From: "Phil Stephensen-Payne" Date: 17 June 2006 13:08:39 GMT+04:00 To: fictionmags@yahoogroups.com Subject: [fictionmags] Variant Spicies - a new can of worms Reply-To: fictionmags@yahoogroups.com Thanks to the intervention of chum Curt P., I have acquired a batch 
of PEAPS mailings from the early 1990s and will be 
indexing/describing these to the list in due course (i.e. some time 
in the next 20 years). Much of the material has been overtaken by 
events, but one article caught my eye as it related to my current 
main project (the Crime Fiction Index) and contained some 
information that was new to me.

Sadly it also opens a whole can of worms so I was hoping the chums 
might be able to help me out.

The article is "Starred and Unstarred", in three parts, by Glenn 
Lord, Dan Gobbett, Jerry Page & Jerry Burge. This article discusses 
the censorship that occurred in some issues of the SPICY pulps 
during the late 1930s.

I'm sure most chums are aware of this but, just in case not, the 
basic story is that, for a while around 1935-1937, each of the 
Trojan SPICY titles (ADVENTURE, DETECTIVE, MYSTERY & WESTERN) 
appeared in "starred" and "unstarred" versions. The "starred" 
versions are toned down / censored both in terms of the 
illustrations and of the text.

So far, so familiar, but Glenn Lord's part of the article revealed 
something I had not heard of before - that in some of the starred 
issues, stories were not only censored but were also, at times, 
presented in a different order (not too exciting) or even dropped 
completely and replaced by other stories!

There are therefore an indeterminate number of issues of these 
magazines which exist in two versions which actually have different 
contents (Glenn lists three issues of SPICY DETECTIVE and five of 
SPICY ADVENTURE with different contents and Page/Burge illustrate 
the ToCs from the two versions of one issue of SPICY DETECTIVE with 
the contents shuffled, but each suspects there are more issues as 
yet unrecorded).

Needless to say I am extremely interested in trying to pin this down 
(for DETECTIVE and MYSTERY at least) for the Crime Fiction Index, 
not least to sort out whether the issue lists I have are for the 
starred or unstarred versions (or a mixture of both). I've e-mailed 
Glenn to see what information he can supply but, meanwhile, I'd love 
to hear from any chums who have copies of any of these pulps (or 
information on the variations).

Regards,
Phil S-P

P.S. A variant of this has also been posted to PulpMags
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