The Popular Magazine, April 20, 1917

A cover illustration announces serialized fiction by established pulp authors including Dane Coolidge, H. B. Somers, and Victor Appleton. *The Popular Magazine*, founded in 1903, epitomized the dime-pulp formula: wood-pulp paper, painted covers depicting action and adventure, and genre fiction—westerns, science fiction, detective stories—sold at newsstands for pocket change. The ornate typographic border frames content targeting working-class readers seeking rapid narrative and spectacle. By the 1920s and 1930s, pulp magazines had established the visual and narrative conventions that comic books would adopt and refine, creating an accessible medium for adventure storytelling that reached millions.