Pulp Art: Original Cover Paintings for the Great American Pulp Magazines [Hardcover]

Robert Lesser (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 16, 1997

This exclusive collection reproduces in full color the rare, original paintings that enhanced the pulp magazines popular during the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. Also included are artists' sketches, interior illustrations, and lively text that offers the first complete history of the artists and their unique accomplishments. Chock full of action-packed, gorgeous--even shocking--color paintings for such popular pulps as American Stories, Weird Tales, and The Shadow, this volume is likely to become the definitive reference on a rare and highly collectible art style.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Several famous fantasy and science fiction authors had their beginning in the pulp magazines of the 1930s and 1940s, including Robert E. Howard, H.P. Lovecraft, Fritz Leiber, Isaac Asimov, and Ray Bradbury (not to mention Dashiell Hammett and Tennessee Williams). There were also crime fighters so popular they had their own magazines, such as the still-popular Doc Savage and the Shadow. But besides the writers and the series heroes, there was yet another element for which the lurid pulp magazines (called "pulp" in reference to the cheap grade of paper they were printed on by the millions) are fondly remembered to this day: the cover art. Robert Lesser offers a fascinating history from the perspective of the commercial artists who produced this often less-than-respectable work, thereby bringing the acclaim that these now mostly forgotten artists richly deserve. The author also includes 18 essays about various aspects of the long extinct industry, from such legendary SF scholars as Forrest J. Ackerman and Sam Moskowitz. Needless to say, the book is also stuffed with some amazing artwork. Pulp Art is a perfect introduction to a once nearly lost aspect of pop culture, which just now is being properly appreciated. --Stanley Wiater

Product Details

• Hardcover: 182 pages
• Publisher: Gramercy (September 16, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0517200589
• ISBN-13: 978-0517200582
• Product Dimensions: 12 x 9.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #90,763 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Pulp Art is not perfect but satisfying!, November 6, 1997

By 

[e-mail] (Oak Creek, Wisconsin) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pulp Art: Original Cover Paintings for the Great American Pulp Magazines (Hardcover)

_Pulp Art_ contains a varied collection of wonderful cover art from the pulp fiction of the early 1920's through the 1940's. The paintings are nicely reproduced, crisp and colorful. Intended to encourage the viewer to buy the book, all the cover art is sexually suggestive, menacing, or mysterious. The art also reflect the attitudes and prejudices of their times. The whole spectrum of different genres are represented here, including Science Fiction, Tarzan, Mysteries, Westerns, Heroic, Romance, and War. I found several spelling errors in this book, some of them quite obvious. _Pulp Art_ could have benefited from a decent proof reading, to be sure. Still, the beautiful art is fascinating to view and speaks louder than the printed text inside.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gorgeous and large, July 2, 2008

By 

DoggyDawg - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pulp Art: Original Cover Paintings for the Great American Pulp Magazines (Hardcover)

At 12 x 9, this book gives its hundreds of pictures a first-class presentation. Many of the original paintings are reproduced at full-page (or nearly) size, giving you a chance to really study the detail. Beautiful coffee table book.

11 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Art that goes pop!, August 21, 2000

By 

Robert James (Culver City, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Pulp Art: Original Cover Paintings for the Great American Pulp Magazines (Hardcover)

Pulp fiction is an acquired taste these days; although I was born in the sixties, long after the death of these magazines, the paperback boom in science fiction and fantasy following the explosion of popularity due to Tolkien and "Star Wars" put much of the classic pulp series in my hands. I still love the stuff, much in the same way that I enjoy sitting down to a childhood meal of Captain Crunch or a chocolate Sundae. This book provides the graphic counterpart to the words I know so well, in gorgeous reproduced color. The pop culture of the thirties is to this day some of the deepest and most endearing, from Fred and Ginger to the Marx Brothers to the Wizard of Oz movie to hard-boiled detectives to golden age science fiction to the westerns to...well, you probably get the point by now. This is an art that was never intended to do anything more than sell a magazine, but it shows a vitality and craft sadly missing from the same kind of art today. Granted, some of it is misogynistic, sadistic, and racist, but then almost everything in western society is, even to this day. Taken with a little salt, the paintings reach out and bash you between the eyes, daring you not to pick up the magazine they advertise. The book provides an introduction to the topic unmatched elsewhere, and makes suggestions for follow-ups to the fan. The pictures alone are worth the price: they range from N.C. Wyeth to J. Allen St. John to Margaret Brundage to Rafael de Soto (whose use of light, darkness, and bright colors is perhaps the most striking in the whole book, at least to my uneducated eye -- regardless, his paintings in particular leap off the page). All in all, a most enjoyable volume.