Monsters! Brutes! Beasts! Babes! What more could you want in a magazine? When it came to the "spicy pulps", all this was delivered and more. The fleshy arm of what are collectively called "weird menace" pulps, the "spicy" titles cooked up a recipe of adventure, mystery, action, and a healthy dollop of sex. The lurid titles flourished on the newsstands for a good decade or so during the 1930's and 1940's. And, oh! The story titles! "Her Demon Lover", "Cross of Blood", "The Black Thing Walks", "The Head of Ahmed" -- need I go on?
Like any other pulp, the covers were designed for customers to fish quarters out of their pockets. SPICY MYSTERY STORIES was published by Culture (!) had some of the best from the likes of Norman Saunders and H.L. Ward. Writers included Hugh B. Cave, Arthur Leo Zagat, Robert Leslie Bellam, Henry Kuttner and Wyatt Blassingame. It ran from June 1935 until December 1942, then succumbed to censorship pressure and changed its name to the boring SPEED DETECTIVE.
Original cover art:
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| Harry L. Parkhurst |
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| Hugh Joseph Ward |
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| Hugh Joseph Ward |
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| Hugh Joseph Ward |
The interior illustrations were a little bolder with nude and semi-nude women, usually in various states of distress (i.e. bondage, torture). The three-issue series from Aircel Comics (who also published Peter Hsu's sexy QUADRANT series) called DIRTY PICTURES collects a number of these more-than-suggestive illos. Shown here is issue #3 from 1991.
Index of SPICY MYSTERY STORIES:
In 1990, Malibu Graphics published a collection of spicy mystery tales from MARVEL TALES and UNCANNY TALES. Oh! The titles!
SPICY HORROR STORIES
Edited by Tom Mason
John Wolley - Introduction: Scare-Devils Of The Red Circle
Russel Gray - Fresh Fiances For The Devil's Daughter (Marvel Tales, May 1940)
Donald Graham - Satan Lives For My Love (Uncanny Tales, May 1940)
Holden Sanford - Cult Of The Lusting Carcass (Uncanny Tales, May 1940)
Brent North - The Claw Will Come To Caress Me! (Uncanny Tales, May 1940)
Ray King - Fresh Blood For My Bride! (Uncanny Tales, May 1940)
John Wallace - Terror Is Cupid's Mate (Mystery Tales, May 1939)
Donald Graham - Chorines For Death's Ballet (Mystery Tales, May 1939)
Russell Gray - House Where Terror Lived (Uncanny Tales, May 1940)
And finally, here's an example of the type of tale that SPICY MYSTERY STORIES printed.
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