Doctor Death was the title of a short-lived pulp science fiction magazine published by Dell Magazines in 1935, as well as the name of the main character featured in that magazine. Doctor Death was an archcriminal who wanted to return the world to a primitive condition and used supernatural tools such as zombies and magic in his plots against humanity. The stories were written by Harold Ward under the pseudonym of "Zorro". Dell may have intended Doctor Death to be a continuation of a character of the same name in All Detective Magazine, also published by Dell.
Saturn was an American magazine published from 1957 to 1965. It was launched as a science fiction magazine, but sales were weak, and after five issues the publisher, Robert C. Sproul, switched the magazine to hardboiled detective fiction that emphasized sex and sadism. Sproul retitled the magazine Saturn Web Detective Story Magazine to support the change, and shortened the title to Web Detective Stories the following year. In 1962, the title was changed yet again, this time to Web Terror Stories, and the contents became mostly weird menace tales—a genre in which apparently supernatural powers are revealed to have a logical explanation at the end of the story.
Science Fiction Adventures was an American digest-size science fiction magazine, published from 1956 to 1958 by Irwin Stein's Royal Publications as a companion to Infinity Science Fiction, which had been launched in 1955. Larry Shaw was the editor for all 12 issues. Science Fiction Adventures focused on longer fiction than appeared in Infinity; these were often labeled as novels, though they were rarely longer than 20,000 words. Shaw declared in his first editorial that he wanted to bring back a "sense of wonder", and he printed straightforward action-adventure stories. Two other magazines of the period, Imagination and Imaginative Tales, had similar editorial approaches, but science fiction historian Mike Ashley considers that Science Fiction Adventures contained the best fiction of the three. Robert Silverberg was a prolific contributor, under his own name and under the pseudonym "Calvin M. Knox", and he also collaborated with Randall Garrett on two stories in the first issue, under two different pseudonyms. Other well-known writers occasionally appeared, including Harlan Ellison, Cyril M. Kornbluth, Algis Budrys, and Harry Harrison. Ed Emshwiller contributed cover art for nine of the twelve issues, and one of the other three was among John Schoenherr's earliest sales.
A. Merritt's Fantasy Magazine was an American pulp magazine which published five issues from December 1949 to October 1950. It took its name from fantasy writer A. Merritt, who had died in 1943, and it aimed to capitalize on Merritt's popularity. It was published by Popular Publications, alternating months with Fantastic Novels, another title of theirs. It may have been edited by Mary Gnaedinger, who also edited Fantastic Novels and Famous Fantastic Mysteries. It was a companion to Famous Fantastic Mysteries, and like that magazine mostly reprinted science-fiction and fantasy classics from earlier decades.
Strange Tales was an American pulp magazine first published from 1931 to 1933 by Clayton Publications. It specialized in fantasy and weird fiction, and was a significant competitor to Weird Tales, the leading magazine in the field. Its published stories include "Wolves of Darkness" by Jack Williamson, as well as work by Robert E. Howard and Clark Ashton Smith. The magazine ceased publication when Clayton entered bankruptcy. It was temporarily revived by Wildside Press, which published three issues edited by Robert M. Price from 2003 to 2007.
Ghost Stories was an American pulp magazine that published 64 issues between 1926 and 1932. It was one of the earliest competitors to Weird Tales, the first magazine to specialize in the fantasy and occult fiction genre. It was a companion magazine to True Story and True Detective Stories, and focused almost entirely on stories about ghosts, many of which were written by staff writers but presented under pseudonyms as true confessions. These were often accompanied by faked photographs to make the stories appear more believable. Ghost Stories also had original and reprinted contributions, including works by Robert E. Howard, Carl Jacobi, and Frank Belknap Long. Among the reprints were Agatha Christie's "The Last Seance", several stories by H.G. Wells, and Charles Dickens's "The Signal-Man". Initially successful, the magazine began to lose readers and in 1930 was sold to Harold Hersey. Hersey was unable to reverse the magazine's decline, and publication of Ghost Stories ceased in early 1932.
Captain Future was a science fiction pulp magazine launched in 1940 by Better Publications, and edited initially by Mort Weisinger. It featured the adventures of Captain Future, a super-scientist whose real name was Curt Newton, in every issue. All but two of the novels in the magazine were written by Edmond Hamilton; the other two were by Joseph Samachson. The magazine also published other stories that had nothing to do with the title character, including Fredric Brown's first science fiction sale, "Not Yet the End". Captain Future published unabashed space opera, and was, in the words of science fiction historian Mike Ashley, "perhaps the most juvenile" of the science fiction pulps to appear in the early years of World War II. Wartime paper shortages eventually led to the magazine's cancellation: the last issue was dated Spring 1944.
