 = Flash Gordon Strange Adventure Magazine = 
 
 Flash Gordon Strange Adventure Magazine was a pulp magazine which was launched in December 1936 . It was published by Harold Hersey , and was an attempt to cash in on the growing comics boom , and the popularity of the Flash Gordon comic strip in particular . The magazine contained a novel about Flash Gordon and three unrelated stories ; there were also eight full @-@ page color illustrations . The quality of both the artwork and the fiction was low , and the magazine only saw a single issue . It is now extremely rare . 
 
 = = Publication history and contents = = 
 
 Although science fiction ( sf ) had been published before the 1920s , it did not begin to coalesce into a separately marketed genre until the appearance in 1926 of Amazing Stories , a pulp magazine published by Hugo Gernsback . After 1931 , when Miracle Science and Fantasy Stories was launched , no new science fiction magazines appeared for several years . In 1934 a science fiction comic strip following the adventures of superhero Flash Gordon appeared in newspapers and quickly became popular . In 1936 the strip spawned a movie serial in thirteen parts , also titled Flash Gordon . Late that year Harold Hersey , an experienced pulp magazine editor and publisher , decided to launch three new magazines based on comics . The first two were titled Dan Dunn Detective Magazine and Tailspin Tommy Air Adventure Magazine ; these were launched in September and October 1936 respectively . The third was Flash Gordon Strange Adventures Magazine , which saw a single issue , dated December 1936 ; it was copyrighted by both Hersey and King Features , the syndicate that owned the copyright to Flash Gordon . Dan Dunn and Tailspin Tommy produced one more issue each before Hersey closed down the venture . It is not known why only one issue of Flash Gordon Strange Adventure Magazine appeared ; poor sales figures from the other magazines may have been responsible , or Hersey may simply have run out of money , or possibly King Features , the owner of the copyright to Flash Gordon , only granted rights to Hersey for one issue , and withdrew from the venture after the first issue appeared . Sf historian Everett Bleiler notes that Hersey did not mention the venture in his autobiographical Pulpwood Editor , published a year later , and adds that " given Hersey 's usual attempts to glorify himself and to gild his failures , this silence suggests a fiasco larger than usual " . 
 The magazine contained a lead novel and three short stories . The novel , The Master of Mars , by James Edison Northford ( or Northfield ; the name is spelled one way on the contents page and the other way at the head of the story ) , has been described by Bleiler as " moronic " . Bleiler also comments that of three short stories , one is dated and another third @-@ rate . Two of the stories were by R.R. Winterbotham ; one , " The Saga of the Smokepot " , was published under his own name ; the other , " The Last War " , was published under the pseudonym " R.R. Botham " . The other story , " The Man Without a Brain " , is a collaboration between R.C. Vance ( or R.C. Vane ; as with Northford , the magazine is inconsistent in spelling the name ) and F.K. Young . 
 Hersey 's idea was to have a pulp magazine about comic strip characters ; he hoped that there would be sufficient overlap between pulp readers and comics fans to make the magazine successful . The presentation was like that of a typical pulp , but with eight full page color illustrations , all by Fred Meagher , who had previously illustrated Westerns . Bleiler describes the artwork as crude and " far inferior to the sometimes elegant work " of Alex Raymond , the creator of Flash Gordon . 
 The attempt to market pulp fiction to comics fans turned out to be the wrong approach : the comics field was on the verge of dramatic successes , but the crossover appeal for pulp magazines was not there . The magazine was not widely known at the time it was issued , and has since become extremely rare . 
 
 = = Bibliographic details = = 
 
 The publisher of Flash Gordon Strange Adventure Magazine was C.J.H. Publishing Co . , based in New York . The sole issue was numbered volume 1 , number 1 ; it was in large pulp format , with 96 pages and was priced at 10 cents . Harold Hersey was the president of C.J.H. and the editor of the magazine . A facsimile of the magazine was released as a book in 2005 . 
 
 