The February 1934 issue of Strange Detective contained two Howard yarns.

Previous installments:
Pulp Collecting and REH, Part 1
Pulp Collecting and REH, Part 2
Pulp Collecting and REH, Part 3
Pulp Collecting and REH, Part 4

The early years of the Great Depression were not kind to the pulp industry. Several titles that had been steady markets for Howard were cancelled in 1932 and 1933. The publisher Fiction House had gone out of business taking with them two titles that had been regularly publishing Howard’s boxing yarns, Fight Stories and Action Stories. Strange Tales and Magic Carpet, two other venues for Howard also folded during this period. While Weird Tales continued to publish Howard’s work, their payments were often sporadic and late.

Howard’s response to this situation was to branch out into new genres, looking for unexplored markets in which to sell his yarns. hard-boiled detective fiction had always been a popular genre for the pulps and Howard began to try his hand at it in 1933, often mixing in the weird or supernatural elements with which he was so familiar.

His first published detective yarn, “Black Talons,” appeared in the December 1933 issue of Strange Detective Stories. This was followed by the introduction of Howard’s recurring character Steve Harrison in “Fangs of Gold” published in the February 1934 issue of the same title. That same issue contained a second Steve Harrison story, “The Tomb’s Secret,” but since it appeared in the same issue as “Fangs of Gold” the name of the main character was changed to ‘Brock Rollins’ and Howard used his pseudonym Patrick Ervin. Both Strange Detective issues are very scarce and quite pricey. The December 1933 issue guides at $300 in Very Good and the February 1934 issue guides for $200.

Howard sold another Steve Harrison yarn, “Names in the Black Book,” to Super-Detective Stories and it ran in the May 1934 issue. This issue is a little less scarce than the Strange Detective issues and it is listed at $175 in Very Good. Howard’s experiment with detective fiction was ultimately short-lived, however. Steve Harrison would not appear again until “Graveyard Rats” was published in the February 1936 issue of Thrilling Mystery. This was followed by “Black Wind Blowing” in the June 1936 issue. These two issues are listed at $150 in the guide.

February 1936 issue of Thrilling Mystery featuring "Graveyard Rats."

The summer of 1934 saw the debut of a new boxing pulp, Jack Dempsey’s Fight Magazine. The title would only last for three issues, but Howard stories (featuring Steve Costigan) would appear in all of them. The first issue in May featured “The Sluggers’s Game” and guides for $150 in Very Good. The June and August issues contain the stories “General Ironfist” and “Sluggers of the Beach” respectively and guide for $125 in Very Good. These would be the last of Howard’s boxing stories to see print for some time, until a non-Costigan boxing yarn, “Iron-Jaw,” was published in the April 1936 issue of Dime Sports Magazine; it lists for $100 in the guide.

Early 1934 also saw the rebirth of Fiction House and its premier title Action Stories (now published every other month). Previously Action Stories had been one of Howard’s main venues for his boxing yarns; now it became a venue for a new genre – the humorous western – and a new character who would prove to be one of his most successful – Breckinridge Elkins. Elkins would star in eighteen yarns published in Action Stories over the next three years. For more detailed information on individual stories see the HowardWorks site.

The first published appearance of Breckinridge Elkins was in “Mountain Man” in the March/April issue of Action Stories. Elkins yarns would continue to see print in every consecutive issue of Action Stories up until October 1936. Elkins’ final appearance in Action Stories was in the January 1937. The 1934 and 1935 issues all guide for $150 in Very Good, except for October 1934 – that issue, containing “A Gent from Bear Creek,” is listed at $175. The remaining issues all guide for $125. One Elkins yarn, “The Curly Wolf of Sawtooth,” appeared outside of Action Stories in the September 1936 issue of Star Western. That issue guides for $100.

June 1934 issue of Jack Dempsey's Fight Magazine featuring the Steve Costigan yarn "General Ironfist."

The popularity of Breckinridge Elkins encouraged Howard to create two similar characters, Pike Bearfield and Buckner J. Grimes, for other publishers. Buckner Grimes debuted in the June 1936 issue of Cowboy Stories in “Man-Eating Jeopard” and appeared again in the July 1937 issue in “Knife-River Prodigal” – both issues guide for $125 in Very Good. Pike Bearfield was first publised posthumously in three October 1936 issues of Argosy, in the stories “A Gent from the Pecos,” “Gents on the Lynch,” and “The Riot at Bucksnort.” As with most issues of Argosy, these are fairly common. The first of these, the October 5 issue, also contains stories by Edgar Rice Burroughs and L. Ron Hubbard and guides for $40 in Very Good. The other two issues, October 17 and October 31, guide for $35.

Beyond Breckinridge Elkins and his brethren, Howard had several other western yarns published. Argosy published the weird western “The Dead Remember” in the August 15 1936 issue and “Vulture’s Sanctuary” in the November 28, 1936 issue. The first guides for $40 and the second for $35. “The Vultures of Whapeton” was published in the December 1936 issue of Smashing Novels Magazine – somewhat scarce, it guides for $150 in Very Good. Another western story that should be mentioned is “Boot Hill Payoff” in the October 1935 issue of Western Aces. This was an unfinished story by Chandler Whipple (writing as R. E. Allen) that Howard completed and was then listed as co-author. This issue guides at $85 in Very Good.

