A complete, restored issue of Pulp Fiction from 1890 — all 16 pages of painted-cover fiction magazines that launched science fiction, horror, and hardboiled crime, free to page through at ComicBooks.com.

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A complete issue · 16 pages · 1890

Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 661

1890 · Free to read

Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 661 — page 2 of 16 — 2 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 661 — page 3 of 16 — 3 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 661 — page 4 of 16 — 4 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 661 — page 5 of 16 — 5 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 661 — page 6 of 16 — 6 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 661 — page 7 of 16 — 7 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 661 — page 8 of 16 — 8 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 661 — page 9 of 16 — 9 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 661 — page 10 of 16 — 10 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 661 — page 11 of 16 — 11 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 661 — page 12 of 16 — 12 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 661 — page 13 of 16 — 13 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 661 — page 14 of 16 — 14 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 661 — page 15 of 16 — 15 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 661 — page 16 of 16 — 16 / 16

About this issue

This issue of Beadle and Adams (March 25, 1890) contains "Banner Ben, the Wildfire of the Prairie: Old Kit Bandy's Deliverance" by Oll Coomes, a Western adventure serial. The narrative follows Old Compass, a gaunt, whip-skilled ranchero who delivers cattle to the isolated mining camp of Roaring Rocks in Southern Colorado. When Compass joins a poker game against the seemingly cordial stranger Thomas Shalon, he wins decisively. Shalon reveals himself as Captain Blood, the Mountain Outlaw, but Compass produces a derringer and identifies himself as Kit Bandy, a celebrated Mountain Detective. After a violent struggle involving Bandy's associate Ichabod Flea, Blood is subdued with a bottle and captured. A lynch mob gathers, but Blood offers Bandy crucial information about the "Hampton Crime and Conspiracy"—a case Bandy has long investigated—in exchange for protection.

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Each page has its own page — the cartoon, who’s in it, and what the satire means.