Pulp Culture: The Art of Fiction Magazines [Hardcover]

Frank M. Robinson (Author), Lawrence Davidson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 19, 2001

From its origins in the late nineteenth century, when adventure stories reigned, through almost six decades of slinking sleuths, galloping ghouls, nitty-gritty gals, and invincible warriors, the pulp magazine transported readers to new frontiers of the mind. The proving ground for scores of writers and illustrators who went on to achieve great fame, these publications helped popularize authors such as Dashiell Hammett, Ray Bradbury, and Edgar Rice Burroughs. Taken collectively, they now provide a panorama of some sixty years of illustration and social commentary. Hailed as "lush" by the New York Times, this is the most comprehensive compilation ever published on the subject. Winner of the "Pop Culture Book of the Year" by the Independent Publisher's Association, it is a must for graphic artists, fiction lovers, and anyone who appreciates the art of pulp fiction's golden age.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Penzler Pick, November 2001: Pulp magazines reigned for about a quarter of a century as the most popular entertainment medium in America. They were cheaply produced and, during the Great Depression, were blessedly cheap to buy, generally a dime.

And they were plentiful. After a low-key beginning, when a few magazines displayed their tasteful covers to an appreciative readership, their success spawned countless competitors. The covers became more and more garish, and promised ever greater excitement. Western covers went from an illustration of an Indian gently paddling his canoe to furious cattle stampedes, a huge gang of obviously ferocious savages attacking a defenseless family, and depictions of shootouts in every conceivable locale. Mystery covers went from showing a cop on the beat to villainous thugs tearing the clothes off a helpless young woman (most frequently a generously endowed young blonde) or any other sort of action that promised the reader endless excitement.

And they delivered. Pulp writers knew how to write thrilling stories and books. Many of the best went on to extremely successful careers in book form. Dashiell Hammett wrote most of his stories and novels for the pulps, and he is now recognized as one of the most influential fiction writers of the 20th century. Raymond Chandler, too, wrote stories for the pulps and is frequently conceded to be the great mystery writer of the 20th century.

Pulps became more and more specialized as their numbers increased, soon appealing to fans of jungle stories, science fiction, fantasy, railroad stories, romances, Westerns, Western romances, aviation, the Foreign Legion, engineering, the outdoors, courtrooms, Wall Street, newspapers, firefighters, and so on. Now there is a new book that recalls that Golden Age of the pulp magazines (roughly 1920-1945) with a knowledgeable and nicely written text that covers all the highlights of the major magazines and the major writers, who are sometimes remembered today and, alas, sometimes not.

And there are those fabulous covers! Magnificently produced in Hong Kong, Pulp Culture is a genuine bargain. Here are the Shadow, Max Brand, Talbot Mundy, Erle Stanley Gardner, Black Mask, Sax Rohmer and Fu Manchu, C.S. Forester, and Captain Horatio Hornblower, Doc Savage, the Phantom Detective, and on and on.

For the old codgers among us, this gorgeous book will produce a happy trip down memory lane. Younger readers, eat your heart out. It will show you what you missed in a time of great storytelling that today's television shows can't ever match. --Otto Penzler

Review

"From the saucy, spooky, exotic, action-packed covers reproduced in this book, it's easy to see the appeal." -- Washington Post Book World, March 22, 1998

"Quentin Tarantino Would Be Proud" "Pulp Culture isn't an ordinary coffee-table book." -- Playboy

It takes considerable imagination to create a fresh image every month on the same theme, and the masters of pulp art met the challenge.... [T]here is something for everyone in this comprehensive collection of a virtually forgotten American popular art. -- The New York Times Book Review, Steven Heller

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Collectors Pr; 1 Ed edition (September 19, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1888054123
• ISBN-13: 978-1888054125
• Product Dimensions: 11.5 x 10.7 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,397,111 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful book of popular culture, August 31, 1999

By 

Angel Lee "Liocorno Amethyst Moonstone" (Cleveland, OH United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Pulp Culture: The Art of Fiction Magazines (Hardcover)

This book is a celebration of a unique American body of art and an important part of our popular culture. The pulps were a major form of entertainment with their vibrant covers by artists largely unknown or now forgotten.

The focus is on the art with several large color illustrations per page. It is fantastic, bold & colorful, it's purpose being to generate excitement & sell books. The text gives a history of the pulps and their artists & writers.

Several themes predominate on the pulp covers. There are westerns, detectives, sports, war & jungle stories, aviation, risqué women & damsels in distress. This is also where some of the best early science fiction art is found.

