Adventure was an American pulp magazine that was first published in November 1910 by the Ridgway company, an offshoot of the Butterick Publishing Company. Adventure went on to become one of the most profitable and critically acclaimed of all the American pulp magazines. The magazine had 881 issues. The magazine’s first editor was Trumbull White, he was succeeded in 1912 by Arthur Sullivant Hoffman (1876–1966), who would edit the magazine until 1927. –Taken from Wikipedia

Amazing Stories is an American science fiction magazine launched in April 1926 by Hugo Gernsback’s Experimenter Publishing. It was the first magazine devoted solely to science fiction. Science fiction stories had made regular appearances in other magazines, including some published by Gernsback, but Amazing helped define and launch a new genre of pulp fiction.

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Authentic Science Fiction was a British science fiction magazine published in the 1950s.

At this time, science fiction magazines had been published successfully in North America for over twenty years, but little progress had been made in establishing British equivalents. The bulk of British sci-fi was published as paperback books, rather than magazines; a situation opposite of that in the US.

Since 1939, Atlas, a British publisher, had been producing a reprint edition of Astounding Science Fiction, one of the most well-regarded American sf magazines. During the war the contents had often been cut severely, and the schedule had not been regular, but it was reputed to sell 40,000 copies a month. This was enough to attract the attention of Hamilton & Co., a British publisher looking for new markets.

In 1949, Hamilton hired Gordon Landsborough as an editor. Landsborough did his best to improve the quality of the science fiction he was publishing, and was allowed to offer £1 per 1,000 words for selected material. He also was joined at Hamilton by H.J. Campbell, who was hired as a technical editor. Campbell was a London science fiction fan; he had been brought on by Hulton Press (publisher of the very successful comic the Eagle) to create a science fiction magazine, but the project had been abandoned before seeing print.

Out of this came Authentic Science Fiction, which in various incarnations, ran for 85 issues. source:wikipedia.

Captain Future is a science fiction hero – a space-traveling scientist and adventurer – originally published in a namesake pulp magazine from 1940 to 1951. The character was created by editor Mort Weisinger and principally authored by Edmond Hamilton. There have subsequently been a number of adaptations and derivative works. Most significant was a 1978-79 Japanese anime (キャプテン・フューチャー), which was dubbed into several languages and proved very popular, particularly in Spanish, French, German and Arabic.

The stories were published in the pulp magazines from 1940 to 1951, featuring bright-colored cover illustrations by Earle K. Bergey and two other fellow pulp artists. The adventures mostly appeared in Captain Future’s own magazine but later stories appeared in Startling Stories. Captain Future is Curtis Newton, a brilliant scientist and adventurer who roams the solar system solving problems, righting wrongs, and vanquishing futuristic supervillains…

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The series contains a number of assumptions about the solar system which are outlandish by modern standards but which still seemed plausible, at least to the general public, in the time the stories were written. All of the planets of the solar system, and many of the moons and asteroids, are suitable for life, and most are already occupied by humanoid extraterrestrial races. The initial adventures take place in the planets of the solar system but later stories (after the character invents the “vibration drive”) take the hero to other stars, other dimensions and even the distant past and almost to the end of the Universe. For example, they visit the star Deneb, which is the origin of Earth humans, as well as many other humanoid races across the Solar System and beyond.

Originally published in May of 1938, Captain Hazzard was a one shot issue magazine intended to be published bi-monthly by Magazine Publishers under the Ace Magazine imprint. Hazzard was a clone of Street and Smith’s extremely popular Doc Savage. While Doc was raised in an environment created to make him the optimal human being. Hazzard was an orphan who had lost his sight for 15 years. During his time of blindness Hazzard “developed his mental powers far beyond those of the average person” including the ability to communicate with others telepathically. In a typical pulp hero fashion after his vision returns he studies Oriental mysticism, becomes a mechanical genius, creates a research facility: Hazzard Labs, and collects other scientists and adventures to help him battle the forces of evil.

