The Blood 'n' Thunder Guide to Pulp Fiction


Book Description

During the 20th century's first half, millions of Americans flocked to newsstands every month in search of thrills provided by all-fiction magazines printed on cheap pulp paper. These periodicals introduced and popularized such famous characters as Tarzan, Zorro, Sam Spade, Buck Rogers, Doc Savage, Hopalong Cassidy, and Conan the Barbarian, to name just a few. The producers of pulp fiction churned out their vigorous and occasionally outre stories at a feverish pace, generally for a mere penny per word. Some eventually graduated from the pulps to become world-famous, best-selling authors-among them Edgar Rice Burroughs, Max Brand, Erle Stanley Gardner, Ray Bradbury, Louis L'Amour, Dashiell Hammett, and Raymond Chandler. Often derided in their own time, the "rough paper" magazines had an incalculable effect on American pop culture. They gave birth to modern science fiction and the hardboiled detective story, but also to plot devices, character types, and storytelling innovations that live on in today's most popular novels, movies, and TV shows. Illustrated with more than 600 magazine covers and original paintings, THE BLOOD 'N' THUNDER GUIDE TO PULP FICTION presents a complete and lively history of this unique literary form, covering genres individually and identifying key titles, authors, and stories. It also offers advice on collecting the vintage magazines and directs readers to recently published reprints of classic pulp."




Ball Tales


Book Description

This history of American sports fiction traces depictions of baseball, basketball and football in works for all age levels from early dime novels through the 1960s. Chapters cover dime novel heroes Frank and Dick Merriwell; the explosion of sports novels before World War II and its influence on the authors who later wrote for baby boom readers; how sports novels persisted during the Great Depression; the rise and decline of sports pulps; why sports comics failed; postwar heroes Chip Hilton and Bronc Burnett; the lack of sports fiction for females; Duane Decker's Blue Sox books; and the classic John R. Tunis novels. Appendices list sports pulp titles and comic books featuring sports fiction.




Doc Wilde and the Frogs of Doom


Book Description

Twelve-year-old Brian, ten-year-old Wren, and their father, Doc Wilde, risk their lives in a South American rainforest as they seek the eldest member of their famous family of adventurers, Grandpa, amidst a throng of alien frogs.




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




Edgar Rice Burroughs: 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. 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.




Baseball and Football Pulp Fiction


Book Description

This first-ever volume focusing on sports pulp fiction devoted to America's two most popular pastimes of the 1935-1957 era--baseball and football--provides extensive detail on authors, along with examination of key plots, themes, trends and categories. Commentary relates the works to real-life baseball and football of the period. The history of the genre is traced, beginning with the debut of Dime Sport (later renamed Dime Sports), the first magazine from a major publisher to provide competition for Street & Smith's long-established Sport Story Magazine. Complementing the text is a complete catalog of fiction from the six major publishers who competed with S&S, also noting the cover themes for 1,054 issues.




The Shudder Pulps


Book Description

The shudder pulps published some of the grisliest, goriest, most outrageous mystery-terror fiction ever sold on the American newsstand, during the golden age of the pulp magazines. This volumes chronicles the authors, artists, and publishers of those classic thrill-fests!




Queen of the Pulps


Book Description

Daisy Bacon, the opinionated, autocratic and complex editor of Love Story Magazine from 1928 to 1947, chose the stories that would be read by hundreds of thousands of readers each week. The first weekly periodical devoted to romance fiction and the biggest-selling pulp fiction magazine in the early days of the Great Depression, Love Story sparked a wave of imitators that dominated newsstands for more than twenty years. Disparaged as a "love pulp," the magazine actually championed the "modern girl," bringing its heroines out of the shadows of Victorian poverty and into the 20th century. With Love Story's success, Bacon became a national spokesperson, declaring that the modern woman could have it all--in love, in marriage and in the business world. Yet Bacon herself struggled to achieve that ideal, especially in her own romantic life, built around a long-term affair with a married man. Drawing on exclusive access to her personal papers, this first-ever biography tells the story behind the woman who influenced millions of others to pursue independence in their careers and in their relationships.




Love on the Racks


Book Description

For the better part of three decades romance comics were an American institution. Nearly 6000 titles were published between 1947 and 1977, and for a time one in five comics sold in the U.S. was a romance comic. This first full-length study examines the several types of romance comics, their creators and publishing history. The author explores significant periods in the development of the genre, including the origins of Archie Comics and other teen publications, the romance comic "boom and bust" of the 1950s, and their sudden disappearance when fantasy and superhero comics began to dominate in the late 1970s.