Walter Gibson, who made his living for years churning out two Shadow novels a month for The Shadow pulp magazine, created Space Western. He wrote the story I am showing today. Here's hoping Gibson didn't get ripped off. (After all, “the Shadow knows!”) I believe that Charlton was a shoestring operation, and it looks to me that over the years they did most of their comic books on the cheap. That is my opinion, of course.
Stan Campbell did the artwork, and he did a good job mixing the old West scenarios with drawings of flying saucers, and in this story, creatures with bullet heads and long fangs. It is from Space Western Comics #41 (1952).
I think that Gibson engaged in price discrimination, not charging the same rates to all publishers, but getting as much as he could and selling so long as the job was expected to cover its marginal cost to him. Mind you that the cost calculations were of a man who seems to have written compulsively, and probably banged-out this story in a bit less time than it took me to read it and then to write this comment.
ReplyDeleteDaniel, I'm sure that pulp writers, working for a few cents a word, got fast and cranked it out. You would be correct in assuming Walter Gibson would lower his rate if he got a check, and to a pulp writer thinking the stories and writing them would be an easy process.
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