Scientific Detective Monthly was a pulp magazine that published fifteen issues beginning in January 1930. It was launched by Hugo Gernsback as part of his second venture into science-fiction magazine publishing, and was intended to focus on detective and mystery stories with a scientific element. Many of the stories involved contemporary science without any imaginative elements—for example, a story in the first issue turned on the use of a bolometer to detect a black girl blushing—but there were also one or two science fiction stories in every issue.
Science-fiction and fantasy magazines began to be published in the United States in the 1920s. Stories with science-fiction themes had been appearing for decades in pulp magazines such as Argosy, but there were no magazines that specialized in a single genre until 1915, when Street & Smith, one of the major pulp publishers, brought out Detective Story Magazine. The first magazine to focus solely on fantasy and horror was Weird Tales, which was launched in 1923, and established itself as the leading weird fiction magazine over the next two decades; writers such as H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith and Robert E. Howard became regular contributors. In 1926 Weird Tales was joined by Amazing Stories, published by Hugo Gernsback; Amazing printed only science fiction, and no fantasy. Gernsback included a letter column in Amazing Stories, and this led to the creation of organized science-fiction fandom, as fans contacted each other using the addresses published with the letters. Gernsback wanted the fiction he printed to be scientifically accurate, and educational, as well as entertaining, but found it difficult to obtain stories that met his goals; he printed "The Moon Pool" by Abraham Merritt in 1927, despite it being completely unscientific. Gernsback lost control of Amazing Stories in 1929, but quickly started several new magazines. Wonder Stories, one of Gernsback's titles, was edited by David Lasser, who worked to improve the quality of the fiction he received. Another early competitor was Astounding Stories of Super-Science, which appeared in 1930, edited by Harry Bates, but Bates printed only the most basic adventure stories with minimal scientific content, and little of the material from his era is now remembered.
New Mystery Adventures was a pulp magazine that appeared from 1935 to 1937. It included a mix of genres: there were occasional science fiction stories, and fantasies such as "Buried Alive" by Wayne Rogers and "Rescued by Satan" by Richard B. Sale, as well as adventure stories by authors such as L. Ron Hubbard. There were also mystery stories and weird menace stories. One story in Lars Anderson's "Domino Lady" series appeared, and other mystery writers included Octavus Roy Cohen and Steve Fisher.
The Spider was an American pulp magazine that was published by Popular Publications from 1933 to 1943. Every issue included a lead novel that featured The Spider, a heroic crimefighter. The magazine was intended as a rival to the Street & Smith's The Shadow and Standard Magazine's The Phantom Detective, which also featured crime-fighting heroes. The novels in the first two issues were written by R. T. M. Scott; thereafter every lead novel was credited to "Grant Stockbridge", a house name. Norvell Page, a prolific pulp author, wrote most of these; almost all the rest were written by Emile Tepperman and A. H. Bittner. The novel in the final issue was written by Prentice Winchell.
Dime Mystery Magazine was an American pulp magazine published from 1932 to 1950 by Popular Publications. Titled Dime Mystery Book Magazine during its first nine months, it contained ordinary mystery stories, including a full-length novel in each issue, but it was competing with Detective Novels Magazine and Detective Classics, two established magazines from a rival publisher, and failed to sell well. With the October 1933 issue the editorial policy changed, and it began publishing horror stories. Under the new policy, each story's protagonist had to struggle against something that appeared to be supernatural, but would eventually be revealed to have an everyday explanation. The new genre became known as "weird menace" fiction; the publisher, Harry Steeger, was inspired to create the new policy by the gory dramatizations he had seen at the Grand Guignol theater in Paris. Stories based on supernatural events were rare in Dime Mystery, but did occasionally appear.
The Western Raider was an American pulp magazine. The first issue was dated August/September 1938; it was followed by two more issues under that title, publishing Western fiction, and then was changed to a crime fiction pulp for two issues, titled The Octopus and The Scorpion. Both these two issues were named after a supervillain, rather than after a hero who fights crime, as was the case with most such magazines. Norvell Page wrote the lead novels for both the crime fiction issues; the second was rewritten by Ejler Jakobsson, one of the editors, to change the character from The Octopus to The Scorpion.
The Mysterious Wu Fang was a pulp magazine which published seven issues in 1935 and 1936. Sax Rohmer's Fu Manchu, an oriental villain, was a "yellow peril" stereotype, and Popular Publications wanted to take advantage of the public's interest. The author of all seven lead novels was Robert J. Hogan, who was simultaneously writing the novels for G-8 and His Battle Aces, producing 130,000 to 150,000 words per month; Hogan was told to not to rewrite, but to deliver his first drafts. The hero of the novels was a man named Val Kildare; other characters included a young assistant to Kildare, who was probably added to attract younger readers. The artist John Richard Flanagan, who had experience illustrating Fu Manchu, was hired, but in the opinion of pulp historian Robert Weinberg, "an imitation was an imitation, and the magazine did not sell well". There were short stories along with the lead novel in each issue, also with a "yellow peril" theme; the authors included Steve Fisher, Frank Gruber, O.B. Meyers, and Frank Beaston. The magazine was cancelled after seven issues in favor of a similar magazine with a different villain: Dr. Yen Sin. According to pulp historian Joseph Lewandowski, the decision to switch titles may have been because Wu Fang was too juvenile, and Dr. Yen Sin was supposed to be more mature.