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Like Doc Savage Capt. Hazzard has a unique eye color that changes based on the the situation, fluctuating between gray and a steely blue. The character of Captain Hazzard fell into public domain several years ago. The original story Python Men of Lost City has been reprinted and rewritten by Ron Fortier and four new stories have been published. Captain Hazzard: Custer’s Ghost, Captain Hazzard: Cavemen of New York, Captain Hazzard: Citadel of Fear, and Captain Hazzard: Curse of the Red Maggot.

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While the author of the original magazine story is credited to a pseudonym Chester Hawks, the true author remains unknown.

Captain Zero as a crime fighting pulp hero. Lee Allyn is cursed with a mysterious capability of becoming invisible at the stroke of midnight and re-appears at dawn. Only his eyes are visible providing an achilles heal. Using this power, Captain Zero battles crime and the underworld.

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Published by Popular Publications starting in 1949, lasting three issues at the tail end of the pulp fiction magazine era. All three Captain Zero stories were written by G.T. Fleming-Roberts (1910 – 1968)

The other, other “Great Detective”, Dixon Hawke (although fans would say Hawke was a better read than Sexton Blake) appeared in The Dixon Hawke Library in 1919, which ran 576 issues till 1941. His adventures also appeared in the subsequent Dixon Hawke Case Books, plus the weekly paper, “Adventure” and in the Sunday Post. The library issues were smaller than pocket libraries. — Taken from comicbookplus.com

Dynamic Science Stories was an American pulp magazine which published two issues, dated February and April 1939. A companion to Marvel Science Stories, it was edited by Robert O. Erisman and published by Western Fiction Publishing. Among the better known authors who appeared in its pages were L. Sprague de Camp and Manly Wade Wellman.

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Although science fiction had been published before the 1920s, it did not begin to coalesce into a separately marketed genre until the appearance in 1926 of Amazing Stories, a pulp magazine published by Hugo Gernsback. By the end of the 1930s the field was booming.[ In 1938 Abraham and Martin Goodman, two brothers who owned a publishing company with multiple imprints, launched Marvel Science Stories, edited by Robert O. Erisman. In February of the following year they added Dynamic Science Stories as a companion magazine intended to run longer stories. The contents were typical pulp science fiction, with few memorable stories. Science fiction historians Joseph Marchesani and Mike Ashley identify only three stories of quality: Nelson S. Bond’s “The Message from the Void” (published under the pseudonym “Hubert Mavity”); L. Sprague de Camp’s “Ananias”; and Manly Wade Wellman’s “Insight”.

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The cover for the first issue was painted by Frank R. Paul, a popular cover artist recently returned to the science fiction field; Norman Saunders provided the second cover. Dynamic’s sister magazine, Marvel Science Stories, often published stories with more sexual content than was usual for science fiction magazines of the day, but, although Dynamic’s advertising included books offering sexual advice, the magazine’s actual content was more traditional pulp material. The magazine only lasted two issues, though it is not known whether this was because of poor sales or if the cancellation was “a reflection of the whim of the publisher”, in Ashley’s words.

The Ghost Super-Detective was created in the early ’40s by Fleming-Roberts, when Thrilling were coming out with more pulp heroes. He is the only one that Norman Daniels didn’t have a hand in. And, confusingly, we have another Green Ghost (created earlier by Johnston McCulley that I’ve covered before), and this character has gone through several name changes, as evident by the changes in magazine titles.

Overall, the character had 14 original stories from 1940-44. He first starred in his own pulp magazine in 1940, titled The Ghost-Super Detective for three issues. It was renamed to The Ghost Detective for one issue, then The Green Ghost Detective for three issues. He then moved to Thrilling Mystery where he was again known as just “The Ghost” for six stories. A final story appeared in Thrilling Detective, where he was renamed “George Hazzard” and all mention of being The Green Ghost was dropped, which was a common fate for many of Thrilling’s later pulp heroes.

The Green Ghost, which is what most pulp fans call him, was really magician George Chance. This was interesting, because Fleming-Roberts had recently done a series of stories about a magician-turned-detective named Diamondstone! Similar to some other Thrilling heroes, Chance gets involved helping the police with tough cases, putting to use his skills as a magician, and finds he enjoys it. So he’s more a semi-official vigilante, than one who operates totally outside the law.

