A versatile storyteller, Walter Baumhofer 19041986 was a dominant force in the pulp magazine market and a steady, inspired mainstay of the general interest magazines. Though the time he spent illustrating pulp magazines was relatively brief, Baumhofer had an enormous impact on the genre. The prolific artist recalled in a letter to Walt Reed in 1968, I doubt if anybody did as many pulp covers as I did in the 30s. I had a contract with Street & Smith for three or four years to do 50 covers a year. In addition to this, I was turning out Lord knows how many covers for Popular Publications, and illustrating for Liberty. In the artists files is a scrap of paper listing 521 pulp covers and it is likely that even this impressive number falls short of his actual output. Baumhofers first professional assignment came from Adventure magazine, where he was commissioned to do black andwhite interior illustrations. Another pulp artist, H. Winfield Scott, who had made quite a splash the previous year, advised him in 1926: Why fool around with those black and whites, why not try covers? They pay all of $75 Baumhofer took Scotts advice and soon sold his first cover to Clayton Publications for Danger Trail. From there, he proceeded to do covers for AceHigh, Dime Detective and other pulps, leading to his creation of Street & Smiths Doc Savage, for which he created all 43 covers between March 1933 and September 1936.

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