Although Black Mask had a principle focus on detective fiction after about 1926, mad science would from time to time find its way in.

The provenance of this cover from Pulp Covers was a little bit mysterious. It shows up as a “March” cover but not in the main Galactic Central index. A little sleuthing shows a similar, but not identical, cover, published in January 1944.

It turns out that the January cover is from the main U.S. edition of Black Mask, but that there was also a Canadian edition that published a similar cover in March (apparently also with similar content). Why the difference in covers? That’s a minor mystery I don’t have the answer to. The U.S. cover is a bit scarier; the cover character looks somewhat more nuts and what is more he is pointing his revolver straight at the viewer, instead of slightly up and to the viewer’s left. Perhaps these details needed to be censored to accommodate the sensibilities of Canadian authorities.