“The Ghost Super-Detective” (Spring 1940)Chance disguises himself as the mysterious “Green Ghost,” using makeup to give him a ghoulish appearance. He is aided by several others. There is his assistant, Glenn Saunders, who looks just like him. This is useful to throw people off from thinking Chance is The Ghost. There is his love interest, Merry White, who often gets in trouble. Tiny Tim Terry is a midget and friend of George’s; and Joe Harper is another member of his staff who helps out. There is also the Police Commissioner Standish who also knows who The Ghost really is, along with the medical examiner, Robert Demarest.

–Taken from thepulp.net

Liberty was an American weekly, general-interest magazine, originally priced at five cents and subtitled, “A Weekly for Everybody.” It was launched in 1924 by McCormick-Patterson, the publisher until 1931, when it was taken over by Bernarr Macfadden until 1941. It featured contributions from some of the biggest politicians, celebrities, authors, and artists of the 20th-century. The contents of the magazine provide a unique look into popular culture, politics, and world events through the Roaring 20s, Great Depression, World War II, and Post-War America. It ceased publication in 1950 and was revived briefly in 1971.

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Liberty Magazine was founded in 1924 by cousins Colonel Robert Rutherford McCormick and Captain Joseph Medill Patterson, owners and editors of the Chicago Tribune and New York Daily News respectively. In 1924, the owners held a nationwide contest to name the magazine offering $20,000 dollars ($300,000 in current dollar terms) to the winning entry. Among tens of thousands of entries, Charles L. Well won with his title Liberty “A Weekly for Everybody.”

The publication was constantly losing money under the family duo, though achieving high circulation. It is believed to have lost McCormick and Patterson as much as $12 million over the course of their ownership, and as a result, it was sold to Bernarr McFadden in 1931.

Under McFadden’s early leadership, the magazine was a strong proponent of Franklin D. Roosevelt, and an article proclaiming him to be physically fit to hold office may have held substantial sway in the outcome of the election. McFadden led the magazine to considerable success, until it was discovered in 1941 that he had been falsifying circulation reports by as many as 20,000 copies to increase advertising revenue. John Cuneo and Kimberly-Clark Paper company took over for McFadden in 1941 and righted the indiscretions, but ad revenues never recovered.

Following the lead of The Saturday Evening Post, in 1942 Liberty increased its price from five to ten cents, resulting in a drop in sales, down to 1.4 million, and advertising dollars. In 1944, the magazine was passed on to Paul Hunter, and until its final publication in 1950, a number of different owners would try to revive its former popularity, to no avail. A Canadian edition was published under a series of different ownerships, among them sports entrepreneur Jack Kent Cooke, through the mid-1960s.

In 1968, Dr. Seuss sued Liberty over a copyright dispute regarding cartoons he had sold to the magazine in 1932. Unlike most publications at the time, Liberty typically bought not only first serial rights, but all publishing and distribution rights to the work of their contributors. Liberty won the case, and their copyrights were solidly established by a landmark ruling in copyright law.

The Phantom Detective was the second pulp hero magazine published, after The Shadow. The first issue was released in February 1933, a month before Doc Savage, which was released in March 1933. The title continued to be released until 1953, with a total 170 issues. This is the third highest number of issues for a character pulp, after The Shadow, which had 325 issues, and Doc Savage, which had 181. In western titles, Texas Rangers would have around 212 issues of their main character, known as the Lone Wolf.

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The Phantom (as he was called in the stories) is actually the wealthy Richard Curtis Van Loan. In the first few issues of the title, the Phantom is introduced as a world-famous detective, whose true identity is only known by one man—Frank Havens, the publisher of the Clarion newspaper. Richard Curtis Van Loan is orphaned at an early age, but inherits wealth. Before World War I, he leads the life of an idle playboy, but during the war he becomes a pilot and downs many German planes.

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After the war, Van Loan has a difficult time returning to his old life. At the suggestion of his father’s friend, Havens, he sets out to solve a crime that had stumped the police. After solving it, he decides he has found his calling.

