The Argosy, Vol. 29

This issue of The Argosy presents no painted cover in the sensational mode later associated with pulp fiction — instead, a clean typeset title page announces serialized fiction in the respectable Victorian magazine tradition. Founded by Frank Munsey in 1882 (this February 1880 issue predates his ownership), The Argosy was already a fiction miscellany before Munsey converted it to all-fiction wood-pulp format in 1896, effectively inventing the pulp magazine. The chapter heading visible here — The Mysteries of Heron Dyke — represents exactly the Gothic mystery and sensation fiction that would, through Munsey's cheap-paper revolution, evolve into the lurid genre categories comic books later inherited: horror, adventure, crime.