For anyone who’s seen a number of G-8 and his Battle Aces covers, then you know Frederick Blakeslee was not as adept at rendering the human form as he was machinery. Trained as a draftsman and with his work at the Curtiss-Sperry Company, Blakeslee excelled in the minutia of areoplane design. And no where was this more evident than in the beautiful and dynamic covers he painted for Popular Publication’s air war anthology series: Battle Aces, Battle Birds and Dare-Devil Aces. The covers were never reflective of the stories within, but Blakeslee usually supplied a brief write-up of the events behind his monthly cover spectacular!

This time we have his twelve covers for the year of 1938 joining those already posted from 1932 through 1937 in our Dare-Devil Aces Cover Gallery! The July and November covers include a bonus of planes battling over a train yard–Blakeslee loved to paint trains as well, providing many covers for Popular’s Railroad Magazine.

Alden McWilliams’ They Had What it Takes was a series of illustrated tributes to the pioneer fliers of the early days of aviation that ran in Flying Aces from 1937 through 1940.

In the October 1938 issue, McWilliams rendered the air career of James H. “Jack” Knight, best known as an early pioneer of the US Air Mail. He signed on to the Air Mail service in 1919 often flying treacherous legs like the aptly titled “Hell Stretch” from Cleveland to New York over the Alleghenies. Flights like that prepared him to take part in the first night runs for that service in 1921. He eventually moved on from transporting the mail to transporting people with United Air Lines in 1927 and moved on to help out the war effort until he contracted malaria in South America while trying to find new ways of harvesting rubber and transporting it back to America and died in 1945.

• Download “They Had What It Takes – Part 21: Jack Knight” (October 1938, Flying Aces)

Alden McWilliams’ illustrated tributes to the pioneer fliers of the early days of aviation ran in Flying Aces from 1937 through 1940. The September 1938 installment covered the father of the autogyro—Juan de la Cierva. Born in Spain, his father wanted young Juan to go into politics, but his interests lied elsewhere. It was when he was trying to solve the problem of planes stalling, that he came up with the idea of the autogyro. Sadly, with his death at an early age, for all intents and purposes, the autogyro died with him being replaced by the helicopter.

• Download “They Had What It Takes – Part 20: Juan de la Cierva” (September 1938, Flying Aces)

Flying Aces ran Alden McWilliams’ illustrated tributes to the pioneer fliers of the early days of aviation from 1937 through 1940. This time McWilliams chronicles the life of Glenn H. Curtiss—the ace of plane makers! Like the Wright Brothers, Curtiss started out in bicycles, but went through motorcycles on his path to building planes. He is perhaps best known for the “Jenny” which the army used as a training plane during WWI. Curtiss was also a pioneer in sea plane development—here Curtiss tests a seaplane glider.

• Download “They Had What It Takes – Part 19: Glenn H. Curtiss” (August 1938, Flying Aces)

Age of Aces presents the eighteenth installment of Alden McWilliams’ illustrated tributes to the pioneer fliers of the early days of aviation. In the 16th part McWilliams chronicled the life of Capt. Edwin Musick, famed for piloting PanAm’s China Clipper. This week, McWilliams dotes on Glenn L. Martin, noted airplane designer and, in fact, designer of said China Clipper. Also an astute business man, he managed to guide his company to the forefront of the aviation business where it remains to this day as part of the Lockheed Martin Corporation.

• Download “They Had What It Takes – Part 18: Glenn L. Martin” (July 1938, Flying Aces)

It’s been a while, but we’re back with two of Alden McWilliams’ illustrated tributes to the pioneer fliers of the early days of aviation. McWilliams’ “They Had What it Takes” ran for several years in Flying Aces magazine in the thirties and these installments appeared in 1938. Part 16 appeared in the May issue and featured beloved early commercial aviator Capt. Edwin Musick, famed for piloting PanAm’s China Clipper! Following this in the June issue, McWilliams featured Sir Hubert Wilkins, the famed Australian Arctic Explorer. Here’s some newsreel footage of him and the plane he had just piloted over the North Pole in 1928 and thirty years later signing in on the game show What’s My Line as Mr X in 1958.

