The Art of the Pulps: An Illustrated History

Beautifully-produced, lavishly-illustrated survey of pulp magazines. The colour cover reproductions are fantastic (there are also a few b/w interior illustrations), and the text is by various experts in the field. Similar to Frank Robinson's Pulp Culture of a couple of decades ago, but better overall.

Beautiful book, covering a variety of genres.Great quality images, love this book

How could the contributors to this book manage to write such dull histories of such fantastic pulp art and writing? We need writing about this wonderful stuff that is as outlandish and wild as the original works. Robinson & Davidson's 'Pulp Culture : the art of fiction magazines' has more lively and interesting accompanying text. But the art in both books is fabulous.

All those gorgeous covers. Those colours. If you love the pulps, you’ll love this book. Looks great on anyone’s coffee table.

What a great book! Very informative, well-structured and fantastic quality of images.

If you like pulp cover art get this book.

Interesting history of the magazines whose influence is still felt.

Livro de grande formato, muito bem ilustrado, mas também muito bem escrito.É uma boa História geral dos pulps., e talvez a melhor até hoje.

The Published Media That Millions of Americans Chose to Read for Fun I was stunned that I had actually seen so many of the pulp magazines shown in this volume. I felt very old when I realized some of my illustrated articles had been published in “Argosy.” Then I realized the reason for my familiarity with this group of publications--I’d worked in a used book store in high school and was exposed to many older publications including many western and detective novels. The used book store had a trading policy. People could bring in their old publications and trade them 2 for 1 of the same type and value. This insured that there was always a fresh supply of the older issues. That’s the same way I learned about the fetish photographs of Bettie Page. And more Interestingly, when Bettie Page gave up her career as a fetish model because of censorship she became a sun worshipper and appeared completely nude in slick nudist magazines. Her fetish photography fans flocked to the nudist publications featuring her, but those magazines weren’t on display on local news stands or stores and they sold like crazy. In this slick collection of Pulp Art one of the writer/collectors makes the point that “If you come away with nothing else…the art should leave you feeling good. As you make your way through these pages, you’ll encounter various degrees of artist talent—some highly imaginative practitioners, some more prosaic in their approach, but all fun.” Most of the artists who worked on the pulp publications had no hope of lasting artistic fame, most figured that the individual pulp magazine would survive for a week or two. When the next issue hit the newsstands the current issue would be pitched out with the trash. They would have been surprised and pleased to see their work released in a more lasting format with slick and high-quality paper such as this coffee table edition. “During the First Half of the 20th Century, the primary form of inexpensive fiction for the American reading public was the pulp magazine.” One of the first pulps to specialize was for “railroad man” fans. But that pulp was soon followed by pulps with sports stories, love stories, adventure, war stories, “Cops, Crooks & Private Dicks,” Cowboy and Indian, Tarzan, Horror and Terror, Sex & Sadism In Weird Menace Pulps, Spicy Mystery Novels, Adventures in Other Worlds & Science Fiction, minor Super Heroes like the Shadow & Sheena and various combinations of all the other pulp types. “By 1960. The rough-paper magazine had taken its final breath.” And the reasons for this demise of the pulps is outlined in the final chapter of this very readable coffee table art book. Its an amazing education of what millions of Americans chose

Beau bouquin très solide à oublier sur le coin de la table basse. L'iconographie est à la hauteur, même si on n'en a jamais assez.

Sono un appassionato di illustrazioni e illustratori, e questo libro è un vero godimento per gli occhi perché le illustrazioni sono veramente stampate molto bene e sono di vari periodi temporali e di diversi temi. C'è Horror, poliziesco, western e altri vari temi..Cosa VUOI di PIU'.

A wonderful entry in the genre from the London based, Elephant Book Company, a worthy entry in their already interesting roster of Pop Culture and Popular Science grouping!. A must read maybe the best of its kind that I've seen. Love Doug Ellis' Introduction: The birth (and then the death) of the pulps followed by the rise of the paperbacks. Exceedingly well researched; chock a block full of pristine color scans of many many pulp covers some I had not seen before. 12 chapters cover all the major pulp genres including action/adventure, cops/crime, sports, love, hero pulps and my personal favorite, science fiction and fantasy. Added bonus chapters on the spicy pulps and on the great pulp authors and artists round out the experience nicely. I'm enjoying every chapter