Issue Review - Blue Book magazine, January 1936

Thought I’d begin this year with a review of Blue Book, another of my favorite magazines. It’s easy to overlook it, most of the covers are not spectacular. However, in the 1930s Blue Book was definitely better illustrated than Adventure magazine, and generally had high quality fiction spanning many genres – science fiction and humor included.

This issue is representative of the quality of the issues in 1930s overall. In the 1940s, Blue Book changed to a bigger size, and I hope to have a review of one of those issues later this year.

Blue Book - January 1936 - cover by Herbert Morton Stoops

The Blue Book Magazine [v62 #3, January 1936] ed. Donald Kennicott (The McCall Company, 15¢, 144pp, pulp, cover by Herbert Morton Stoops)

Berton E. Cook - Sailor, Teacher, Author

This article is dedicated to Matt Moring, the man behind the curtain at Altus Press, the publisher that is putting out a remarkable series of pulp reprints. Last time we met, we had talked about needing biographical information on this author. Here it is, Matt; only took around half a year.

Berton E. Cook (1889-1958) - Author, Sailor, Teacher
Photo c. 1948

The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the bear truth

Courtesy Howard Andrew Jones, the story of Voytek the bear soldier.

Greatest pulp stories ever (from the blog of author P. J. Thorndyke)

Thought you might enjoy this series of blog posts on greatest pulp stories ever (from the blog of author P. J. Thorndyke) :

Greatest Ever Pulp Stories #1 – The Call of Cthulhu
Greatest Ever Pulp Stories #2 – Tarzan of the Apes
Greatest Ever Pulp Stories #3 – Red Harvest
Greatest Ever Pulp Stories #4 – The People of the Black Circle
Greatest Ever Pulp Stories #5 – Twelve Peers
Greatest Ever Pulp Stories #6 – The Man of Bronze
Greatest Ever Pulp Stories #7 – Under the Moons of Mars
Greatest Ever Pulp Stories #8 – The Curse of Capistrano

What's your ranking of the top 3? Leave a note in the comments.

William J. Makin - Journalist, Author

[Another in the series of articles on authors appearing in Blue Book magazine. A much more comprehensive article on his life and the Red Wolf stories was written by Michael Ashley as the introduction to the collection of Red Wolf stories published by Black Dog Books, The Garden of TNT.

This article originally appeared in Blue Book magazine, November 1937.]

William J. Makin - Journalist, Author (1893-1944)