Artwork of the Day: Real Detective (by Charles Wood)

Posted on July 6, 2022 by Dazzling Erin

by Charles Wood

The roses are a nice touch.

Artwork of the Day: Gold (by Charles Wood)

Posted on February 28, 2021 by Dazzling Erin

by Charles Wood

Unless this is a reprint, this is from 1931. Gold was written by Clarence Budington Kelland, who was a very popular writer of the time. His most popular novel was Mr. Deeds Goes To Town, which has been filmed at least twice. Gold was a novel about international finance. It told the story of Anneke Van Horn, who knew how to make money but not how to land a man and have the family that she desired. Remember, it was written in 1931.

The artwork was done by Charles Wood, who also did a lot of covers for western pulp magazines. The red dress is exquisite and worth however much gold it cost.

The Covers of Real Detective

Posted on September 2, 2020 by Dazzling Erin

The origins of Real Detective are obscure, as is the case with many of the oldest pulp magazines. It’s believed that it started in 1922 as a magazine called Detective Tales and it was an all-fiction magazine. However, when the publisher ran into financial trouble two years later, Detective Tales was sold to a new publisher who started to mix true crime with the short fiction. The name of the magazine was changed to Real Detective Tales and Mystery Stories, which was certainly a mouthful.

Then, 1931, the name of the magazine was changed again, this time to just Real Detective. The magazine’s format was now exclusively true crime and salacious scandal. The new format proved popular enough that Real Detective ran until 1985. Below are a few covers from the early days of Real Detective. (Around 1954, Real Detective went from hiring illustrators to draw their covers to hiring photographers to take pictures of distressed-looking models.) Where known, the artist has been credited.

by Alex Redmond

by Charles Wood

by Earle Bergey

Unknown Artist

Celebrate National Weatherperson’s Day With These “Stormy” Covers

Posted on February 5, 2018 by Dazzling Erin

Happy National Weatherperson’s Day! We depend on these brave souls to help us survive the storms of life. As the classic pulp covers below show, storms come in many different shapes and sizes: