{"id":3571,"date":"2014-04-17T10:00:01","date_gmt":"2014-04-17T14:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/?p=3571"},"modified":"2026-02-27T15:38:37","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T20:38:37","slug":"3-pulp-questions-walker-martin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/2014\/04\/17\/3-pulp-questions-walker-martin\/","title":{"rendered":"3 pulp questions: Walker Martin"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Walker
Walker Martin<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If you read any of the popular pulp newsgroups<\/a> at Yahoo — FictionMags, PulpMags, WesternPulps, you name it — you are familiar with Walker Martin<\/strong>. He’s also been a regular attendee at many of the pulp conventions over the years.<\/p>\n

As a long-time pulp collector, Walker is a fount of information, always willing to share what he knows with fellow fans.<\/p>\n

So who better to ask our next round of “3 pulp questions<\/a>” than Walker Martin?<\/p>\n

1. How were you introduced to the pulps?<\/strong><\/p>\n[box type=”shadow”]\n

3 Pulp Questions<\/strong><\/h4>\n

3 Pulp Questions<\/a><\/strong> 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]\n

I saw my first pulp in the early 1950s at around age 11.<\/div>\n
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.<\/div>\n
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<\/a><\/em> and Thrilling Wonder Stories<\/a><\/em>.<\/div>\n
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<\/em>, Thrilling<\/em>, Astounding<\/a><\/em>, and Unknown<\/a><\/em>.<\/div>\n
\"StartlingFor 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.<\/div>\n
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<\/a>” by Ron Goulart<\/strong>. This collection of detective stories from Black Mask<\/a><\/em>, Dime Detective<\/a><\/em>, and Detective Fiction Weekly<\/a><\/em> showed me that the pulps also published excellent fiction in the other genres and not just in SF.<\/div>\n
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.<\/div>\n
Boy, was I wrong, and I’m sitting among thousands of pulps to prove it!<\/div>\n
After my discharge from the army, I quickly wrote Ron Goulart in care of the publisher and asked him if he wanted to sell his detective pulps. The answer was yes, and I soon had a big box of such pulps for only a couple of dollars each.<\/div>\n
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<\/em> and Weird Tales<\/a><\/em>. Once I completed my sets, I went on to other titles, and I was off and running as a pulp collector.<\/div>\n

2. What is your most prized pulp possession?<\/strong><\/p>\n

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<\/a><\/em> was the best pulp.<\/div>\n
\"AdventureIn 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<\/em> 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<\/em> stands out as my favorite.<\/div>\n
Arthur Sullivant Hoffman<\/strong> was editor during 1911-27 and was one of the best fiction magazine editors ever, especially during the 1918-27 years.<\/div>\n
But even after Hoffman left Adventure<\/em>, the magazine was still considered the top pulp market for writers. I would say that you can’t go wrong collecting the Howard Bloomfield<\/strong> issues of the 1930s or the Ken White<\/strong> issues of the 1940s. These two editors were like Hoffman and tried to publish a quality magazine.<\/div>\n
Adventure<\/em> magazine is my most prized pulp possession, and I have a complete set of the 753 pulp issues.<\/div>\n

3. What overlooked (pulp magazine, story, author, character, or series) would you recommend to pulp fans and why?<\/strong><\/p>\n

For many years, I have been convinced that the hero pulps have been overrated.<\/div>\n
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.<\/div>\n
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.<\/div>\n
I remember Jack Deveny<\/strong>, an old-time collector telling me how G-8 and His Battle Aces<\/a><\/em> 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.<\/div>\n
I do think there are a couple exceptions such as The Spider<\/a><\/em> and Secret Agent X<\/a><\/em>. 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<\/strong> and Ham<\/strong> childish dialogue like in Doc Savage<\/a><\/em> or silly characters like Nippy<\/strong> and Bull<\/strong> in G-8<\/em>.<\/div>\n
\"ShortSo, 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<\/em>, Short Stories<\/a><\/em>, Blue Book<\/a><\/em>, Argosy<\/a><\/em>, All Story<\/a><\/em>, and Popular Magazine<\/a><\/em>.<\/div>\n
These magazines printed all types of fiction and paid the best rates for the best stories. There were other quality magazines in the other genres, of course, but these general fiction titles are often overlooked.<\/div>\n
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 of years.<\/div>\n
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<\/a> in Chicago will be this April 25-27 and Pulpfest<\/a> will be in August. See you there!<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_has_post_settings":[],"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"At Yellowed Perils: Walker Martin answers \"3 pulp questions.\" #pulpmags @pulpfest http:\/\/wp.me\/p2qgXO-VB","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[41,9,11],"tags":[],"hashtags":[],"class_list":["post-3571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-3-pulp-questions","category-people","category-pulps"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2qgXO-VB","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3571"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3571\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7018,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3571\/revisions\/7018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3571"},{"taxonomy":"hashtags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtags?post=3571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}