I had to laugh the first time I saw this photo.
Clearly the fellow was deeply engrossed in the January 1942 number of Amazing Stories.
What was he reading? It was a huge issue with 244 pages, so there was plenty of fiction to choose from.
Was it the cover story, “The Test Tube Girl,” by Frank Patton? Alfred Bester‘s “Life for Sale”? “Mystery of the Blue God,” by Harry Bates?
Or maybe Robert Moore Williams‘ “Planet of Doomed Me”? “Somerset, the Scientific Monkey,” by Donald Bern?
The photo (below) is the latest addition to our ever-growing Pulp Photos gallery. It’s our 56th different photograph from the pulp era featuring pulp magazines.
Whatever had his attention, he clearly wasn’t interested in being in the photo with the two women. (Were they his mother and sister? Or maybe his mother-in-law and wife?)
We may never know the story behind the photo, but we can still get a smile out of it.
He looks like he’s almost at the end of the magazine, maybe a few pages shy of the back cover.
Anybody out there got a copy (or reprint) handy that can take a look and report back to us?
Tex
(hoping someone with a copy reads this)