Customer Reviews

The Great Pulp Heroes

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

From about the mid 1920's to the mid-1950's, one of the most popular entertainments available that were serious competition to radio and the movies was the pulp magazine. Printed on the cheapest kind of paper and with the most lurid covers, these magazines provided some of the most vivid action and suspence in print in the 20th century. While the medium is largely dead now and replaced by TV, comics and the paperback novel, the most famous heroes still created descendents of some of our most popular current fictional adventure characters. They include Batman(inspired by the pulp character, The Shadow), Superman(Doc Savage) and James Bond (Operator #5). In this book, Don Hutchison talks about this influential medium focusing on the major characters and the writers who spun these wild yarns. With detailed knowledge, the reader can learn about these characters, their development and the source of their appeal with wonderful vividness. The only shortcoming I see is that I would have preferred to have some more detailed thoughts on their latter day influence. However, if you want learn about what popular literature was like before TV was developed and the comic book hit its full stride, then this is a book for you.

The coverage of the characters, content, authors, and even some of the artists of the pulp hero era of American popular literature within this volume are excellent and help you really understand the blood, sweat and tears that went into the development of the pulps. A Must-read on the subject!

Don Hutchinson not only knows his subject matter, he loves it as well. There is a wondrous enthusiam that plays itself out in these pages and gives the reader the briefest glimpse on what the pulp era was truly all about. A great book, both for its fun and its information. Should be in the library of any pulp fan worth his or her salt.

El libro del canadiense Don Hutchinson es una buena y muy interesante guia para conocer las historias, estilos y superheroes de la epoca dorada del PULP. Indiana Jones, Sky Captain y Jack Burton (de MASACRE EN EL BARRIO CHINO) son muestra de estos personajes que actualemente son más atractivos por cargar con ese estilo "retro" de un mundo donde todabia habia maravillas por descubrir, organizaciones secretas por encontrar, poderes fantásticos, tierras perdidas, civilizaciones olvidadas, criminales científicos egomaniacos que querian conquistar la tierra.
Darse cuenta de los personajes e historias que se movian en esa epoca enriquece el acervo cultural del lector fantástico y a los neofitos les habre un nuevo mundo que no conocian y que querran disfrutar despues de leer este libro:
La SOMBRA, Doc Savage, Los pilotos G-8, La Araña, Capitan Futuro y muchos más analizados y recordados en este excelente libro.

This is one of the few books I've come across that features a solid overview of the hero pulp era and touches on all the major titles, characters and trends. In addition, Don Hutchison gives the reader some fascinating inside stories on the creators behind "the masked men" themselves. He obviously has a deep love and a detailed knowledge of his subject matter.

Unfortunately, this potentially great book is marred by some poor formatting, inconsistencies and more importantly, some really careless spelling mistakes. In fact, the editors at Mosaic must have had narcolepsy or something because I found one or more cropping up every couple of pages. It's just embarrassing, not to mention distracting. Sure, a couple of errors I could ignore. But c'mon guys, my edition is on the third printing! You should've caught all this by now. It's like they just threw the whole book together...which is too bad given the earnestness of Hutchison's writing.

It's also too bad the book doesn't go further than it does (it only clocks in at about 276 pages with a large font) and it would've been nice if the cover section had featured some glossy colour instead of plain b&w (but I assume they're just trying to cut down on print costs.)

Other than that, I certainly enjoyed the book and it's definitely worth the read...it's just all the errors I could've lived without.