Pulpdom lost one of its few surviving pulp fictioneers recently. Charles Boeckman Jr., who wrote as Charles Beckman Jr., died Oct. 12, 2015, just a month shy of his 95th birthday.
Boeckman broke into the pulps in the mid-1940s and continued writing for them through the format’s demise. Among the pulps that he wrote for were DETECTIVE TALES, FIFTEEN WESTERN TALES, DIME MYSTERY MAGAZINE, DIME DETECTIVE MAGAZINE, STAR WESTERN, and others. Several of his stories were adapted for television in the 1950s and 1960s, including “I’ll Make the Arrest” (MANHUNT, January 1953) for NBC’s “Celebrity Playhouse.”
When he wasn’t writing, Boeckman toured with his jazz band as a clarinetist and saxophonist. He wrote COOL, HOT AND BLUE: A HISTORY OF JAZZ FOR YOUNG PEOPLE in the late 1960s. His autobiography, PULP JAZZ: THE CHARLES BOECKMAN STORY, which recounted his life as a jazzman and pulp writer, was published earlier this year by Bold Venture Press.
Through the efforts of his wife, Patti, Boeckman found new celebrity among pulp fans in the past decade. Bold Venture also published two collections of his pulp stories, while Pro Se Productions put out new works by Boeckman.
Patti Boeckman wrote the entry for her husband at The PulpWiki. There are interviews with Boeckman on David Cranmer’s blog The Education of a Pulp Writer, and in an episode of Texas Standard news program. His obituary appeared in the CORPUS CHRISTI CALLER-TIMES.
A lifelong Texan, Boeckman was born in Seguin on Nov. 9, 1920. He died in Corpus Christi at age 94.
(The photograph of Charles Boeckman Jr., by George Tuley, originally appeared in the CORPUS CHRISTI CALLER-TIMES.)
