Belarski


Book Description

A master at building suspense through figure, perspective, and color, Rudolph Belarski dazzled the newsstand browser with pictorial headlines of vital action scenes pertaining to the interior story. In doing so, he sold magazines and books to a drama-craving audience, and propelled publishing's mass markets, thus infiltrating American minds with the trends and fashions of pop culture. His remarkable versatility as an artist can be seen in the range of his published work in pulp magazines, his exciting paintings appearing on the covers of Thrilling Mystery, Wings, and War Birds, as well as The Phantom Detective, Mystery Book, Argosy, and Western Round-Up.




Pulp Art


Book 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.




Pulp Macabre


Book Description

"There was never an artist who came close to capturing horror and dread like Lee Brown Coye. He was master of the weird and grotesque illustration. Coye's sketches had the shape of nightmares."—Robert Weinberg, The Weird Tales Story "It was always my belief that a good drawing was a good drawing, whether it was in the archives of the Metropolitain Museum or in a pulp magazine."— Lee Brown Coye No other artist working in mid-century pulp fiction created work as twisted as Lee Brown Coye. By the 1970s, after surviving a life-threatening illness, Coye would outdo himself, creating lurid illustrations exclusive to rare privately published books and fanzines. With nearly one hundred gloriously rendered Coye-penned images, Pulp Macabre showcases Coye's final and darkest era, containing some of the most passionately ghoulish artwork ever made. Mike Hunchback is an enthusiast of various eras of extreme and bizarre underground art, and is currently working on a biography of original Fangoria magazine editor Robert "Uncle Bob" Martin. Caleb Braaten operates Sacred Bones Records, which has recently teamed with David Lynch to release his new album The Big Dream.




Stylepedia


Book Description

A chunky, distinctive object of brilliant design in and of itself, Stylepedia is the first handy, cross-referenced desk guide to the kaleidoscope that is modern design. In hundreds of illustrated entries, Heller and Fili, the award-winning authors of Euro Deco and numerous other popular design titles, survey the designers, schools, and movements that comprise the practice today as well as take a fascinating glimpse back at some of the seminal early leaders. From the first Santa Claus to appear on a Coca-Cola bottle to the increasingly ubiquitous camouflage tee shirt, iconic everyday items of yesterday and today provide valuable inspiration to designers and design aficionados. As quirky as it is useful and positively packed with lavish color illustrations, this designer's design compendium is the only one of its kind.




The Art of Pulp Fiction: An Illustrated History of Vintage Paperbacks


Book Description

Judge these books by their covers! Get immersed in the definitive visual history of pulp fiction paperbacks from 1940 to 1970. The Art of Pulp Fiction: An Illustrated History of Vintage Paperbacks chronicles the history of pocket-sized paperbound books designed for mass-market consumption, specifically concentrating on the period from 1940 to 1970. These three decades saw paperbacks eclipse cheap pulp magazines and expensive clothbound books as the most popular delivery vehicle for escapist fiction. To catch the eyes of potential buyers they were adorned with covers that were invariably vibrant, frequently garish, and occasionally lurid. Today the early paperbacks--like the earlier pulps, inexpensively produced and considered disposable by casual readers--are treasured collector's items. Award-winning editor Ed Hulse (The Art of the Pulps and The Blood 'n' Thunder Guide to Pulp Fiction) comprehensively covers the pulp-fiction paperback's heyday. Hulse writes the individual chapter introductions and the captions, while a team of genre specialists and art aficionados contribute the special features included in each chapter. These focus on particularly important authors, artists, publishers, and sub-genres. Illustrated with more than 500 memorable covers and original cover paintings. Hulse's extensive captions, meanwhile, offer a running commentary on this significant genre, and also contain many obscure but entertaining factoids. Images used in The Art of Pulp Fiction have been sourced from the largest American paperback collections in private hands, and have been curated with rarity in mind, as well as graphic appeal. Consequently, many covers are reproduced here for the first time since the books were first issued. With an overall Introduction by Richard A. Lupoff, novelist, essayist, pop-culture historian, and author of The Great American Paperback (2001).




A History of the Doc Savage Adventures in Pulps, Paperbacks, Comics, Fanzines, Radio and Film


Book Description

Doc Savage is the prototype of the modern fictional superhero. The character exploded onto the scene in 1933, with the Great Depression and the gathering clouds of war as a cultural backdrop. The adventure series is examined in relation to historical events and the changing tastes of readers, with special attention paid to the horror and science fiction elements. The artwork features illustrations, covers, and original art. Chapters cover Doc Savage paperbacks, pulp magazines, comic books, and fanzines, and an appendix offers biographies of all major contributors to the series.




