Here's another beauty of a 1939 Western Story cover, this one painted by Richard Case. Again, the painting probably has nothing to do with Bennett Foster's Blackleg or any of the stories inside; it seems meant simply to grab the eye and be attractive in its own right. I've read a Foster serial in contemporary issues of Argosy and he seems to be a pretty good western writer. Pete Dawson, who wrote my next Vintage Paperback of the Week, has a short story in here, as do the familiar Harry F. Olmsted and the less familiar R. Edgar Moore, while Kenneth Gilbert wraps up a serial and Tom Road rounds out the lineup with a novelette. Here's hoping that pulp browsers weren't trampled in this cover's manner trying to find the issue on the newstand.
As we have noticed, both WESTERN STORY and WILD WEST WEEKLY started to use unusual cover scenes like this one. The Street & Smith art director must have instructed the artists to show different angles and scenes. The experiment lasted around a year or so and must not have increased circulation because they went back to the usual western covers. Western readers and fans love that formula and don't appear to like any deviation. They like shoot em up covers with maybe a girl in the scene.
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