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And now, for a different view of mad science. It is perhaps significant that all three of the examples that struck me as salient had the word “corpse” somewhere on the cover. November 1939 features what might be a simple electrocution, although given the halo of energy that surrounds our hapless heroine, it might also be an irradiation with strange consequences.
While May 1939 features an x-ray of the innards of what does not look like a consenting patient, a woman who swallowed something someone else very much wants. I’m afraid that Brother Yellow-Robes there does not exactly look like a licensed surgeon.
But for full-on mad science, we should turn to February 1940. This cover painting is the full-on classic, with something going on that bears no resemblance to any known legitimate scientific process, a leering, obviously nuts experimenter working some sort of control a naked victim whose nudity makes it ever-so-barely into the category of “implied,” who is also in a tube or sorts, of course, and a stack of what appear to be previous (failed?) experimental subjects in the background. (Note: see Row of pretty corpses post, coming in a few days.)
Whew! I gotta go cool off.
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That object at the top of the upper-right panel is a submarine. Who among you knows its name and provenance?
With mad science we get into some tropes I really love. There’s a lot of illustration here, so I’m going to divide it across two categories: protagonists and victims. The protagonists are female characters who are someone participants in, or in opposition to, some mad science venture or another. Let’s begin with some protagonists, like this very late-period cover, from May 1945.
Unfortunately I don’t have much information about this cover, but a read suggests that while there’s fear here, our cover girl might be being given a warning that she might be able to do something about, rather than a premonition of unavoidable fate.
More spooky perhaps is from way back at the start of Dime Mystery’s publication history, this cover from March 1934 (issue ISFDB entry here.
Our heroine is getting an injection from a shady character, but at the same time this doesn’t read like a coercive situation. She’s not bound or held at gunpoint; rather, she’s looking in a mirror with what looks to me like a hopeful expression. Does the mystery shot convey beauty? Restore youth? To be sure, if this young woman knew what sort magazine her story was in, she might not be quite hopeful, but still, this illustration is a long way from the norm for the shudder pulps.
In at least one instance in Dime Mystery’s publication history, again fairly late (September 1942), we have a heroine who goes to full-on gun-wielding protagonism.
I don’t know the details of the story, but it sure looks like Dr. Mad here is about to get his ass kicked — or perhaps his brain punted.
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As it is the path of nature for us to return to the ashes and dust whence we came, there’s always been something somewhat uncanny about the embalmed and thus non-decaying corpse. There should be no surprise, then, in seeing embalming taken up as a horror theme, creepy in itself and perhaps also something to throw in a bit of a necrophile or A.S.F.R. kink. The March 1936 cover painting by Tom Lovell and the story it illustrates goes to this directly.
Interior art for the same story:
The curators of Pulp Covers have generously made the entire issue available for download.
At least Miss March 1936 has the appearance of being decently dead before being embalmed. I’m not so sure about the girl on November 1935 cover (issue ISFDB entry here).
While featured girl on May 1940 appears to be very much alive and putting up an active, if not exactly effective, resistance. Note that this cover might also be an example of the mummification trope, which I shall be covering a few posts from this one.
But perhaps the best or most shocking example (depending on your point of view) of the trope (as well as also the coffin stuffer trope) might be the November 1933 cover (issue ISFDB entry here), where the artist has managed, aside from some serious implied nudity, to get a look of real terror on the victim’s face.
And two-fisted hero/rescuer in sight, alas. Just the cold full moon looking on.
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More horrible burning, but in this version of the meme, our pretty woman is in the process or on the brink of being put in the flames. One might be lowered into the flames by cultists, as in this April 1935 cover by Walter M. Baumhofer… (issue ISFDB entry here)
…tossed into what appears to be a flaming grave (?) on this unattributed November 1934 cover… (issue ISFDB entry here.)
…or hurled into a volcano while your would be rescuer/hero guy apparently gets distracted by a piece of hardware as on this September 1934 cover (issue ISFDB entry here.)
In some instances, the villain might even enter the flames with you, albeit hardly on equal terms. This villain is managing to carry his blonde victim over a brick furnace threshold and shoot the hero at the same time, all the while wearing what looks like a really bulky fireproof suit. The cover is from July 1939 and lacks an ISFDB entry.
Serious points for dexterity, if not for ethics.
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Fire is a fearsome thing when you’re in it or might be, and so unsurprisingly there are a lot of Dime Mystery Magazine covers showing pretty women facing the hideous prospect of being burned alive. Indeed, there are so many that I had to break the meme into two separate posts. For want of a better concept, I’ve divided them into stationary and moving examples. Stationary means being fixed in a place and having the fire being brought to one, like being burned at the stake. An example of moving would be being about to be hurled into a volcano as a human sacrifice. So stationary first, beginning with this example from August 1936, painted by Tom Lovell.
It look like our hero is willing to take on some serious hurt in hopes of rescuing this poor girl, and Mr. Nero is amused. A similar risk is posed on the unattributed July 1937 cover.
1937 must have been a big year for setting women on fire at Dime Mystery, because the December cover, which is full of peril, showing a hero not only willing to risk being burned, but also apparently being shot by an assailant behind a picture.
I don’t know who painted that cover, but there’s an interesting art-historical detail if you look at the faces of the women here, you notice that instead of being filled with panic, they seem to be calm and have their eyes cast upward, as if this is a painting of Christian martyrs. As such, this pulp painting participates in an unusually deep artistic tradition!
Finally, there’s some real crazy going on in this meme from time to time. Take, for example, October 1935, painted by Walter M. Baumhofer.
“May you burn. You and the horse you rode in on.”
