THE PULP CALENDAR: March 4

You can hardly go wrong with a 1939 Western Story cover. This one by H. W. Scott succinctly symbolizes the cover story by Bennett Foster, whom I consider a pretty good western writer for this period. Better still is Luke Short, whose serial Bounty Guns, beginning this issue, I've read in novel form. It's very good, though the novel may be an enhanced form of the serial. Also inside is C. K. Shaw, short for Chloe Kathleen, one of the rare woman pulpsters outside the romance genre. It's said that authors who went by initials often were women (see also C. L. Moore), which is why I still wonder about Jimmie Cordie chronicler W. Wirt. In addition to these authors, Jackson Gregory wraps up a serial while John G. Pearsol and Kenneth Gilbert -- an animal story specialist, I believe -- complete the fiction roster. With Short and Foster in the lead this could be a better-than-average issue of the Street & Smith weekly.