Love will be in the air at PulpFest 2021. Shadows too!
The summertime convention for fans of popular culture both old and new, PulpFest 2021 will celebrate the anniversaries of two trend-setting Street & Smith rough-paper magazines. Both pulps played significant roles in the evolution of genre fiction.
Although the Munsey magazine chain published the first specialized pulps — beginning with THE RAILROAD MAN’S MAGAZINE in 1906, followed by THE OCEAN in 1907 — both pulps were a mixture of fact and fiction. It would be up to Street & Smith to originate the specialized pulp-fiction magazine in the fall of 1915 when it introduced DETECTIVE STORY MAGAZINE to the reading public. In 1919 WESTERN STORY MAGAZINE was introduced, followed by LOVE STORY MAGAZINE in 1921.
Debuting as a quarterly in the spring of 1921, LOVE STORY assumed a twice-monthly schedule in August of the same year. It became a weekly about a year later, an arrangement it maintained until 1943.
LOVE STORY’s circulation rose throughout the 1920s until it hit 600,000 by decade’s end, a record that would never be broken by any other pulp magazine. Given the magazine’s success, almost every pulp publisher, at one point or another, would attempt to break into the “love pulp” field. Some attempts would prove successful, while others would disappear after a few issues. None would be able to top LOVE STORY MAGAZINE.
Street & Smith’s THE SHADOW, A DETECTIVE MAGAZINE was likewise the offspring of the specialization movement in the magazine fiction market. It was the first pulp largely devoted to a single character.
The Shadow was introduced to the public on July 31, 1930, as the mysterious narrator for THE DETECTIVE STORY HOUR, a CBS radio program sponsored by Street & Smith. After the company’s business manager Henry W. Ralston learned that newsstand customers were not asking for DETECTIVE STORY MAGAZINE, but “that Shadow magazine,” he decided to introduce a quarterly magazine to establish a trademark on the character.
Founded in 1855, Street & Smith achieved great success by publishing dime novels featuring continuing characters such as Buffalo Bill, Frank Merriwell, and more importantly, Nick Carter, a detective. Henry Ralston envisioned a modernized version of the dime-novel detective for “that Shadow magazine.” According to pulp historian, Will Murray, Ralston even provided his editorial staff with an unpublished Carter story, suggesting they “change Nick Carter to The Shadow.” Thankfully, Walter B. Gibson — the 33-year-old author who had accepted the writing assignment — had other ideas.
THE SHADOW, A DETECTIVE MAGAZINE debuted in early 1931. Thanks to Gibson, it was very successful. Renamed THE SHADOW MAGAZINE, it became a twice-monthly publication in just over a year. As LOVE STORY had done, the magazine spawned many imitators: THE PHANTOM DETECTIVE, THE SPIDER, SECRET AGENT “X,” and Street & Smith’s own DOC SAVAGE MAGAZINE and THE AVENGER.
At PulpFest 2021, we’ll celebrate the centennial of LOVE STORY MAGAZINE by looking at the magazine and the genre it inspired, and commemorate some of the top women pulp editors, including LOVE STORY chief Daisy Bacon. We’ll also salute the 90th anniversary of THE SHADOW MAGAZINE by exploring the artists who illustrated the pulp, people who inspired or were inspired by the character, and the creators who chronicled The Shadow’s storied career.
Expect all this and much more at PulpFest 2021 from August 19 – 22. We hope you’ll join us at next summer’s gathering for “Love in the Shadows,” exclusively at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Pittsburgh – Cranberry in Mars, Pennsylvania.
(PulpFest celebrates the pulps by drawing attention to the many ways these throwaway magazines have inspired writers, artists, film directors, game designers, and other creators over the years. So we wish we could tell you the name of the artist who painted the cover art for the January 11, 1936 number of LOVE STORY MAGAZINE. Unfortunately, no credit is given on the contents page, nor can a signature be readily discerned. We suspect it to be the work of Modest Stein, who painted over 100 covers for LOVE STORY between 1922 and early 1943.
We can, however, tell you the artist behind the cover painting for the first issue of THE SHADOW: A DETECTIVE MAGAZINE, dated April 1931. It’s Modest Stein. The cover is a reworking of the artist’s painting for the October 1, 1919 issue of THE THRILL BOOK. In early 1943, Stein would become the primary cover artist for THE SHADOW MAGAZINE, remaining in this capacity until the spring of 1946. He painted a total of forty covers for the Street & Smith magazine.)
