Above: Frank R. Paul painting the cover of 'The Family Circle' magazine, which had an article on him in August 1938 and included this picture.
The pulps gave us many popular characters by now famous authors such as Edgar Rice Burroughs, who wrote his first 'John Carter of Mars' story for All-Story magazine in 1911 and followed with his creation of 'Tarzan' for the same magazine a year later. Johnston McKulley created 'Zorro' for the All story Weekly in 1919. Philip Francis Nowlan published his first Buck Rogers story in 'Amazing Stories' March 1929 while Robert E. Howard became a famous author after creating short stories for 'Weird Tales' magazine featuring 'Conan the Barbarian' and 'Solomon Kane' in the 1930's.
Many illustrators working for these magazines created absolutely amazing interior artwork and covers that would become iconic. Frank R. Paul (1808-1963) is without a doubt, one of the first and most influential pulp artists. Born in Austria where he studied architecture, he continued his studies in Paris, London and New York, after immigrating to the United States in 1906. In 1913 he married Rudolpha Rigelsen, who was born in Belgium and had also immigrated to the States.They moved to New Jersey where Paul started working for the 'New Jersey Journal' and was discovered by Hugo Gernsback and became the primary artist on most of his publications.
With Paul as his main artist, Gernsback published the very first science fiction magazine 'Amazing Stories' in April 1926. He had been a pioneer in radio and television broadcasts who had already started two magazines earlier, 'Modern Electrics' (in 1908) and the 'Electrical Experimenter' (in 1913) which also had some science fiction stories (the latter was retitled 'Science and Invention' in 1920). In 1929 Gernsback met Martin Goodman, who worked at the magaxzine distribution company 'Eastern Distribution' and became his client. Goodman would also become a pulp publisher himself and ran the 'Western Supernovel magazine' in 1933. It was Goodman that would eventually found 'Timely Comics', publishing it's very first issue 'Marvel Comics' with Frank R. Paul as the cover artist.
Above: Paul's cover for Timely's very first comic which featured the very first stories of 'The Human Torch' and Prince Namor aka 'The Submariner'. After working under the 'Atlas Comics' label in the 1950's, Goodman changed the company's name after their very first comic book into 'Marvel Comics' in 1961. Below, Paul's artwork on the premier issue of Gernsback's 'Amazing Stories' in April 1926. Note the cover date on the issue has been changed from October to November 1939 making this the second printing, which sold 800.000 copies.
Below is Paul's cover for Amazing Stories February 1927, which published the first part of Edgar Rice Burroughs' story 'The Land that Time Forgot'. Prices for vintage pulp issues always skyrocket when ever a story by Burroughs appears in it. It also carried part three of H.G. Wells' 'The First men in the Moon' (written in 1901) about a journey to the Moon, which appears to be inhabited by a sophisticated extraterrestrial civilization of insect-like creatures called 'the Selenites'.
Below another one of Paul's covers, for 'Amazing Stories' August 1928, which published Philip Francis Nowlan's 'Armageddon 2419 A.D.', the very first story featuring Buck Rogers, one of the first science fiction heroes, who falls in s state of suspended animation for 492 years after being exposed to radioactive gas. He awakens in the year 2419 to learn that the Mongols have conquered the planet, wiping most of the US in several hours with disintegrator beams. Most surviving Americans live in the forests, preparing to take back their country and fight the enemy. Nowlan's stories were turned into the very first science fiction comic by the National Newspaper Syndicate and published as 'Buck Rogers in the 25th Century A.D' from January 7, 1929. These comic strips were created by Dick Calkins (1895-1962).
Below the original piece Paul created for 'Science Wonder Stories' September 1929 which was another magazine published by Gernsback, after he lost control of 'Amazing Stories' when his company 'Experimenter Publishing' went bankrupt in 1929. His initial two new magazines 'Air Wonder Stories' and 'Science Wonder Stories' merged in 1930 to form 'Wonder Stories' while his new 'Science Wonder Quarterly' magazine was renamed to 'Wonder Quarterly'.
Below: 'Science Wonder Stories' November 1929 shows Paul's flying scaucers long before they became popular in 1945 through the newspaper reports of a crashed UFO in Roswell, New Mexico and the sightings of high speed flying objects by Arnold Palmer in June 1947.
Above: Paul's covers for 'Wonder Stories' August 1931 and February 1933. Below Paul's cover artwork for 'Wonder Stories' November 1934, which published Philip Barshofsky's 'One Prehistoric Night'.
Below is his work for 'Wonder Stories' February 1935, which published Eando Binder's 'The Robot Alien's. The magazine was sold in 1936 to Beacon Publications and retitled 'Thrilling Wonder Stories', which was published until in 1955 the pulp magazine market collapsed, and it merged with their 'Startling Stories' and 'Fantastic Story' magazines for only three more issues.
Paul's cover for 'Science Fiction' magazine from June 1939. The magazine was published under many different names from March 1939 to 1943 and again between 1950 and 1960. It merged with 'Future Fiction' in October 1941 to form the 'Future Combined with Science Fiction' magazine. Inspired by author H.P. Lovecraft, editor Robert A. Lowdnes also wrote horror stories and also worked for 'Magazine of Horror', which launched several companion magazines such as 'Startling Mystery Stories', which became famous for publishing the first stories written by Stephen King.
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