Rudolf W. Zirm was (1894 – 1952) was the son of two German immigrants who moved to the States in 1892.
He had a talent for illustrating and found work in a lithographic printshop, when his parents moved he stayed with his uncle so he could keep his job. Rudolp married in 1922, when the Great Depression came he lost his job and began looking for freelance assignments and showed his portfolio to various publishers. He sold his first pulpcover in 1933 (to Short Stories).
He continued selling covers for different magazines like: Ace-High, Dime Mystery, Doctor Death (Zirm did the covers for all three issues), Horror Stories, Secret Agent X, Short Stories, Star Novels, Terror Tales, Thrilling Adventures, Thrilling Detective, Thrilling Spy Stories, and Western Story.

Despite the fact that his cover art is wanted by todays collectors, back at his days he received just a few dozen assignments after six years of freelance work. In 1940 he found steady employment for the Michael Gross Lithography Company. By 1949 he suffered healt issues and retired from freelance illustrating in at the age of 55.