Homemade Science Fiction Pulp Magazine Cover Drawn by Hand 1938 Collection Jim Linderman

This Science Fiction Pulp Magazine from before World War Two has been saved from destruction with a handmade cover! I am not sure how high the "pass-around" rate was for these rags, but this one has had life extended with the repair. Featuring an Edgar Rice Burroughs story titled "Synthetic Man of Mars" from 1938, it is the artistic vision of the humble home artist which interests me. He created a hand-written spine as well. Hand Drawn Science Fiction pulp magazine cover,created sometime after 1938. Collection Jim Linderman Dull Tool Dim Bulb.

Neutered Newsstand! Gimmie Pulp and Wildcat Adventures Dull Tool Dim Bulb

A demented Captain Sully celebrates safe landing with a bottle of champagne (top).  A man in slim-fit  Dockers wields a Bunsen burner against wild prison girls.   Japanese buffoons guffaw as minks on strings have their way with a staked tourist.  Central Park strollers are left for dead after their meal at the Tavern on the Green (Ambiance 4 stars.  Food 1 star)   A living ship's figurehead is saved by an island-dwelling tan man with a burp gun. An unfortunate with no winter coat purloins a harpoon to fend off Big White so he can freeze in the arms of his mink-collar woman friend.  An obviously insane Baron von Leprachaun comes hunting el-boffo game. And AGAIN with the fire, this time Shicklgrubers thug.

Every woman a wanton and every man a man wanting a women!

It is no WONDER magazines today are withering on the rack like tomato plants lacking water.  There's no JUICE left at the newsstand.  Where is MY Naked Daughter of Papua? When can I fend off Hitler's woman burner?  (that fire gadget again!)  What do I get?  The new Swimsuit issue once a year and perennial world traveler Nat Geo?  The Galapagos Islands AGAIN?  Let's jazz things UP there Hearst.  Stop putting do-little Jennifer Aniston on the cover and give us some red meat with our big media lies.  We're MEN here.

Wildcat Adventures published for 5 years, and everyone of them was on the rack for impressionable ME.  I didn't buy or read any…I used the library and these obviously did not meet the rigorous selection standards.  Candar Publishing was responsible.  I read the Hardy Boys instead. 
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James Bond Bongo! Sing a Song of Detective Clive

I've only seen a James Bond film with either Sean Connery or Woody Allen playing the spy, but I did read every one of Ian Fleming's novels, even the one he did for kids.

I haven't heard Adelle's song for the next one either, but so far all of them have been crap except for  Dr. No, which is here (wait for the bongos) and the ones composed by John Barry.

Mark Schneider Master Artist of the Pulp Sir! Neglected Hero of Magazine Illustration Sir! Mark Schneider Sir!

As something of a researcher, I am reminded daily the inadequacies of the internet. If you kids out there think you're writing a good paper based on what is available at your fingertips, you have more learning to do. A case in point is Mark Schneider.

Go ahead, look him up.

Lots of fake Mark Schneiders trying to cash in on the master artist's name, right? Pfft!. Let's remedy that right now. Henceforth, when one searches for Mark, hopefully they will find this small tribute to the strange painter of pulp who has eluded webdom until now.

God Bless Taschen books, for they at least gave Schneider his brief brush with fame for his paint brushes instead of the brush-off. A paragraph in their colorful tome True Crime Detective Magazines 1924-1969. Okay, so they besmirch by calling him "...a marginal talent at best" and practically blaming him for the demise of painted covers on magazines...in this case saying SOMETHING is still better than saying nothing at all.

Schneider was the house artist at Volitant Publications, AKA Histrionic Publications, AKA Mr. Magazine Inc. See why I like "true" crime? You can't make it up! When Mr. Magazine Inc. needed the lurid, they turned to Mark. He must have been working on a short deadline too...just look at his work. Let's say the editor needed..oh...I dunno...a freaking atom bomb going off while a couple prepares for coitus or a pondering Yeti considering his cold, lonely plight. Not an easy photo shoot. Call Schneider!

Now in full disclosure, regular followers of this blog know virtually everything I post comes out of a shoe box behind me. In this case, having come to the appreciation of Schneider, it should be confessed I had to crib these images from the very web I chastise. The owners might not know what fine pieces they have, but they do now.


I have a bone to pick here with Pulp Magazine collectors. (A bone to pick not unlike the vultures hope for from the fellow lacking Vitamin E above) For some reason, Pulp collectors seem to like GOOD art. A big mistake. Folks might like and might appreciate your collection, but a LAUGH is worth a thousand "good" covers. I got one at each and every Schneider cover I found here. Now you guys start doing some real work and load the Mark Schneider archives up on here. My neck hurts.


