Pulp Magazines

Heinlein Cover Art: Pulp Magazines

The pulp magazines of the 1930s and 1940s are a time machine to a colorful past-future of exuberance and, in some respects, innocence. This is the era of Percival Lowell’s canal-girded Mars and of a cloud-shrouded Venus of swamp and jungle, visited by streamlined rocket ships carrying strong-jawed spacemen and, occasionally, shapely spacewomen in semi-transparent costumes. Of course, Heinlein’s works, it should be noted, are never simple space opera or cowboys-and-Indians in space.

Back then, these magazines cost only a quarter. Nowadays, if you can get one for a hundred times that—if you even happen to stumble across one of these rare old babies in a shop somewhere—you’re doing pretty well. But when you pull such a periodical off the shelf, you are holding a piece of history...and smelling it, too, that soft, evocative scent of paper-fragile years now vanished. When the magazines below were published, after all, Heinlein was still at the beginning of his career, the outcome of the Second World War was by no means certain, and the first manned space shot was still a quarter-century away.

One interesting difference between these magazine covers and those of books, by the way, is that these are beautifully big. Even a small one, like the Imagination at the bottom of this page or some of the 1950s or 1960s magazines on my “Serializations” page are 7.5 x 5.5 inches, which is noticeably larger than a paperback. The Astounding Science-Fiction of the 1930s through mid-1942, however, are a beautiful 9.25 x 6.5 inches. And yet Unknown of late 1942, and the Astounding of mid-1942, are a staggering 11.25 x 8.5 inches. These can be, therefore, huge canvases for the SF art of a lifetime ago, and well worthy of our enjoyment and study.

“Life-Line,” Astounding Science-Fiction August 1939—Heinlein’s first published story

“Life-Line”— Cover art by Virgil Finlay

“Misfit,” Astounding Science-Fiction November 1939

“Misfit”—Cover art by Hubert Rogers

“Misfit”—Interior art by Wesso

“Requiem,” Astounding Science-Fiction January 1940

“Requiem”—Cover art by Schneeman

“Requiem”—Interior art by M. Isip (?)

“ ‘If This Goes On—’,” Astounding Science-Fiction February and March 1940

“ ‘If This Goes On—’ ” (1st installment of 2)—Cover art by Hubert Rogers

“ ‘If This Goes On—’ ” (1st installment of 2)—Interior art by Hubert Rogers

“ ‘If This Goes On—’ ” (2nd installment of 2)—Cover art by Gilmore

“ ‘If This Goes On—’ ” (2nd installment of 2)—Interior art by Hubert Rogers

“The Roads Must Roll,” Astounding Science-Fiction June 1940

“The Roads Must Roll”—Cover art by Hubert Rogers

“The Roads Must Roll”—Interior art by Schneeman

“Coventry,” Astounding Science-Fiction July 1940

“Coventry”—Cover art by Hubert Rogers

“Coventry”—Interior art by Orban

“Blowups Happen,” Astounding Science-Fiction September 1940

“Blowups Happen”—Cover art by Hubert Rogers

“Blowups Happen”—Interior art by Schneeman

“The Devil Makes the Law” / “Waldo,” Unknown September 1940

“Magic, Inc.”—Interior art by Edd Cartier

Sixth Column (as Anson MacDonald), Astounding Science-Fiction January, February, & March 1941

