Beware The Black Mask

The Black MaskThere’s a feeling you get walking into a newsstand or a drugstore and looking at the magazine rack, and sadly, the feeling is disappearing.

It’s similar to looking at the departure board of a railroad station or the flight schedule of an airport. When you look at row after row of magazines, comic books, and newspapers, it’s almost impossible to keep a smile from crossing your face.

All the magazines ask the same question, but the answer changes all the time.

Where do you want to go today?

In 1920, drama critic George Jean Nathan and legendary critic and journalist H.L. Mencken were hungry, both idealistically and literally. Both men worked and edited Smart Set, a literary magazine that gave up-and-coming writers a chance to put their work in front of a large audience and be discovered.

Smart Set also operated at a staggering loss, and was a labor of love for both Nathan and Mencken. To keep their baby alive, they resorted to putting out sensational pulps such as Parisienne and Saucy Stories to generate enough money to keep Smart Set alive.

In 1920, they decided to go another way, and take some of the best young mystery writers of their day to create a hard-boiled pulp of their own.

The Black Mask

The Black Mask was first billed as “Five Magazines in One,” trying to cast its net far and wide and capture as big an audience as possible. It was filled with adventure, romance, and crime, and was, in all fairness, a less-than-spectacular magazine.

It was, however, the heyday of less-than-spectacular magazines, and Nathan and Mencken quickly made their initial investment back. They then sold the magazine for a tidy profit to the publishing house of Eltinge Warner and Eugene Crow for $12,500.

Under new ownership and the editorial control of George W. Sutton, The Black Mask became exclusively a crime magazine. Editorial control quickly passed to “Capt.” Joseph Shaw, who took an active hand in the development of the magazine, and the Black Mask took an exciting new direction.

Shaw wrote editorials regarding gun control and the ideals of justice. He is responsible for publishing what is called the first “hard-boiled” detective story, Three Gun Terry by John Daly. They also took on a stable of exciting, vibrant writers who would change the course of popular literature in America.

Names such as Raymond Chandler, Erle Stanley Gardner, and Dashiell Hammett all got their start with the Black Mask, and all lent their voices to the new American art form. By 1933, the magazine had grown in circulation from 60,000 to 103,000.

In 1936, however, Eltinge Warner and Eugene Crow decided to cut the rates of its writers, an action that forces Shaw to leave the magazine. Many of its high-profile writers decided to leave with him. Under Editor Fanny Ellsworth, new writers were signed, but the death knell had rung. The magazine continued along for fifteen years, finally ceasing publication in 1951.

The name The Black Mask saw light again in the 1980’s, but due to legal reasons it ceased to be published under that name. It currently can be found in exceptional book stores as reprints.

 

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