If you read any of the popular pulp newsgroups at Yahoo — FictionMags, PulpMags, WesternPulps, you name it — you are familiar with Walker Martin. He’s also been a regular attendee at many of the pulp conventions over the years.
As a long-time pulp collector, Walker is a fount of information, always willing to share what he knows with fellow fans.
So who better to ask our next round of “3 pulp questions” than Walker Martin?
1. How were you introduced to the pulps?
[box type=”shadow”]3 Pulp Questions
3 Pulp Questions is an opportunity for you to get to know fellow pulp collectors a bit better and, maybe, introduce you to pulps, authors, stories or characters that you haven’t explored.[/box]
I saw my first pulp in the early 1950s at around age 11.
My father had terminal cancer and was home and no longer able to work. He had always been a big reader of mainstream literature but had never read the pulps. The visiting nurse used to come and give him painkiller injections, and she also bought him books to read.
One day she came to the house with some pulp magazines, and for the first time, my father made the effort to read them. They were SF pulps, and the two titles I remember were Startling Stories and Thrilling Wonder.
He was very impressed with the quality of the stories and encouraged me to read them also. At age 11, I was not ready to read them however and it was only after his death that I again came across them in the basement and this time I was hooked. The magic age of 13, where so many SF fans start to read and join fandom. It was 1956 and I started to buy all the SF digests and collect the back issues of the SF pulps, such as Startling, Thrilling, Astounding, and Unknown.
For the next 10 years those were the only pulps that I collected. I read about other genres being available but I never came across anyone that had big collections.SF fandom during 1956-66 was all about SF and other literature was largely dismissed as being mundane. However in 1967 I came across a life changing book titled “The Hardboiled Dicks” by Ron Goulart. This collection of detective stories from Black Mask, Dime Detective, and Detective Fiction Weekly showed me that the pulps also published excellent fiction in the other genres and not just in SF.
Ron Goulart’s comments made me realize that it was possible to also collect such pulps as detective, western, adventure, etc. I had wrongly assumed that mainly the SF pulps had survived because of the habits of teenage boy collectors who obsessed over the magazines and saved them in perfect condition. Regular adults, I thought, did not save the other pulps and after reading them passed them around to friends and then threw them away.
Boy, was I wrong and I’m sitting among thousands of pulps to prove it!
After my discharge from the army, I quickly wrote Ron Goulart in care of the publisher and asked him if wanted to sell his detective pulps. The answer was yes and I soon had a big box of such pulps for only a couple dollars each.
My life goals back then had nothing to do with starting a job and career or buying a car or getting married. Sure, I eventually did all these things but I was obsessed with the thought of compiling complete sets of Black Mask and Weird Tales. Once I completed my sets, I went on to other titles and I was off and running as a pulp collector.
2. What is your most prized pulp possession?
At one time or another during the past 50 years, I have collected just about every major pulp title. But one title stands out as my favorite because of the high quality of the fiction. Out of all the pulp titles, I would say that Adventure was the best pulp.
In fact, I would say that it is in the running for the title of best fiction magazine. I also collect the digests (SF and crime), the slicks (The Saturday Evening Post was the best), and the literary magazines (I have collected many of the quarterlies and little magazines). Out of all these titles and thousands of issues, Adventure stands out as my favorite.Arthur Sullivant Hoffman was editor during 1911-27 and was one of the best fiction magazine editors ever, especially during the 1918-27 years.
But even after Hoffman left Adventure, the magazine was still considered the top pulp market for writers. I would say that you can’t go wrong collecting the Howard Bloomfield issues of the 1930s or the Ken White issues of the 1940s. These two editors were like Hoffman and tried to publish a quality magazine.
Adventure magazine is my most prized pulp possession and I have a complete set of the 753 pulp issues.
3. What overlooked (pulp magazine, story, author, character, or series) would you recommend to pulp fans and why?
For many years, I have been convinced that the hero pulps have been overrated.
At one time I collected just about all of them but I found them hard to read because the simple reality is that they were aimed at the teenage boy market, and not at the adult reader.
During the past 50 years, I made a point of asking old time collectors and even pulp authors about the different magazines. I ran across very few adult readers who bought the hero pulps. Often they referred to them with such terms as “the kid pulps.” Many of the adults that did collect the hero pulps, collected them for nostalgic reasons. They had fond memories of reading them as children.
I remember Jack Deveny, an old-time collector telling me how G-8 and His Battle Aces made him want to be an airline pilot. But he admitted that he really couldn’t read them as an adult. His story was repeated time and time again.
I do think there are a couple exceptions such as The Spider and Secret Agent X. They had wild, crazy weird menace plots full of bizarre villains like the other hero pulps but they were not as poorly written. In other words no Monk and Ham childish dialog like in Doc Savage or silly characters like Nippy and Bull in G-8.
So, I really think the general fiction pulps are overlooked by many collectors and readers, especially the readers who keep talking about the hero pulps. The best of the general fiction magazines are Adventure, Short Stories, Blue Book, Argosy, All Story, and Popular Magazine.These magazines printed all types of fiction and paid the best rates for the best stories. There were other quality magazine in the other genres of course but these general fiction titles are often overlooked.
And finally, I’d like to encourage pulp readers to attend the pulp conventions, where they can buy some of the magazines I’ve mentioned above. I’ve been going to these conventions since 1972 and have only missed a couple years.
There you will not only be able to buy the magazines but you will be able to make the necessary contacts to continue collecting once the dealer’s room closes. Windy City in Chicago will be this April 25-27 and Pulpfest will be in August. See you there!
I’m with Walker, I love the general fiction pulps, Adventue, Short Stories and Blue Book, easy to get, cheap usually and great reads. But give me a Detective pulp and I can be happy as a clam too, like the Private Detective and Super Detective I’m reading now! Jonathan Jensen
As always Walker it is always interesting to read what you have to say about the pulps. I also have been a fan of both Bluebook and Short Stories for quite a few years now.
I read the general story pulps like Argosy and Blue Book, love Weird Tales and Unknown, but also read Doc Savage, Secret Agent X and The Spider. I do agree most of the hero pulps were written for teenage boys. But writers like Lester Dent and Norvell Page made them fun reading, at least for me. (Hope to see you at Windy City, Walker.)
Lohr, I have to agree that The Spider and Secret Agent X stood out among the other hero pulps. Concerning Windy City, 5 of us have rented a van and we plan to arrive Thursday evening, April 24. We call it the Great White Whale because we don’t waste time hunting Moby Dick, we ride him while we hunt for books and pulps.
Walker, are you posting a Windy City report?
Walker’s Windy City report was just posted over at Laurie Power’s Wild West.
Check back at Yellowed Perils tomorrow. I’ll have a roundup of Windy City reports, which I’ll be updating as new ones turn up.
Hi Jack–The Windy City report is also posted on Mystery File and has generated some interesting comments from Paul Herman. He has made contact with Joseph Shaw’s daughter and granddaughter. See http://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=26096