Joseph Doolin - pulp illo - "The Death-Heads March"

To the extent he's remembered these days, artist Joseph Doolin is probably best remembered for his comic book work, particularly for his work during the 1940's for Fiction House. Prior to turning to comics, however, Doolin had a long career in the pulps, beginning in 1925 with Weird Tales. Among his pulp work, he contributed many illustrations to Weird Tales and its sister publications, Oriental Stories and The Magic Carpet Magazine, and did a lot of work for various of the Clayton pulps.

His pulp originals are tough to come by. Here's one I picked up around 20 years ago, illustrating "The Death-Heads March" by Geoffrey Cave (under his Geoffrey Vace pseudonym), which appeared in the August 1931 issue of Oriental Stories. The only other Doolin pulp original I've seen is for another story in that same issue.

Cave was the brother of writer Hugh Cave, who went on to an extremely successful career as an author in the pulps, slicks and books. Although Geoff was the older brother, by the time Geoff sold his first story in 1931, Hugh had already sold 22 stories to the pulps. Geoff decided to use the last name Vace so as to distinguish himself more from his established brother. Geoff only wrote a few stories for the pulps before hanging up his typewriter, but Hugh kept the Geoffrey Vace name alive for years afterwards. occasionally publishing a story under that moniker, in case Geoff decided to come out of retirement. But after his initial burst of activity, Geoff left the writing game to Hugh.