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The American Boy - Youth’s Companion [v107 # 3, March 1933] ed. Griffith Ogden Ellis (Sprague Publications; Detroit, MI, 20¢, 52pp, 10½" x 14", cover by Orson Lowell) (NB: This issue says “Publication Office” is in Chicago, “Administrative Office” is in Detroit) [JB]

The American Boy [v108 # 2, February 1934] ed. Griffith Ogden Ellis (Sprague Publications; Detroit, MI, 20¢, 44pp, 10½" x 14", cover by Edgar Franklin Wittmack) [JB]

The American Boy [v108 # 5, May 1934] (The Sprague Publications, Inc., ed. Griffith Ogden Ellis, 20¢, 52pp, large slick, cover by William F. Soare) [STM]

The American Boy [v108 #10, October 1934] ed. Griffith Ogden Ellis (Sprague Publishing Co.; Detroit, MI, 10¢, 52pp, 10½" x 13½", cover by Edgar Franklin Wittmack) [JB]

The American Boy [v108 #12, December 1934] ed. Griffith Ogden Ellis (Sprague Publishing Co.; Detroit, MI, 10¢, 60pp, 10½" x 13½", cover by Lowell L. Balcom) [JB]

The American Boy [v109 # 3, March 1935] (Sprague Publications; Detroit, MI, 10¢, 44pp, 10½" x 13½")
          There is some ambiguity about the proper title of the magazine. On the cover it says YOUTH’S COMPANION [smaller type] combined with AMERICAN BOY [larger type]. However, the copyright/second class mailing notice at the front says THE AMERICAN BOY—YOUTH’S COMPANION. The contents page—actually, a contents box, taking up probably 20% or less of the last page of the magazine before the back cover, in the same type size and style as the magazine text—has the first variation at the head and lists the second in the editorial address.
          
          This is quite a handsome magazine. The cover, illustrating the story “Wolves,” is a fairly striking colored drawing (in my near-total ignorance I’d guess pastels and colored pencils, though the contents says “Cover Painting by Paul Bransom”) of several wolves, looking smarter than you’d like them to be against a stylized mountain-scape, colors mostly muted, but well suited to impress in this large size. The cover advertises “Wolves” in modest type, but places the “New Sea Serial,” “‘WIND IN THE RIGGING,’ by Howard Pease,” in much larger type. Inside, the illustrations are frequent, pretty competent, and partly in color for the two cover stories. There’s a reasonably large illustration on every page of the fiction contents through about page 27, and the non-fiction items are illustrated either with photographs or small drawings. Advertising is fairly profuse and includes both the small ads familiar from the pulps (but no trusses or Sex Knowledge) and larger display ads for the likes of Kellogg’s PEP Bran Flakes, Ford, and Corona (“Us authors are all for this silent Corona.”) The paper is slick but not glossy; I’m sure there’s a proper description for this but I don’t know it.
          
          The Howard Pease serial features seaman Tod Moran, about whom I was reading 20 years later in book form in the public library of Childersburg, Alabama; there was a whole series of books about his exploits. “Fitzsimmons’ Shift” is a boxing story: “Jerry Coiner, the best lightweight Dunbar had ever seen, decided he didn’t care to have a cream puff for a roommate!” “Wolves” is billed as “A Story of Cowboys and Bawling Cattle.”
          
           “Steve Merrill, Engineer,” it says here, is about an electrical engineer who is forced to turn detective, and fears discovering corruption in his own family. There’s a splendid illustration of a factory floor with a couple of working stiffs carrying something pretty heavy, and the caption (presumably a line from the story): “In the shop, the bolted-down presses crashed and smashed out the bedlam of their incessant war on steel.” I’m reminded of Brian Aldiss’s remark that the early Campbell-era ASTOUNDING presented “the fiction of industrial process.” Well, this looks like the real stuff.
          
           “Fresh Water Irish” is another nautical story, except it’s on the Great Lakes, Duluth to Thunder Bay. (“A troubled frown wrinkled Clyde Gallagher’s youthful forehead. His slender, erect body moved restlessly beside the after window of the Heekin’s pilot house as he watched the red iron ore slither down the chutes into the yawning hold.” More industrial process.)
          
           “Outbound to Jupiter” is not particularly good, at least as far as I’ve gotten in it; young squirt signs on to a ship to Jupiter, but that seems to be a frame for a long reminiscence by the wise old skipper about events on the Mercury run 20 years previously. The stories del Rey anthologized were much better. I had previously wondered why van Dresser didn’t publish much in the SF magazines (he had one story in AMAZING in 1930, and a couple of science articles in ASTOUNDING). Maybe he wasn’t that good that often. Or, more likely, AMERICAN BOY paid a lot more and liked his work just fine. Does anybody know anything about van Dresser? Did he write in other fields? Publish books? [JB]
          

The American Boy [v109 # 5, May 1935] ed. Griffith Ogden Ellis (Sprague Publishing Co.; Detroit, MI, 10¢, 56pp, 10½" x 13½", cover by Albin Henning) [JB]

The American Boy [v109 # 8, August 1935] ed. Griffith Ogden Ellis (The Sprague Publishing Company, Inc., 10¢, 44pp, large slick, cover by Orson Lowell) [STM]

The American Boy [v109 # 9, September 1935] ed. Griffith Ogden Ellis (The Sprague Publishing Company, Inc., 10¢, 44pp, large slick, cover by Paul Bransom) [STM]

The American Boy [v109 #10, October 1935] ed. Griffith Ogden Ellis (The Sprague Publishing Company, Inc., 10¢, 44pp, large slick, cover by Lee Brown) [MW]

The American Boy [v110 # 1, January 1936] ed. Griffith Ogden Ellis (Sprague Publications; Detroit, MI, 10¢, 52pp, 10½" x 13¾", cover by Edgar Franklin Wittmack) NB: Now the business and editorial offices are both listed as Detroit. [JB]

The American Boy [v110 # 2, February 1936] ed. Griffith Ogden Ellis (Sprague Publications; Detroit, MI, 10¢, 44pp, 10½" x 13¾", cover by Paul Branson) [JB]

The American Boy [v110 # 3, March 1936] ed. Griffith Ogden Ellis (Sprague Publications; Detroit, MI, 10¢, 44pp, 10½" x 13¾", cover by William Heaslip) [JB]

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