There is a helpful section of information for collectors and all of the books illustrated are coded for relative value. This is a wonderful book for anyone interested in popular art, Americana or collectibles.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful overview of pulp cover art, May 21, 2002

By 

Babytoxie (Dallas, TX USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pulp Culture: The Art of Fiction Magazines (Hardcover)

I puchased this book for 50% off, and after reading it, I can say that even at full price, it would have been worth it. Page after page of bright clear reproductions of pulp covers, many almost full-page, with any extra space filled with smaller images. The book is divided into chapters based on subject matter: Westerns, Super Heroes, Sci-Fi, Horror, Gangsters, etc. The text is informative, but minimal - it provides just enough background on each chapter's subject and then lets the art speak for itself. Each cover is accompanied with information on the issue and artist, plus some informative personal commentary from the author. Plenty of top-notch artists are included, such as Wyeth, Baumhofer, etc. Don't buy this for an in-depth analysis of pulp magazines; the star here is definitely the art, and it delivers in spades.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars WONDERFUL HISTORY AND DAZZLING ARTWORK, July 6, 2005

By 

Tim Janson (Michigan) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Pulp Culture: The Art of Fiction Magazines (Hardcover)

Hard-boiled Detectives, mysterious heroes, shadowy villains, evil oriental masterminds, and dames in distress...they are the stuff of the pulp magazines and the subject of this wonderful book by Frank Robinson which traces the history of pulp magazines and provides covers to hundreds of these great pulp magazines, so many lost in the antiquity of time...not to mention paper drives of the 1940's war years.

Robinson begins by tracing the roots of the pulps back to the dime novels of the late 1800's. Argosy would premiere as the first true pulp back in 1896 and before long dozens of competitors would emerge such as Popular Magazine, All-Story Weekly, New Story and so many more. Street & Smith, long a major publisher of dime novels would convert their Nick Carter series into Detective Story Magazine in 1915. The pulps were born!

Early on, adventure pulps were the most popular as they transported readers to strange and exotic lands in a time when few would ever leave their own state. It's where we first read the exploits of Tarzan, and heard the names of writers such as Burroughs, Mundy and Rohmer. Adventure magazine was among the most popular of those early days and they even had their own organization you could join called "The Legion" which would one day evolve into the American Legion. Adventure printed more than just fiction, they had many regular columns including "Wanted: Men & Adventurers" where real life mercenaries could advertise their skills for hire.

In the 1930's, detective pulps became the most popular as there were literally dozens of detective pulps being published. Among the most prominent pulps of the day was Black Mask Magazine, started by prominent newspaperman and political commentator H.L. Mencken. But he considered the pulps so low-brow that he didn't want his name associated with them. Still, Blackmask was a breeding ground for some for some of the great mystery and detective writers ever to pen a story including Dashiell Hammett, Erle Stanley Gardner, Lester Dent, and Raymond Chandler.

Robinson's narrative moves from one pulp genre to the next, with a short, but concise history of each. He examines the Western pulps and the interesting history of the man known as Max Brand. Brand was the most prolific pulp writer ever, appearing in 622 issues of Western Story magazine from 1920 - 1935. From there it's on to the hero pulps and the birth of the most famous pulp characters of all including "The Shadow", "Doc Savage", and "The Spider". The Shadow's covers were always among the most evocative and terrifying, especially those by the great George Rozen.

But the genre that gave us the most outrageous and grisly covers of the pulp era belongs to the "shudder pulps". Bondage, torture, sadism, nudity...nothing was held back in covers for such pulps as "Terror Tales" and "Horror Stories". These pulps are some of the most sought after today by collectors.

Romance, spicy adventures, sports, war...all of these get their just do in Pulp Culture but it's the sci-fi and fantasy section that will be a major appeal for many fans. It was here where some of the most famous and long-running pulps made their mark. Hugo Gernsback would usher in the age of Sci-fi pulps in 1926 with Amazing Stories. Soon there were dozens of competitors including Wonder Stories, Astounding Stories, and many more. And then there is perhaps the most famous, most collectible of all pulps, Weird Tales. Weird Tales would unleash the enormous talents of Robert E. Howard, H.P. Lovecraft, Robert Bloch, August Derleth, and countless others with stories that would endure, and continue to be reprinted, decades after their original publication. There are dozens of covers provided featuring the works of artists like Margaret Brundage and Virgil Finlay.

Robinson closes his book by providing an appendix to a handful of pulp dealers and notes on pulp values. This book would be worth the $40 price tag alone JUST for the hundreds of stunning covers re-printed, but Robinson's concise history of pulps just adds to the luster of the book. Simply a magnificent book for any fan or collector of pulp magazines.

Reviewed By Tim Janson