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He trains himself in all facets of detection and forensics, and becomes a master of disguise and escape. He makes a name for himself as the Phantom, whom all police agencies around the world know and respect. When dealing with law enforcement officials he carries a platinum badge in the shape of a domino mask as proof of his true identity. The initial stories were less about a detective than an adventurer using disguise and lucky escapes to conclude his cases. –Taken from Wikipedia

Planet Stories was an American pulp science fiction magazine, published by Fiction House between 1939 and 1955. It featured interplanetary adventures, both in space and on some other planets, and was initially focused on a young readership. Malcolm Reiss was editor or editor-in-chief for all of its 71 issues. Planet Stories was launched at the same time as Planet Comics, the success of which probably helped to fund the early issues of Planet Stories. Planet Stories did not pay well enough to regularly attract the leading science fiction writers of the day, but occasionally obtained work from well-known authors, including Isaac Asimov and Clifford D. Simak. In 1952 Planet Stories published Philip K. Dick’s first sale, and printed four more of his stories over the next three years.

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The two writers most identified with Planet Stories are Leigh Brackett and Ray Bradbury, both of whom set many of their stories on a romanticized version of Mars that owed much to the depiction of Barsoom in the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs. Bradbury’s work for Planet included an early story in his Martian Chronicles sequence. Brackett’s best-known work for the magazine was a series of adventures featuring Eric John Stark, which began in the summer of 1949. Brackett and Bradbury collaborated on one story, “Lorelei of the Red Mist”, which appeared in 1946; it was generally well-received, although one letter to the magazine complained that the story’s treatment of sex, though mild by modern standards, was too explicit. The artwork also emphasized attractive women, with a scantily clad damsel in distress or alien princess on almost every cover.

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In recent years, Paizo Publishing revived the brand as an imprint for science fiction and fantasy books they published.

— Taken from Wikipedia

Rocket Stories is a short lived American pulp magazine published by Space Publications based in New York. It only ran for three issues in 1953. It was edited by the writer Lester Del Rey (Marooned on Mars) for the first two issues and by the writer Harry Harrison (Stainless Steel Rat) for the last.
Rocket Stories was a companion magazine to Fantasy Fiction, Space Science Fiction and Science Fiction Adventures. All four magazines were closed down when the publisher lost interest.

Scoops is considered the first British S.F. magazine, although, at the time it was sometimes referred to as a comic. Published by Pearson, London. This is a rare title nowadays and of great interest is that, “The Poison Belt” by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is serialised from #13. The scans are from old tired, copies and the text might be difficult to read in places but the illustrations are excellent. 1 is missing page 2 and the cover is from the internet.— Taken from comicbookplus.com

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Sexton Blake is a fictional character, a detective who has been featured in many British comic strips, novels and dramatic productions since 1893. Sexton Blake adventures were featured in a wide variety of British and international publications (in many languages) from 1893 to 1978, comprising more than 4,000 stories by some 200 different authors. Blake was also the hero of numerous silent and sound movies, radio serials, and a 1960s  television series.

The first issue of The Sexton Blake Library was published on 20 September 1915, entitled “The Yellow Tiger” and written by G. H. Teed. This issue introduced villains Wu Ling and Baron de Beauremon in an eleven chapter story, costing 3d (1.25p). The story is 107 pages; a second story, “The Great Cup-Tie!” (not featuring Blake) completes the remainder of the issue’s 120 pages. The second issue, “Ill Gotten Gains (The Secret of Salcoth Island)”, had Blake fight Count Carlac and Professor Kew. Issue three was entitled “The Shadow of his Crime” and issue four “The Rajah’s Revenge”. The last edition, “Down Among The Ad Men” written by W. A Ballinger (Wilfred McNeilly), was published in October 1968. Some additional Sexton Blake books were published during 1968 and 1969 that were not labelled explicitly as part of the Sexton Blake Library.

British weekly “pulp” featuring well written and illustrated, fast moving and atmospheric crime and mystery stories. Some well known authors and characters appeared in The Thriller incl. The Saint, Shadow, Blackshirt, Mr. Preed, J.G. Reeder. Writers incl. Charteris, Horler, Douthwaite, Edmund Snell, GH Teed, Barry Perowne, John G. Brandon, Anthony Skene. The covers were often excellent, especially those by Arthur Jones – atmospheric, dangerous and exciting. — Taken form comicbookplus.com

Walt Coburn (1889–1971) was an American writer of Westerns. Coburn was born in White Sulphur Springs, Montana Territory, the son of Robert Coburn Senior, the founder of the noted Circle C Ranch.

