P.J. Monahan: Classic Pulp Artist
While nearly forgotten today, P.J. Monahan painted many classic pulp covers. As pulp scholar, Kevin Cook, once stated:
“Although he painted some beautiful covers for “Polaris — of the Snows” (All-Story Weekly, December 18, 1915) and “Land of the Shadow People” (All-Story Weekly, June 26, 1920), novels written by Charles B. Stilson, Monahan is best remembered today for the 13 cover paintings he did for novels written by Edgar Rice Burroughs from 1913-1923, and the one he did for Johnston McCulley’s first Zorro story, “The Curse of Capistrano” (All-Story Weekly, August 9, 1919).”
Patrick John Monahan (Sullivan) was born on this date in 1882. The son of Irish immigrants, he lost nearly his entire family to a flu epidemic. He was taken in and adopted by a neighbor family, the Monahans. Patrick showed early artistic promise and was painting covers for top-tier magazines by the time he was twenty-five. At that point, he counted luminaries like Jack London, Dana Gibson and Norman Rockwell among his friends. His life was already half over.
For tonight, it is Monahan’s pulp career that is the focus. Monahan’s first Edgar Rice Burroughs painting was for The All-Story, November 1913 which illustrated “A Man Without a Soul”. This was an early version of The Monster Men, a novel I still have a fondness for. The whip-wielding Bu-lan and Virginia Maxon are depicted on the cover. Virginia looks properly alluring. That was Monahan’s specialty and what got him his pulp gigs. During the second decade of the twentieth century, the ‘Monahan Girl’ was the standard on pulp covers, much like the ‘Gibson Girl’ was for upscale mags a decade before.
The All-Story, February 1914 issue sported a Monahan cover for Rex Stout’s “Under the Andes”, a Merrittesque Lost Race novel published half a decade before The Moon Pool.
All-Story Cavalier Weekly, January 23, 1915 featured another ERB tale on the cover, “Sweetheart Primeval”. This was the first installment in what would become the novel known as The Eternal Lover or The Eternal Savage. Check out the pterodactyl in the background.
The cover of All-Story Weekly, December 18, 1915 depicted Charles B Stilson’s “Polaris—of the Snows”, a sort of Tarzan/Lost Race tale set in the Antarctic. As we can see, Monahan had progressed quite a bit from the stolid Bu-lan of “A Man Without a Soul’. He would continue to hone his skills at depicting violent action.
All-Story Weekly, April 8, 1916 debuted the first installment of Thuvia, Maid of Mars, with Thuvia in all her Monahanic glory.
The first installment of ERB’s The Return of the Mucker got the Monahan cover for All-Story Weekly, June 17, 1916. I dig this one. It shows bad-ass Billy Byrne jumping off a train with a cop handcuffed to his wrist.
All-Story Weekly, August 9, 1919 witnessed the debut of Zorro in “The Curse of Capistrano”, sporting another fine Monahan Girl on the cover. A. Merritt’s “Three Lines of Old French” also appeared in this issue.
“Tarzan and the Valley of Luna” got the cover for the March 20, 1920 issue of All-Story Weekly. This tale ended up becoming the second half of Tarzan the Untamed. I have discussed my strong preference for this Monahan cover over the J. Allen St. John dustjacket that ended up on the hardcover edition of Tarzan the Untamed here. As an addendum to that, I’ll add that Monahan was simply better at painting women, in my opinion.
We’ll wrap this up with two more ERB covers from Monahan. Argosy All-Story Weekly, February 12, 1921 gave the cover story to Tarzan the Terrible. Argosy All-Story Weekly, December 9, 1922 sported Monahan’s finest Tarzan painting for Tarzan and the Golden Lion. Bob Davis, the editor at Argosy All-Story, thought enough of it to send the original painting as a gift to ERB himself. Personally, I think it can go toe-to-toe with St. John’s painting for the hardcover.
