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Pulp Art: Original Cover Paintings for the Great American Pulp Magazines
 
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Pulp Art: Original Cover Paintings for the Great American Pulp Magazines (Hardcover)

by Robert Lesser (Author)
4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)


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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 --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Description
The term pulp fiction has always had a certain resonance; but it is the artwork--bold, energized, dramatic, garishly colorful, and frequently grotesque--that has made pulp magazines memorable to so many people. Pulp Art is the groundbreaking--and ultimate--book on one of America's most important and spectacular forms of illustration art. At last, preserved in this volume are most of the still-existing originals created for the pulp covers, never before seen in all their sharply focused, vibrantly colored brilliance. Robert Lesser, a pioneering collector of this work and an expert on American popular culture, has assembled a gallery of these now-priceless originals. The dynamically pulp-flavored text is a complete historical survey of the pulps and their most important cover artists--Virgil Finlay, J. Allen St. John, Rafael de Soto, Hannes Bok, George and Jerome Rozen, Frank R. Paul, and many others. Also offered are critical discussions of individual paintings, as well as the major themes of the pulp magazines.





Product Details

  • Hardcover: 192 pages
  • Publisher: Sterling (August 11, 2005)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1402730357
  • ISBN-13: 978-1402730351
  • Product Dimensions: 12 x 9.3 x 0.8 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 2.9 pounds
  • Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #920,734 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)


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Customer Reviews

5 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.8 out of 5 stars (5 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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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 webnik@globaldialog.com (Oak Creek, Wisconsin) - See all my reviews
_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.
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10 of 13 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)   
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.
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5.0 out of 5 stars Pulp Art Excitement !!!, February 9, 2009
By Winston Blakely (bronx, n.y. United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   


I purchased this book for reference and I'm glad I did. It captures
all the brush strokes of the original pulp art paintings, as best it
could. Nothing in this book is a waste...It is a treasure of a bygone
era. All the imagination of being an artist assigned to these fantastic
stories is display in this volume. My favorite section is the paintings
of The Shadow...Someday, I hope they do a whole book on the Pulp Art
covers of that classic character who knows what evil lurks in the
heart of men. This is a well worth investment for me and anyone who
is a fan of Pulp Art and Pulp Fiction... BRAVO!!
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Gorgeous and large
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... Read more
Published 12 months ago by DoggyDawg

5.0 out of 5 stars "Good Typography Sells!"
However, with all due respect, a book about the pulps without at least one typo would not be true to its subject. Read more
Published on December 8, 1998

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