Heroes and Villains

For a brief period in the late spring of 1936 there were only two science-fiction magazines on the stalls, Amazing Stories and Astounding Stories, and Amazing had slipped to a bi-monthly schedule with its October 1935 issue. It was the lowest ebb the science-fiction magazine had reached since Gernsback had launched the companion Amazing Stories Quarterly in 1928, and it would never again be that low.

With the sale of Wonder Stories to Standard Magazines in hand, its May/June 1935 issue was dropped, and with it the first magazine appearances of William F. Temple and David A. Kyle. Dedicated fans may have missed the issue, though they would have picked up news of the sale through the fan press as it was reported in Fantasy Magazine.

There had almost been a new magazine. The Philadelphia-based Shade Publishing Company was planning a string of new magazines. It had established a New York office for a subsidiary company, Associated Authors, and was having moderate success with its crime magazines, Murder Mysteries (launched in October 1934) and True Gang Life (launched in November 1934). It planned to issue a weird fiction magazine entitled Strange Adventures in February 1935. This was not the company's first experience in this territory. In 1931 it had published a short-lived occult fantasy magazine, Mind Magic, which had attracted several sf writers including Ralph Milne Farley, Manly Wade Wellman and Joseph W. Skidmore. The magazine lasted for only six issues but Farley remained in touch with the publishers and encouraged them to reconsider the field. Farley brought Raymond A. Palmer on board and everything looked about to bloom in January 1935 when, overnight, Shade pulled the plug. The main reason was the departure of editor G.R. Bay, who had the main interest in science fiction and the bizarre, but the decision may also have been coloured by the sale of Wonder Stories and the shakiness of Amazing, which suggested that the field was not yet ready for a new magazine. Instead Shade's new editor, J. Bruce Donahoe, decided to explore the sleazier side of crime and issued Scarlet Adventuress in July 1935, followed by Scarlet Gang Stories.