Operator #5 was a pulp magazine published between 1934 and 1939.
Thrilling Mystery was an American pulp magazine published from 1935 to 1944. New York publisher Standard Magazines had a stable of magazines with the "Thrilling" prefix, including Thrilling Detective, Thrilling Love, and Thrilling Adventures, but in 1935, Popular Publications, a rival publisher, launched a weird menace pulp titled Thrilling Mysteries. Standard Magazines sued over the use of the word "Thrilling", and Popular conceded, settling out of court. Thrilling Mysteries was cancelled after a single issue, and in October 1935 Standard began Thrilling Mystery. Like Thrilling Mysteries this was a terror pulp, but it contained less sex and violence than most of the genre, and as a result, in the opinion of science fiction historian Mike Ashley, "the stories had greater originality, although they are not necessarily of better quality". Ashley singles out Carl Jacobi's "Satan's Kite", about a family cursed because of a theft from a temple in Borneo, as worthy of mention. There were two detective stories by Robert E. Howard, the creator of Conan. Other contributors included Fritz Leiber, Fredric Brown, Seabury Quinn, Robert Bloch, and Henry Kuttner. There was little science fiction in the magazine, but some fantasy: pulp historian Robert K. Jones cites Arthur J. Burks "Devils in the Dust" as "one of the most effective" stories, with "a mood as bleak as an arctic blizzard", and Ashley agrees, calling it "particularly powerful".
Eerie Stories was an American weird menace pulp magazine that published one issue in 1937. The publisher had failed with another weird menace pulp, Ace Mystery, the year before, and pulp historian Robert K. Jones comments that Eerie Stories was "even feebler". All twelve stories were written under house names; one, "Mate of the Beast" by Leon Dupont, was a reprint from Ace Mystery with a new title, and there may have been other reprints. In the opinion of pulp historian Michael L. Cook, the stories "really had no redeeming value and were even poor entertainment". The tagline was "Startling Adventures in Chilling Horror", but in Jones' opinion the stories fell short.
Eerie Mysteries was an American weird menace pulp magazine that published four issues in 1938 and 1939. This was Ace Magazines' third weird menace pulp, and it was no more successful than its predecessors, Ace Mystery and Eerie Stories. As with Eerie Stories, the contents were all pseudonymous, and some were reprints from Ace Mystery or Ten Detective Aces, another Ace Magazines title, where the original detective story had enough violence to be a suitable candidate. The magazine's tagline was "10 Complete Horror-Thrillers", and the reprints had their titles changed to suit the new magazine, but the new titles, such as "When It Rained Corpses" by Ralph Powers, or "Skull and Double Cross-Bones" by Eric Lennon, stressed sex less than earlier weird menace magazines had done, and pulp historian Peter Haining cites Eerie Mysteries as an example of a magazine attempting to cash in on a trend that was already starting to fade away. Haining adds that the contents were also tamer than usual: "descriptions of beautiful females being molested and tortured were notably fewer". All four covers were painted by Norman Saunders, and Haining suggests that some or all of the interior art was re-used from other Ace Magazines titles.
Captain Zero was an American pulp magazine that published three issues in 1949 and 1950. The lead novels, written by G.T. Fleming-Roberts, featured Lee Allyn, who had been the subject of an experiment with radiation, and as a result was invisible between midnight and dawn. Under the name Captain Zero, Allyn became a vigilante, fighting crime at night. Allyn had no other superpowers, and the novels were straightforward mysteries in Weinberg's opinion, though pulp historian Robert Sampson considers them to be "complex...[they] pound along with hair-raising incidents..full of twists and high suspense". Captain Zero was the last crime-fighter hero magazine to be launched in the pulp era, ending an era that had begun with The Shadow in 1931. There was room in the magazine for only one or two short stories along with the lead novel; these were all straight mystery stories, without the veneer of science fiction of the Captain Zero novels.
Battle Birds was an American air-war pulp magazine, published by Popular Publications. It was launched at the end of 1932, but did not sell well, and in 1934 the publisher turned it into an air-war hero pulp titled Dusty Ayres and His Battle Birds. Robert Sidney Bowen, an established pulp writer, provided the lead novel each month, and also wrote the short stories that filled out the issue. Bowen's stories were set in the future, with the United States menaced by an Asian empire called the Black Invaders. The change was not successful enough to be extended beyond the initial plan of a year, and Bowen wrote a novel in which, unusually for pulp fiction, Dusty Ayres finally defeated the invaders, to end the series. The magazine ceased publication with the July/August 1935 issue. It restarted in 1940, under the original title, Battle Birds, and lasted for another four years. All the cover art was painted by Frederick Blakeslee.
