That's a pretty dramatic cover by Don Hewitt on this issue of DETECTIVE DRAGNET, although the guy being choked looks strangely untroubled by what's going on. And yes, that's a swastika on the cover, before it had the sinister implications it would a few years later. Philip Ketchum, writing as Carl McK. Saunders, is probably the best-known author in this issue, although Irving Stone, later a bestselling historical novelist, has an early story in these pages. I'm assuming it's the same Irving Stone, but I don't know that for sure. Eugene A. Clancy and William H. Stueber are names that some Western pulp fans will remember. Also on hand are Jack Compton, R.E. Alexander, and James Howard Leveque, all of whom produced a considerable number of stories for the pulps but are pretty much forgotten now. DETECTIVE DRAGNET was originally called THE DRAGNET MAGAZINE and eventually changed its name to the one under which it's best remembered, TEN DETECTIVE ACES.
Although THRILLING RANCH STORIES was considered to be a Western romance pulp, the covers often featured gun-blazing action like this one, which I think may be by Richard Lyon. The authors inside are Western pulp action aces, too: Leslie Scott (as A. Leslie), Stephen Payne, Lee Bond, Syl MacDowell, Bruce Douglas, Eugene A. Clancy, and house-name Jackson Cole, who could be any of those guys (but if I had to bet, I'd say in this case it was probably Lee Bond, for some reason). I've never read an issue of THRILLING RANCH STORIES. I'm not sure I own any. I need to check on that.
A great cover by A. Leslie Ross on this issue of POPULAR WESTERN, and by coincidence, the lead novel is by A. Leslie Scott, writing under his A. Leslie pseudonym. Other authors on hand in this issue are Syl MacDowell (as himself and as Tom Gunn with a Sheriff Blue Steele novelette), Tom Curry, Galen C. Colin, Miles Overholt, Gunnison Steele (Bennie Gardner), Frank Carl Young, Eugene A. Clancy, Dabney Otis Collins, Claude Rister (as Buck Billings), Charles D. Richardson Jr., and house-names Jackson Cole, Buck Benson, and Sam Brant. Not an all-star lineup, maybe, but with Scott, Curry, Gardner, Overholt, and MacDowell, probably pretty good reading.
Another action-packed scene involving a stagecoach on this issue of RANGE RIDERS WESTERN. I don't know the artist. For those of you not familiar with this pulp, it featured a lead novel in every issue starring a trio of range detectives, Steve Reese (the leader) and his two sidekicks Hank Ball and Dusty Trail. It's a time-honored setup (think of all the trio B-Western movies that were made during the same era) and RANGE RIDERS WESTERN delivered consistently good stories, many of them by Walker A. Tompkins, the author of this issue's lead novel. I've never understood why the stories from this pulp weren't reprinted in paperback during the Sixties and Seventies the way the stories from TEXAS RANGERS, RIO KID WESTERN, and MASKED RIDER WESTERN were. I think they would have done well. This particular issue also has some back-up stories by Allan K. Echols, Eugene A. Clancy, Clinton Dangerfield, and Ralph Yergen, not big names but steady producers in the Western pulps.
THRILLING RANCH STORIES was the Thrilling Group's second-string Western romance pulp, but you can't really tell that from the covers and authors, which seem to me just as good as those in RANCH ROMANCES. Take the Summer 1950 issue, for example, which sports an excellent Kirk Wilson cover and includes stories by Leslie Scott (as A. Leslie), Johnston McCulley, Chuck Martin, Frank P. Castle, Walt Sheldon, Ben Frank, and Eugene A. Clancy. Those are all solid, prolific Western pulpsters, and one of them (Scott) is a favorite of mine. Sounds like a good issue to me.
.jpg)