The Art of the Pulps: An Illustrated History


Book Description

Experts in the ten major Pulp genres, from action Pulps to spicy Pulps and more, chart for the first time the complete history of Pulp magazines—the stories and their writers, the graphics and their artists, and, of course, the publishers, their market, and readers. Each chapter in the book, which is illustrated with more than 400 examples of the best Pulp graphics (many from the editors’ collections—among the world’s largest) is organized in a clear and accessible way, starting with an introductory overview of the genre, followed by a selection of the best covers and interior graphics, organized chronologically through the chapter. All images are fully captioned (many are in essence "nutshell" histories in themselves). Two special features in each chapter focus on topics of particular interest (such as extended profiles of Daisy Bacon, Pulp author and editor of Love Story, the hugely successful romance Pulp, and of Harry Steeger, co-founder of Popular Publications in 1930 and originator of the "Shudder Pulp" genre). With an overall introduction on "The Birth of the Pulps" by Doug Ellis, and with two additional chapters focusing on the great Pulp writers and the great Pulp artists, The Art of the Pulps covers every aspect of this fascinating genre; it is the first definitive visual history of the Pulps. "The Art of the Pulps is a must for any pulp fans, anywhere." - LOCUS Magazine Winner of the 2018 LOCUS Award for Best Art Book




Masters of Science Fiction and Fantasy Art


Book Description

Masters of Science Fiction and Fantasy Art profiles and celebrates the work of today’s leading practitioners of art of the fantastic, as well as a handful of gifted newcomers from around the globe. The range and impact of their work is both inspiring and far-reaching. These 28 masters have created images for television, movies, gaming, museum exhibits, theme park rides, and every area of publishing.Some of the artists featured only employ traditional painting techniques, while others use only digital methods, and many more blend the mediums to create their fantastical images. Each artist discusses his/her influences and techniques as well as offering tips to beginning artists. Science Fiction Grandmaster and Hugo Award–winning author Joe Haldeman contributes a foreword. Artists, science fiction fans, and art collectors will appreciate the outstanding artwork featured here. Featured artists include: —Brom —Jim Burns —Kinuko Y. Craft —Dan Dos Santos —Bob Eggleton —Donato Giancola —Rebecca Guay —James Gurney —Gregory Manchess —Stephan Martiniere —Terese Nielsen —John Picacio —Greg Spalenka —Shaun Tan —Charles Vess




Re-Covering Modernism


Book Description

In the first half of the twentieth century, modernist works appeared not only in obscure little magazines and books published by tiny exclusive presses but also in literary reprint magazines of the 1920s, tawdry pulp magazines of the 1930s, and lurid paperbacks of the 1940s. In his nuanced exploration of the publishing and marketing of modernist works, David M. Earle questions how and why modernist literature came to be viewed as the exclusive purview of a cultural elite given its availability in such popular forums. As he examines sensational and popular manifestations of modernism, as well as their reception by critics and readers, Earle provides a methodology for reconciling formerly separate or contradictory materialist, cultural, visual, and modernist approaches to avant-garde literature. Central to Earle's innovative approach is his consideration of the physical aspects of the books and magazines - covers, dust wrappers, illustrations, cost - which become texts in their own right. Richly illustrated and accessibly written, Earle's study shows that modernism emerged in a publishing ecosystem that was both richer and more complex than has been previously documented.




Master of Adventure


Book Description

So, just how was Tarzan created? Eager to know the inside story about the legendary John Carter and the amazing cities and peoples of Barsoom? Perhaps your taste is more suited to David Innes and the fantastic lost world at the Earth?s core? Or maybe wrong-way Napier and the bizarre civilizations of cloud-enshrouded Venus are more to your liking? These pages contain all that you will ever want to know about the wondrous worlds and unforgettable characters penned by the master storyteller Edgar Rice Burroughs. ø Richard A. Lupoff, the respected critic and writer who helped spark a Burroughs revival in the 1960s, reveals fascinating details about the stories written by the creator of Tarzan. Featured here are outlines of all of Burroughs?s major novels, with descriptions of how they were each written and their respective sources of inspiration. This Bison Books edition includes a new foreword by fantasy writer Michael Moorcock, a new introduction by the author, a final chapter by Phillip R. Burger, as well as corrected text and an updated bibliography.