Startling Stories’s tube girl

How sharp my regret I don’t have a higher-quality version of this cover, given how it exhibits one of my favorite visual tropes. It was painted by Walter Popp for the August 1953 issue of Startling Stories. Interior art in the issue includes this piece by Ed Emshwiller, illustrating Theodore Sturgeon’s “The Wages of Synergy,” which is about as symbolically representative of Erotic Mad Science as any piece of pulp art I have yet found.

This issue of Startling Stories is available to read and download at the Internet Archive.

Hot Women’s Planetary Defense Corps

Fantastic Adventures published between 1939 and 1953 and rarely stinted on the sexy in its covers, as this cover by Walter Popp (1920-2002) shows, albeit perhaps a bit more subtly than many similar covers in its genre.

Interior art by Ed Emshwiller (1925-1990) illustrating Rog Phillips’s story “The Man who Lived Twice” contributes a definite Erotic Mad Science feel.

This issue of Fantastic Adventures is available to be read or downloaded at the Internet Archive.

Hat tip to Pulp Covers for bringing this issue to my attention.

Pulp Parade #311: Well, you should have gone out dressed properly

This is Thrilling Wonder Stories for Spring 1954, cover by Walter Popp, and boy does this one really push the boundaries of “if you’re pretty enough your space costume doesn’t need to make sense,” because it looks like our intrepid space heroine is out there in the vacuum wearing a red bathing suit and sandals. The ISFDB entry for this issue is here. I found this version of the cover at Pulp Covers.

Frrom the version of this issue preserve at the Internet Archive, here’s an interior illustration for Frank Belknap Long’s story “Manhunt” done by Ed Emshwiller:

You can donwload and read the entire issue at the Internet Archive.

Pulp Parade #293: The girl who loved death

This is Amazing Stories for September 1952, cover by Walter Popp. Its peculiar perspective notwithstanding, this cover is one of my all-time favorites not just of Amazing Stories but of pulp generally. When I first saw it I was really hoping for a Flatliners-like story about a girl who would die just to see what it was like, but that turned out not to be the case. The ISFDB entry for this issue is here. I found this version of the cover at Pulp Covers. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem to come up as available on my search of the Internet Archive.