• Download “They Had What It Takes – Part 16: Capt. Edwin Musick” (May 1938, Flying Aces)
• Download “They Had What It Takes – Part 17: Sir Hubert Wilkins” (June 1938, Flying Aces)

In the late thirties Flying Aces ran Alden McWilliams’ monthly illustrated tribute to the pioneer fliers of the early days of aviation which was called “They Had What it Takes”. In the April 1938 issue they featured Major Alexander de Seversky, the Russian born aircraft designer who also invented a bomb sight and a mid-air refueling device.

• Download “They Had What It Takes – Part 15: Major Alexander de Seversky” April 1938, Flying Aces

This week we bring you Part 14 of Alden McWilliams’ illustrated tribute to the pioneer fliers of the early days of aviation. He called it “They Had What it Takes” and this installment appeared in the March 1938 Flying Aces. It features the immortal Eddie Rickenbacker, America’s “Ace of Aces”.

• Download “They Had What It Takes – Part 14: Eddie Rickenbacker” March 1938, Flying Aces

Alden McWilliams’ illustrated tribute to the pioneer fliers of the early days of aviation was called “They Had What it Takes”, and this week we bring you the 13th installment, which appeared in the February 1938 Flying Aces. It features Bernt Balchen, the Norwegian pilot known as the “Viking of the Skies”.

• Download “They Had What It Takes – Part 13: Bernt Balchen” February 1938, Flying Aces

The great thing about PulpFest, besides seeing all those gorgeous pulps in one place, is the people you meet. One such kindred spirit is Arlene Hilfer, an english professor at Hiram College in Ohio, who we first met at last year’s show. She had a keen interest in PulpFest 2009 (her first convention) having just taught a pulp class at her small college using Erin Smith’s Hard-Boiled and Otto Penzler’s The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps as the primary texts. Like a sponge, she soaked up everything the pulp collectors and publishers could throw at her in one Saturday afternoon — and that’s a lot. She listened to my breathless spiel about The Spider Vs. The Empire State and even ordered a copy. (We had sold out of it on Friday.) We heard from Arlene again after the show when she reported that her granddaughter’s boyfriend had scooped up her copy of Empire State, and she had to order another one. Love it!

We were back at PulpFest last weekend for the 2010 show, and so was Professor Hilfer. She reports that last year for her pulp class she added the infamous “Ku Klux Klan issue” of Black Mask to the syllabus, something that the Mecham brothers of Girasol Collectables had turned her on to at the convention. This fall, with Hiram suggesting the theme of “war” for the school year, she is planning to have her students read The Spider Vs. The Empire State as part of the class. Fantastic! Tom Krabacher, who wrote the introduction to the book was at the show too, and he, Arlene and I had a rousing discussion about The Spider, the Depression, and what she might do with her students this semester. Who knows, they may even have an assignment to contribute original content to FightTheEmpireState.com. Watch this space for developments!

In the late thirties Flying Aces ran Alden McWilliams’ monthly illustrated tribute to the pioneer fliers of the early days of aviation which was called “They Had What it Takes”. In the January 1938 issue they featured Dick Merrill. Considered the greatest airline pilot of his time, Merrill accomplished the first trans-Atlantic round trip when he flew to London to retrieve photographs of the Coronation.

Next week McWilliams looks at the career of Bernt Balchen, the Norwegian known as the “Viking of the Skies”.

• Download “They Had What It Takes – Part 12: Dick Merrill” January 1938, Flying Aces

Age of Aces is proud to announce the launch of FightTheEmpireState.com as an intriguing new promotional site for The Spider Vs. The Empire State.