Another new genre with which Howard found success was the Oriental adventure story in the tradition of Talbot Mundy and Harold Lamb. In 1934 Howard resurrected a character he had originally created as a child, Francis Xavier Gordon – El Borak. El Borak was a sort of fictional T. E. Lawrence, a Texan gunfighter who had “gone native” in the mountains of Afghanistan. He debuted in “The Daughter of Erlik-Khan” in the December 1934 issue of Top-Notch. This was soon followed by “Hawk of the Hills” in the June 1935 issue and “Blood of the Gods” in the July 1935 issue. All of these are listed in the guide at $150 in Very Good.

December 1936 issue of Smashing Novels Magazine with Howard's western tale "The Vultures of Whapeton."

El Borak would also make a couple of appearances outside of Top-Notch. “Country of the Knife,” appeared in the August 1936 issue of Complete Stories – it guides for $100. “Son of the White Wolf” appeared in the December 1936 issue of Thrilling Adventures – it lists for $150.

Kirby O’Donnell, a character similar to El Borak, actually debuted before his better-known counterpart. He appeared in the story “Swords of Shahrazar” in the October 1934 issue of Top-Notch. O’Donnell also appeared in the January 1935 issue of Thrilling Adventures in the yarn “The Treasures of Tartary.” Both of these issues guide at $150 in Very Good.

One last niche market that Howard delved into before his death, was the wonderfully sordid world of the “Spicies.” If the lurid covers that graced some of the “weird menace” pulps for which Howard wrote were considered distasteful by the good, church-going folk of Cross Plains, the Spicy pulps and their content would no-doubt have been seen as outright pornography. The Spicies’ main gimmick was to inject a healthy dose of sex and (often crude) eroticism into the standard pulp genre fare such as adventure, detective, and western. The covers would usually depict a women being menaced and having her clothes ripped off by an assailant. The interior illustrations usually contained nudity, though some issues were also published with censored illustrations so that the magazine could be sold in jurisdictions where pornography was illegal. These “censored” versions are usually denoted by a “star” on the cover.

Howard had five stories published by Spicy Adventure, all of them written under the pseudonym Sam Walser and four of them featuring the recurring character Wild Bill Clanton. These stories appeared in the April, June, September, and November 1936 issues and the January 1937 issue. The April story, “She Devil,” and the September story, “The Dragon of Kao Tsu,” both made the cover. All of these issues guide for $250 in Very Good; however, it should be noted that all of the Spicy titles are in great demand in all grades and often sell for more than guide, especially in better condition.

Howard's story "The Dragon of Kao Tsu" was published in the September 1936 issue of Spicy Adventure under the pseudonym Sam Walser.

After Howard’s death in June 1936, his yarns continued to see print in various outlets. As noted above, some of the magazines such as Action Stories, Argosy, and Spicy Adventure had a backlog of Howard stories that they would publish over the following months, even into 1937. Otis Adelbert Kline, Howard’s literary agent, continued in his position and worked to get unpublished yarns into print.

Golden Fleece, a pulp specializing in historical adventure, published a pirate yarn, “Black Vulmea’s Vengence,” in the November 1938 issue and the crusader story, “The Gates of Empire,” in the January 1939 issue. Both guide for $75 in Very Good. The poem “Always Comes Evening” was published in the February 1941 issue of Stirring Science Stories; it lists for $45.

Some of Howard’s published stories were also reprinted in the years following his death. From 1937 to 1942 Fight Stories reprinted fourteen Steve Costigan yarns under new titles (see HowardWorks for more detailed information). All of these reprint issues guide for $35-40. The September, October, and November 1942 issues of Spicy Adventure each contain a Wild Bill Clanton reprint, re-titled and under new pseudonyms. These all guide at $175. Max Brand’s Western Magazine reprinted “A Gent from the Pecos” (retitled “Shave That Hawg!”) and “Vulture’s Sanctuary” in its January and June 1950 issues; both guide at $7.50.

In what would later become a disturbing trend with Howard’s work, an unpublished Buckner J. Grimes yarn, “Ring-Tailed Tornado,” was rewritten as a Breckinridge Elkins story, “Texas John Alden,” and published in the May 1944 issue of Masked Rider Western; it guides for $50. The story would be reprinted in the Fall 1950 issue of Hopalong Cassidy’s Western Magazine and the 1952 Top Western Fiction Annual. The Hopalong Cassidy issue is somewhat expensive, listed at $100 in the guide, because it contains an original Louis L’Amour story. The Top Western Fiction Annual, on the other hand guides for $5.

By the late 1940’s and early 1950’s, the standard pulp magazine format had begun to die out, replaced by the digest-sized magazine and the paperback book. Howard would continue to be published and reprinted in these new formats and indeed would thrive in the latter. But it was in the pulps that Two-Gun Bob made his mark and these cheap, disposable, fragile magazines provide an exciting and richly rewarding territory to be explored by the diligent and persevering Howard collector.