Pulp magazines have influenced writers, artists, film directors, software developers, and countless others over the years. Our “PulpFest History” articles focus on the rough-paper writers, editors, publishers, and artists who have inspired and continue to inspire the creators of the world’s popular culture.
One hundred years ago, on November 9, 1921, Stanley Albert Drake was born in Brooklyn, New York. It was about a month or two after Fiction House debuted its first pulp magazine, Action Stories. It was about ten years before Popular Publications introduced the first of its “Dime” pulps, Dime Detective Magazine.
Less than two decades after his birth, Drake would become a cover artist for both publishers, contributing the front cover art to the October 1938 issue of Popular’s Dime Mystery Magazine and to the Fall 1939 number of Fiction House’s Bull’s-Eye Detective. Drake was still a teenager.
Stan Drake’s professional art career began in 1937 when he sold some interior illustrations to a pulp magazine. Although he studied at New York’s Art Students League, Drake was largely self-taught. According to the artist:
“I was looking at pulp magazines in 1937 like Cowboy Stories, Love Stories, Breezy Stories, and they had these little black-and-white illustrations. . . . I had a theory that the men who made these beautiful-looking drawings knew what they were doing, and they looked good, so I used to take tracing paper and trace the lines. In this way, I thought I would get a feeling in my mind for how to draw people. After doing hundreds of tracings of heads, I tried it on my own, freehand. By doing this so much, I came to realize how heads were constructed.”
In 1939, while studying at the Art Students League, Drake began contributing interior story illustrations to Fiction House. He also painted covers for Action Stories, Bull’s-Eye Detective, Detective Book Magazine, North-West Romances, and the first six issues of Planet Stories.
Drake’s career as a freelance artist ground to a halt in 1941, following the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Enlisting in the Army Corps of Engineers, he became part of a camouflage unit, painting runways so they couldn’t be seen from the air.
Following his discharge from the service, Drake was hired as an artist by a small advertising agency, despite his lack of formal training. “I’ve always been able to draw, but not well. At that stage, boy, was I learning! I didn’t know anything about how to draw. I had this basic gut talent, but a professional I was not. I learned on the job, got a job in an advertising agency and I learned by looking at other guys’ stuff what I had better learn how to do.”
He also continued freelancing for the pulps doing both interiors and covers for Bluebook, Detective Tales, Dime Detective, Dime Mystery, Exciting Detective, FBI Detective, Fifteen Mystery Stories, Ten Detective Aces, 10-Story Detective, Western Ace, Western Trails, and other pulps.
In 1953, following the advice of his friend Bob Lubbers, Drake approached King Features Syndicate about drawing a newspaper comic strip. Together with writer Elliot Caplin, Drake created “The Heart of Juliet Jones,” a daily comic strip that eventually ran in over 600 newspapers. A Sunday strip began a year later. Drake continued on the strip until 1989.
In 1984, while still drawing “Juliet Jones,” Stan Drake agreed to join writer Dean Young on the classic King Features comic strip, “Blondie.” The artist continued working on the classic strip until his death in 1997. According to his obituary in The Independent, Drake’s artwork “helped maintain “Blondie” as the highest syndicated strip in the world, touching on 2,000 newspapers a day.”
Stan Drake was honored by the National Cartoonists Society three times with their Story Comic Strip Award and by Comic-Con International with their 1984 Inkpot Award.
As part of our celebration of the 90th anniversary of Popular Publications’ “Dime” line of pulp magazines and the centennial of Fiction House, we salute the memory of the talented and hard-working Stanley Albert Drake, one of the many creators who labored for these two great publishers of rough-paper magazines.
Stan Drake began freelancing for pulp magazines in 1937, contributing interior art as well as cover paintings for a range of publishers. His first known cover for Popular Publications appeared on the October 1938 DIME MYSTERY MAGAZINE. About a decade later, Drake contributed several more covers for DIME MYSTERY, including the May 1947 number.
In addition to contributing cover paintings for Fiction House’s ACTION STORIES, BULL’S-EYE DETECTIVE, DETECTIVE BOOK MAGAZINE, and NORTH-WEST ROMANCES, Stanley Albert Drake also painted the cover art for the first six issues of PLANET STORIES. Pictured here is the Winter 1939 number.
Stanley Albert Drake’s and Elliot Caplin’s “The Heart of Juliet Jones” premiered in newspapers on Monday, March 9, 1953. Pictured above is a promotional item, featuring artwork by the artist.
To learn more about the fascinating career of cartoonist and illustrator Stanley Albert Drake, we recommend “The Dean Young & Stan Drake Interview,” reproduced from CARTOONIST PROFILES #72, dated December 1986, and Shel Dorf’s interview with the artist, originally published in 1983 in COMICS INTERVIEW #26 and #27A.
Michael Chomko, the winner of the 2010 Munsey Award, is the marketing and programming director for PulpFest. A registered nurse, Mike sells books on a part-time basis, operating as Mike Chomko, Books. His specialty is pulp-related material.
