Magazine Stand

Old Magazine Stands. Here’s another shot of a downtown magazine vender.

The Spider's Web

The Spider’s Web, a 15-chapter serial from Columbia in 1938. Based on the popular pulp magazine of The Spider from Popular Publications, it starred Warred Hull as Richard Wentworth/Blinky McQuade/The Spider, and Iris Meredith as Nita Van Sloan. Richard Fiske played Jackson, Kenneth Duncan played Ram Singh, and Donald Douglas played Jenkins. The Octopus, dressed in a white robe and hood so that even his gang didn’t recognize him, was after the power structure of the city; the utilities, construction, and transportation. To reach his goals he killed and tortured. Warren Hull was excellent as the warring Spider against the underworld, though I thought Kenneth Duncan was a poor choice for Ram Singh – or maybe it was just the writing that left him weak in the part. Still, an excellent old serial.

Indiana Street and State Theater

Indiana Street & The State Theater, from a Wichita Falls postcard, shared by Mark Beauchamp. What a great memory. A reason to save old postcards.

Golden Age Doc Savage

Here is the Golden Age Doc Savage comic book from 1943. Doc Savage started in the Street & Smith pulp magazines in 1933 as a prose adventure, and added to their comic book line around 1940. Doc Savage was revised in the Bantam paperback series in 1964, and all the prose stories were reprinted. A fanzine reprinted most, if not all, of the Doc Savage comic book stories beginning in the 1990s. Doc Savage has a long history of popularity.

The Ranch of Riddles

The Ranch of Riddles: Cowgirl Romance #12. I mean us cowboys even picked up these comic books when we were kids. Great Golden Age Comics.

Francis Reid

Another popular actress from Wichita Falls is Francis Reid, best known for her portrayal of Alice Horton on Days of Our Lives. She was born in Wichita Falls in December 1914.

Phyllis Coates

Phyllis Coates (born Gypsie Ann Evarts Stell) was born in Wichita Falls, Texas on January 15, 1927. She went to California to attend college, and was discovered by Hollywood. She appeared in several movies, along with a number of chapter films. She is probably best remembered as one of the actresses to portray Lois Lane in The Adventures of Superman on television. I remember watching her in Superman And The Mole Men at the State Theater in Wichita Falls in 1951. I have most of her serials, and every January watch one of them in celebration of her birthday, or enjoy Superman And The Mole Men again. Grab some popcorn, folks.