Pulp Redemption

From dime novels to museums, Western pulp art and illustration has reached its zenith. A.R. Mitchell drifted into the office of Cowboy Stories magazine in the late 1920s with a painting to show editor Harold Hersey. “Mr. Hersey, I’ve tried to paint the real cowboy,” Hersey recalled the artist saying, “not the movie variety.” The painting appeared on the magazine’s January 1927 cover, launching Mitchell’s career and inspiring Hersey to write of Mitchell in the issue’s “Editor