Online Encyclopedia
Pulp magazine
Pulp magazines, often called simply "pulps", were inexpensive text fiction magazines widely published in the 1930s - 1950s. The first "pulp" is considered to be Frank Munsey's revamped Argosy of 1894. Most of the few pulps still thriving today are science fiction or mystery magazines.
The name comes from the cheap woodpulp paper on which they were printed. Magazines printed on better paper and usually offering content more oriented towards family reading were often called "slicks." Pulps were the successor to the "penny dreadfuls" and "dime novels" of the nineteenth century.
Though many respected writers wrote for pulps, the magazines are perhaps best remembered for the fast-paced, lurid, sensationalistic and exploitive stories often featured in their pages. Pulp covers were famous for their half-dressed damsels in distress, usually awaiting a rescuing hero.
Genres
Pulp magazines can be categorized into the following genres:
- Detective/Mystery
- Romance
- Science Fiction
- True crime
- Sports
- General
- Western
- Character (the precursor to the superhero fantasy genre)
Characters
Popular regular pulp fiction characters included:
- The Avenger
- Biggles
- Conan the Barbarian
- Doc Savage
- G-8
- Operator No. 5
- Censored page
- The Shadow
- The Spider
- Tarzan
- Zorro
Authors
Many well-known authors wrote for the pulps at one time or another. Note that many people would make a distinction between an author who wrote for the pulps but later went on to transcend the limitations of the genre, and a "pulp author," who did not.
Well-known authors who wrote for the pulps include:
- Poul Anderson
- Isaac Asimov
- Robert Bloch
- Leigh Brackett
- Ray Bradbury
- Edgar Rice Burroughs
- Ellis Parker Butler
- Hugh B. Cave
- Raymond Chandler
- Arthur C. Clarke
- Philip K. Dick
- Erle Stanley Gardner
- Dashiell Hammett
- Robert Heinlein
- Frank Herbert
- Robert E. Howard
- L. Ron Hubbard
- H. P. Lovecraft
- John D. MacDonald
- Johnston McCulley
- Seabury Quinn
- Richard S. Shaver
- Robert Silverberg
- Clark Ashton Smith
- Jack Vance
Many classic science fiction and crime novels were originally serialized in pulp magazines such as Weird Tales, Amazing Stories, and Black Mask.
The format eventually declined (most dramatically in the 1950's) with rising paper costs, competition from comic books, television, and the paperback novel.
The genre also gave name to the movie Pulp Fiction.