Baumhofer remains best known as the King of the Pulps, but his long legacy reaches far beyond that moniker. Blessed with a long and fluid career, Baumhofer was one of the few artists who successfully bounced from the pulps to the slicks, thanks in large part to his exceptional skill as an artist. He could capture a pretty girl in a handsome man's arms as easily as he could grab readers with a pulp monster threatening the world.

He started at Adventure magazine, doing story interiors when fellow artist, H Winfield Scott, told him he'd make a more money with color covers. Baumhofer liked the paycheck covers offered and, because of his talent, he was soon churning out crime, western, and thriller paintings. Some 550 pulp covers grace his resume, including Detective Tales, Fire Fighters, Wild West Weekly, Ace High, Gangland, Gangland Stories, Danger Trail, Western Story, The Spider, Spy Stories, Dime Mystery, Dime Detective, and of course, Adventure.

Baumhofer also did the first Doc Savage covers (an art director told Baumhofer that Savage was "a Man of Bronze -- known as Doc, who looks very much like Clark Gable. He is so well built that the impression is not of size, but of power"; Baumhofer got most of this impeccably, though his Savage does not look like Gable. In fact, he has an uncanny resemblance to Baumhofer's other serial hero, the cowboy, Pete Rice.

There were even bigger bucks to be made in the slicks and by 1936, Baumhofer was looking to expand. He had little trouble making the transition, starting with Liberty, and then had success after succeeds with American Weekly, Cosmopolitan, Woman's Home Companion, Country Gentleman, This Week, Macao’s, Redbook, American Magazine, Woman's Day, Collier's, Esquire. As the ledge on which illustrators could stand grew narrower in the later 50s, Baumhofer moved to the more rugged, out-doorsie themes he'd always had a knack for, producing vivid calendar pieces as well as cover and interior work for True, Argosy, Sports Afield, Outdoor Life.