What if our history was pulp history? This new site treats the central conflict of the Black Police Trilogy as if it were real, offering photographs and posters from the New York rebellion of 1938 to delight fans of the book and to hook non-fans into the crazy world of The Spider.

I’m something of a purist when it comes to the pulps, so the book I designed includes only what was in the magazines. I allowed myself to create my own cover, but otherwise it’s all Gould and Howitt visually. And yet as an artist there was so much more I was inspired to do with the world of this imaginative Norvell Page epic. That’s how the “movie poster” advertising image originally came about, which was similar to the cover in its composition, but didn’t fit visually with the book. But what about other “scenes” from the revolution? And shouldn’t the Black Police have a cool logo? You can now find these things at FightTheEmpireState.com.

We wanted to mark PulpFest 2010, the first anniversary of our  top-selling book, by giving something back to the fans who have made it a hit for us. Hopefully we can also capture the imagination of people not steeped in the pulps, and grow the audience for this remarkable story and for pulp fiction in general.

“From one end of the Allied line to the other, Hugh McQuillen was known as the Assassin. He had smashed his way to fame by refusing to believe that war was a game, for he fought to kill with all the cold hardness of a hurtling shell—and he was just as deadly. Many enemies he had made, and many men of his own squadron had defied him . . .”

William E. Barrett, better known for fare like The Left Hand of God and Lillies of The Field, cut his teeth on short stories in pulp fiction aviation and detective magazines. We had originally posted a few of these Iron Aces stories in our Age of Aces Presents section. They were so good we had to collect all nine Iron Ace stories and present them in one volume!

We will be debuting the hardboiled adventures of Hugh McQuillen at PulpFest this Friday. Stop by our table and meet the Age of Aces team and pick up a copy of The Iron Ace or any of our other titles at a special reduced PulpFest price. If you can’t make it, the book will be available to order through Amazon at the usual price.

This week we bring you Part 11 of Alden McWilliams’ illustrated tribute to the pioneer fliers of the early days of aviation. He called it “They Had What it Takes” and this installment appeared in the December 1937 Flying Aces. It features Richard E. Byrd, the conqueror of the North and South Poles.

We won’t have a new one for you next week as we will be in Columbus, Ohio for PulpFest. If you plan to be there stop by the Age of Aces table and say hello.

Download “They Had What It Takes – Part 11: Richard E. Byrd” December 1937, Flying Aces

This week we have more great Dare-Devil Aces covers by Frederick Blakeslee. Popular Publications published some dynamite aviation art on the cover of Dare-Devil Aces! Sadly, we don’t use more than a sliver of it for our books. But that’s a design choice — We’re not trying to keep anything from you. And now we’ve added two more years of great Blakeslee covers to our growing gallery––1936 and 1937!

The June and December covers of 1936 are probably the two most recognizable Dare-Devil Aces covers and we have featured both of them now on back covers of our books. Our very first publication, Steve Fisher’s Captain Babyface, featured the June cover on the back. Captain Babyface and Mr Death matched wits through ten of the twelve issues that year––their last scrap appearing in the November issue. William Hartley’s The Adventures of Molloy & McNamara started running in the July 1936 issue with the adventure we choose to use as the title for the volume, Satan’s Playmates, in the December issue allowing us to utilize it’s cover in the cover design of that book.

As 1936 gave way to 1937, Blakeslee’s covers move further away from depictions of planes in use during the late great hate and start to feature more contemporary planes in the frenetic melees depicted on the covers. Robert J. Hogan’s The Red Falcon was also printing it last stories in 1937 with the last Dare-Devil Aces Red Falcon story being published in the January 1938 issue. The June 1937 cover seemed to work best with the crimson cover of the Red Falcon’s fourth and final volume. This is the latest cover we’ve used, but fear not, this is not the last update to our covers gallery. There are more covers to come.

You can enjoy these as well as covers from 1932 through 1935 in our Dare-Devil Aces Cover Gallery!