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Adam Parfrey leads with this cover in the excellent book on the sweat mags from Feral House, It’s a Man’s World: Men’s Adventure Magazines, the Postwar Pulps, and I’m happy to have found an image of it on the web. Thanks to RNRobert for putting it up, and you can see more cover images from his collection of these magazines here. I love newsstand pics (as you can tell from the fact I’ve had the same image at the top of my blog for quite some time now), and the look on the sailor’s face is truly priceless. I find it comforting that although these soldiers were surrounded by horror and the most “grown-up” of situations they might still find solace or escape in the comics and pulps of the day. I’m on the hunt for this issue now, as I’m most curious about what the article might have to say on the four color menace.
Tonight I’ll share a few pulps from my collection that sat on racks just like the one above, so that you, too, might enjoy some of these yarns of battle and life in a time of war.
First up! Adventure, October 1941.
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Adventure v105n06 (1941-10.Popular)(D&M-DPP).cbr
Get the full scan here!
I bought this issue because of the strong cover from artist Albin Henning (not to mention the fact that Adventure is probably my favorite of all the pulps). I’m drawn to the gaze of the soldier in the forefront and the way he is looking right at the reader with a steel resolve. Salvation shines from the skies, but this isn’t some sort of heavenly intervention – rather it is a very human undertaking. But what exactly is going on here? Is this the Big Red One? The patch on the shoulder points toward that direction, but it's not the patch actually worn by the 1st Infantry (besides the fact that that unit wouldn't have been parachuting?). Adding to the puzzle, McCoy (who is responsible for the excellent edit on the issue) astutely observed that this issue came out two months before we even entered the war. Hmm...
Contents
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The pulp kicks off with a George Surdez story of a legionnaire leading a motley assortment of soldiers in Norway and under constant air assault by the Nazis. Surdez was a longtime contributor to Adventure (which I promise to do a more in-depth post on at some point in the future) and other pulps like Argosy and Bluebook. They’ve got a partial bibliography over at the Pulprack on Surdez here. I’m adding a link on my sidebar to that site which has some excellent articles on the writers of Adventure and other worthy topics. I’m not sure how I hadn’t linked them up to now or if the site is currently active, but it is a great web page.
I finished this story earlier tonight and really, but really, enjoyed it. I’ve never looked into the German advance on Norway or heard of the battle described within, but it’s quite an interesting setting. Early in the war, Narvik held strategic importance because it was a Winter departure point for Swedish ore that the Germans needed for the war effort as Swedish ports would freeze during the Winter. At the same time, German control of the ports meant a location from which naval operations might better sever the shipping routes between England and the Soviet Union. As Britain decided they would mine the waters off of Norway, Germany launched a land assault and met with little resistance in the initial push. The allied push to retake Narvik involved the French foreign legion and various other troops. There was much miscommunication between the British and these forces, but against the odds they were able to turn the tide and offer the Germans their first defeat on land of the war along with a moral victory in that, yes, those Nazis can be licked after all. A wiki on the battle is here, though I’d suggest reading it AFTER you read the story.
Still, in some respects, the details of the battle are unimportant and are a minor part of Surdez’ story. The real trick is the way he gets at the character of his protagonist, Lieutenant Debourg. Like many Legionnaire stories, Debourg has a checkered past. He’s an Austrian from a wealthy family that has fallen from grace (just as Germany has become corrupted) and is now pitted against his onetime countrymen. The decisions he makes during his fall and the decisions he faces when forced to grapple with his past are remarkable, and the way Surdez allows you to understand these weak and simultaneously strong actions is a little marvel in storytelling. But don’t take my word for it, check it out.
Samples. Story art on “They Can Be Licked” by pulp journeyman Hamilton Greene
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Here's the splash page for the story by W.C. Tuttle, also illustrated by Greene. Tuttle was incredibly prolific and wrote hundreds of stories in the pulps as well as writing for the screen during the silent era. It seems like I see him mostly in Western pulps, so I’ll be interested to read this baseball story, as Tuttle was a semi-pro player in his youth and later was President of a left coast baseball league.
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And lest we leave out the ladies, here’s my edit of the issue I scanned the other night, New Love from March of 1943. Adorning the cover is a charming aviatrix:
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Get the full scan here!
While I’ve scanned these magazines as a way of remembering the war and our veterans’ service, I want to also mention the sacrifice made by the spouses and families of our fighting men. I can’t imagine the stress of having my loved ones in harm’s way, and many husbands or fathers never came home. So I thank the families of our veterans in the same breath.
As for my family, My grandmother met my granddad after the war when the GI Bill allowed him to go to college, but she confided in me once that she wrote a couple guys during the war. She says she wasn't crazy about either of them but that it was the least she could do. How sweet is that. This pulp contains a few stories of romance during wartime along with many great ads of the era including promotions where you could send GIs their favorite pulps on the front. I'll give my grandma this issue at X-mas. I wonder if she remembers these magazines. They are most definitely not the same as the "naughty" harlequin romances I've caught her reading over the years, heh heh.
I’ve scanned a number of these love pulps now and hardly get any reaction at all from scan fans, but I will keep at it. I’m comfortable enough in my manliness to admit that I enjoy the stories, and I certainly feel there’s a lot to be learned from their study about the feelings and pressures on women through the decades of first half of the twentieth century. It’d be a real shame if this once thriving mode of fiction for women were to fall into obscurity. Big thanks to fellow scanner Twobyfour for sending me a few of these in a care package, spread the pulp!
Contents and Samples:
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Support the troops on the front line, send pulp! Careful, though. If you mark the "Love" box, the other soldiers are likely to tease…
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Yawn, I’m up way, way past my bedtime but will get this last one up, dammit! Here’s Complete War Novels Magazine from March of 1943. This issue is sporting a bloodthirsty cover like many of the war pulps of the day. You’ll even see some of the covers labeled as "jingoistic" in Bookery’s pulp guide which is probably not the word I would choose. You fuck with the bull, you get the horns, eh? :
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Complete War Novels Magazine v01n03 (1943-01.Western Fiction) (DPP).cbr
Get the full scan here!
This issue is a pulp from publisher Martin Goodman who really does not get enough attention for his central role in pulps and comics history. Discussions of Marvel Comics usually begin with Stan Lee in the 60s and ignore the role that Goodman played in establishing the company. Timely then Atlas comics were ventures that Goodman entered after he’d already been at pulp publishing, and he was selling a dozen different men’s adventure magazine titles after the comic scare and distribution problems had relegated his comics division to employing only Stan Lee and a secretary. Another topic for another future post, perhaps. Maybe I can track down some of the Red Circle weird menace pulps from a genre which just might be the forbear of the modern horror film. Thanks to McCoy for another excellent edit on this issue.
Contents/samples. Some, err, rough art in this issue…
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And a couple of ads to round it out. A martial arts ad to reinforce what I mentioned last time re: the CO-EDS article and also a wartime admonition…
One more entry in this series on wartime pubs to follow next time, a comic!
1 comment:
ADVENTURE is my favorite pulp also and the latest issue of BLOOD N THUNDER is devoted to the magazine. Keep your pulp coverage coming!
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