were by John Newton Howitt.
The cover of the December 1934 number jumps out at me. It leaps above Howitt’s other 47 covers for the pulp, and it reminds me of a twisted Work Projects Administration mural. Rather than depicting resolute workers going about the business of American industry, the cover shows Christopher and Tim Donovan facing down desperate farm workers armed with axes and pitchforks above which charge skeletal figures on backs of white fire-snorting steeds.
Call it a WPA mural for the pulps, or… Great Pulp Art.