“Sixth Column” (1st installment of 3)—Cover art by Hubert Rogers

“Sixth Column” (1st installment of 3)—Interior art by Schneeman

“Sixth Column ”(1st installment of 3)—Interior art by Schneeman

“Sixth Column” (1st installment of 3)—Interior art by Schneeman

“Sixth Column” (2nd installment of 3)—Cover art by Hubert Rogers

“Sixth Column” (2nd installment of 3)—Interior art by Schneeman

“Sixth Column” (3rd installment of 3)—Cover art by Hubert Rogers

“Sixth Column” (3rd installment of 3)—Interior art by Schneeman

“Sixth Column”(3rd installment of 3) —Interior art by Schneeman

“Sixth Column” (3rd installment of 3)—Interior art by Schneeman

“ ‘—And He Built a Crooked House’,” Astounding Science-Fiction February 1941

“ ‘—And He Built a Crooked House’ ”—Cover art by Hubert Rogers

“ ‘—And He Built a Crooked House’ ”—Interior art by Schneeman

“Logic of Empire,” Astounding Science-Fiction March 1941

“Logic of Empire”—Cover art by Hubert Rogers

“Logic of Empire”—Interior art by Schneeman

“They,” Unknown April 1941

“They”—Interior art by Schneeman

“Universe,” Astounding Science-Fiction May 1941

“Universe”—Cover art by Hubert Rogers

“Universe”—Interior art by Hubert Rogers

“Solution Unsatisfactory,” Astounding Science-Fiction May 1941

“Solution Unsatisfactory”—Cover art by Hubert Rogers

“Solution Unsatisfactory”—Interior art by Kramer

Future History chart, Astounding Science-Fiction May 1941

“Future History” chart—Cover art by Hubert Rogers

Is Heinlein’s “Future History” chart a piece of art? Perhaps so. Here is its very first public appearance, from May 1941.

Note “ ‘—And He Built a Crooked House—’,” which disappears from later versions

Methuselah’s Children, Astounding Science-Fiction July, August and September 1941

“Methuselah’s Children” (1st installment of 3)—Cover art by Hubert Rogers

“Methuselah’s Children”(1st installment of 3) —Interior art by Hubert Rogers

“Methuselah’s Children” (1st installment of 3)—Interior art by Hubert Rogers

“Methuselah’s Children” (2nd installment of 3)—Cover art by Hubert Rogers

“Methuselah’s Children” (2nd installment of 3)—Interior art by Hubert Rogers

“Methuselah’s Children” (3rd installment of 3)—Cover art by Hubert Rogers

“Methuselah’s Children” (3rd installment of 3)—Interior art by Hubert Rogers

“ ‘—We Also Walk Dogs’,” Astounding Science-Fiction July 1941

“ ‘—We Also Walk Dogs’ ”—Cover art by Hubert Rogers

“ ‘—We Also Walk Dogs’ ”—Interior art by Kolliker

“Elsewhere” / “Elsewhen,” Astounding Science-Fiction September 1941

“Elsewhere”/ “Elsewhen”—Cover art by Hubert Rogers

“Elsewhere”/ “Elsewhen”—Interior art by Kramer

“By His Bootstraps” (as Anson MacDonald), Astounding Science-Fiction October 1941

“By His Bootstraps”—Cover art by Hubert Rogers

“By His Bootstraps”—Interior art by Hubert Rogers

“Goldfish Bowl” (as Anson MacDonald), Astounding Science-Fiction March 1942

“Goldfish Bowl”—Cover art by Hubert Rogers

“Goldfish Bowl”—Interior art by Kramer

Beyond This Horizon (as Anson MacDonald), Astounding Science-Fiction April and May 1942

“Beyond This Horizon” (1st installment of 2)—Cover art by Hubert Rogers

“Beyond This Horizon” (1st installment of 2)—Interior art by Hubert Rogers

“Beyond This Horizon” (2nd installment of 2)—Cover art by Hubert Rogers

“Beyond This Horizon” (2nd installment of 2)—Interior art by Hubert Rogers

“Waldo” (as Anson MacDonald), Astounding Science-Fiction October 1942

“Waldo”—Cover art by Hubert Rogers

“Waldo”—Interior art by Orban

The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag (as John Riverside), Unknown Worlds October 1942

“The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag”—Interior art by Kramer

“The Green Hills of Earth,” Saturday Evening Post 8 February 1947

The Saturday Evening Post definitely is not a pulp magazine—it’s actually a “slick,” and in fact one of most high-end and respectable of the era. However, neither does a single story in one issue either a serial or a novel make, so rather than bend the definition of the “Serialized Novels” page, instead I’ll bend the definition here. Oh, and the two-page interior spread is so big that it won’t fit except kicked 90 degrees to the vertical, but...here that is, too.