Coburn served in the military in the First World War. He later spent time as a cowboy and a surveyor, before becoming a full-time writer in the 1920s.

Coburn began his career with Western stories in general fiction pulp magazines such as Adventure and Argosy. Later Coburn moved on to pulps specializing in Westerns, including Western Story Magazine, Lariat Story Magazine, Ace-High Western and Frontier Stories. He often wrote for the Fiction House pulp magazines, which promoted Coburn as “the Cowboy Author”.

Coburn was enormously prolific; Flanagan states Coburn wrote almost two million words of fiction over a thirty year period. Coburn at his most prolific, averaged over 600,000 published words per year. He was so popular that eventually, two pulp magazines – Walt Coburn’s Western Magazine and Walt Coburn’s Action Novels were issued, consisting mainly of reprints of Coburn’s work.

After the pulps ended in the 1950s, Coburn switched his focus to writing paperback originals.

Coburn was a devout Christian. Coburn claimed, in his posthumously published autobiography Western Word Wrangler (1973) that God had chosen him to spread the Christian message through his fiction.

Coburn committed suicide at age 82 in Prescott, Arizona.

– Taken From Wikipedia

Weird Tales is an American fantasy and horror fiction pulp magazine founded by J. C. Henneberger and J. M. Lansinger in late 1922. The first issue, dated March 1923, appeared on newsstands February 18.The first editor, Edwin Baird, printed early work by H. P. Lovecraft, Seabury Quinn, and Clark Ashton Smith, all of whom would go on to be popular writers, but within a year the magazine was in financial trouble. Henneberger sold his interest in the publisher, Rural Publishing Corporation, to Lansinger and refinanced Weird Tales, with Farnsworth Wright as the new editor. The first issue under Wright’s control was dated November 1924. The magazine was more successful under Wright, and despite occasional financial setbacks it prospered over the next fifteen years. Under Wright’s control the magazine lived up to its subtitle, “The Unique Magazine”, and published a wide range of unusual fiction.

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Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos stories first appeared in Weird Tales, starting with “The Call of Cthulhu” in 1928. These were well-received, and a group of writers associated with Lovecraft wrote other stories set in the same milieu. Robert E. Howard was a regular contributor, and published several of his Conan the Barbarian stories in the magazine, and Seabury Quinn’s series of stories about Jules de Grandin, a detective who specialized in cases involving the supernatural, was very popular with the readers. Other well-liked authors included Nictzin Dyalhis, E. Hoffmann Price, Robert Bloch, and H. Warner Munn. Wright published some science fiction, along with the fantasy and horror, partly because when Weird Tales was launched there were no magazines specializing in science fiction, but he continued this policy even after the launch of magazines such as Amazing Stories in 1926. Edmond Hamilton wrote a good deal of science fiction for Weird Tales, though after a few years he used the magazine for his more fantastic stories, and submitted his space operas elsewhere.

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In 1938 the magazine was sold to William Delaney, the publisher of Short Stories, and within two years Wright, who was ill, was replaced by Dorothy McIlwraith as editor. Although some successful new authors and artists, such as Ray Bradbury and Hannes Bok, continued to appear, the magazine is considered by critics to have declined under McIlwraith from its heyday in the 1930s. Weird Tales ceased publication in 1954, but since then numerous attempts have been made to relaunch the magazine, starting in 1973. The longest-lasting version began in 1988 and ran with an occasional hiatus for over 20 years under an assortment of publishers. In the mid-1990s the title was changed to Worlds of Fantasy & Horror because of licensing issues, with the original title returning in 1998.

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The magazine is regarded by historians of fantasy and science fiction as a legend in the field, with Robert Weinberg, author of a history of the magazine, considering it “the most important and influential of all fantasy magazines”. Weinberg’s fellow historian, Mike Ashley, is more cautious, describing it as “second only to Unknown in significance and influence”, adding that “somewhere in the imagination reservoir of all U.S. (and many non-U.S.) genre-fantasy and horror writers is part of the spirit of Weird Tales”.

— Taken from Wikipedia

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