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Top Secret Hush Hush Expose Lowdown! Inside Story of the Vice Squad

Would Cuba's Number two boy rather be a girl? Well, Raul does seem to be eying Jayne's sweater puppies with considerable envy...I'd say yes. Let's report it.

Now you have to realize these came out long before Rupert and Fox News set rigorous standards for journalism, so facts seldom get in the way, but as Dan Rather famously said "if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck..." Or to put it another way, where there is smoke, there is a hot tabloid rag to toss on the pile and make the fire bigger.

You know, when I was young and working as a library clerk, I don't remember re-shelving any of these...what's that about? I thought librarians were all against censorship!

It is no wonder news stands are looking sparse these days...What with TMZ and Smoking Gun, we can get our gossip fix without having to pay a quarter at the checkout. No bar codes on these...the clerk would have to study them for the price and then give you the stink eye for your questionable taste.

These are all from the 1950s, when Liz had a revolving carousel of men, George Clooney's aunt was all the buzz, Pat Boone kept a harem and Sammy Davis, Jr. was the only Black man who created news. ( In retrospect, from what I have read, Sammy certainly DID have his share of partners for a little guy with an eye-patch.)

Confidential was the big gun, but the little guns worked just as hard to snatch a quarter. How it was determined 25 cents was the price to learn "WHY ERROL DIDN"T TAKE HIS SHOES OFF" is beyond me. I'd have paid a buck!


Jumbo Group of Fifties Facts Collection Jim Linderman

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"Clear Out, Art Boy...We're puttin' in a Darkroom"

Everyone loves the covers to original true crime magazines. I even love the insides. This little photo essay on the good life in small town America comes on the cusp...the precise moment when the painted covers by all manner of pulp artists skilled with oils and a brush changed to the camera artist. 1953.

Let's put it in the right lingo.

Rudy had been workin' the night shift turning out paintings for the murder rags...suddenly, a pounding on the door made his brush wiggle like the little finger on a ten cent hooker. The Camera guys were at the door, and they weren't going away. Rudy put down the brush and picked up his blaster. "Go away, shutterbugs" he cried..."No one is taking my work away!" Big Frank and his ugly brother Rocco entered the joint, slapped Rudy's gun from his hand and tore the paint-splattered rug right from under his feet. His days sniffing turpentine thinner were over. "Clear out, art boy" groused Frank "We're puttin' in a darkroom."

The insides had already changed...black and white photograph reproduction in the guts was easier, and although they were stilted and staged shots for the most part, they were actual photos from the 40s on. But the cover had to be in lurid living (or lurid dead) color, and so were painted. Advances in printing techniques made actual photos for the cover possible. New clarity and fresh layouts were developed using pictures of models being strangled with heaving actual cleavage, not heaving painted cleavage. The bright colors once used on canvas were replaced with bright color backgrounds. Art became artless. The crimes remained the same. 

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Crime Scene Drop Zone Tossed in Haste and a True Crime Pulp Staple

Hard-boiled visual aids here, a collaboration between photographer, graphic artist and perp. Give me twelve straights, an easel, and we've got this one sewed up.

Frozen Stiffs! True Crime True North: The Golden Age of Canadian Pulp Magazines

I haven't done a book review in a while, since like all the rest of us, I only look at pictures. It will be a few weeks before Kindle figures out how to incorporate graphics like these into their digital downloads, so I'll use the time to suggest a hardcopy purchase.

Canadian true crime pulp magazines! Written by Carolyn Strange and Tina Loo, I presume their real names...a fabulous collection of covers and entertaining text providing the history of detective rags from above. I suspect these magazines are FAR more scarce than those churned out in America during the 1940s and 1950s and as such seldom seen, so the writers have done us a service. As you can see, the covers are just striking. More primitive than ours, the Canadian illustrators opted for a sparse, open, esthetic as forlorn as their landscape during December. With their muted colors, these pulps seem as lonely as the folks who read them. Even the man on fire seems cold! I see a few soggy and nearly frozen pages of these in a pile on a cabin floor in my mind's eye as I type. The book, 100 pages of true north crime bliss was published 6 years ago, so my review is a bit late...but it doesn't diminish the appeal. Using images from the National Library of Canada and a wonderful layout and design, this is an inexpensive book as cool as a Canadian on a cooling bed...and even though it was published in 2004, It's still good...after all, it's a BOOK. Put on your cyber mukluks and go buy one.

(Book Linked at Amazon on the right here under "GOOD THINGS)