THE PULPS AND THEIR TIME
Pulp magazines were originally called such because of the
pulpwood paper used to print the magazines. Frank Munsey’s ARGOSY is considered
the first of the magazines to be printed on this cheap wood paper in 1896. The
stories in the magazines ran from western to romance, mystery and science
fiction. Johnston McCulley introduced several gentlemen thieves in the early
days, including costumed Robin Hood types that robbed from the rich
crooks and gave to the poor. One of his long-lived characters was Zorro.
By the 1920s, the Roaring Twenties ushered in the gangster titles and
for the next decade the newsracks were filled with the genre.
After the Stock Market crash of ’29, the reading masses were
tired of mob rule, whether real or in their fiction. With little work, and less
money, they were no longer in the mood for gangsters in expensive suits and
flashy automobiles. Although cheap hardbacks could be bought for 8 cents,
10-cent pulps were the cheap literature for the masses. And it was those lurid
covers glaring from the pulp magazine racks that drew their attention.
Publishers recognized the trend, and in 1931 The Shadow made his debut.
He was a costumed crime fighter, patterned somewhat after McCulley’s Zorro
and Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Other pulp hero characters quickly followed,
many taking the mantle of the gentleman thief, robbing from the rich crook and
giving to the poor. It was what the readers had been waiting for!
After reading Johnston McCulley’s 1913 story in TOP-NOTCH
Magazine, Force Inscrutable, I was struck by the difference in the moral
acceptance within stories from that period to the heyday of the pulps, just two
decades later. In this story, Betty Gladstone and Dick Wellington worry over
the fact that traveling together by train could be construed as immoral, since
they were only betrothed, and not married. Now jump ahead twenty years, to
1933, when Dick Wentworth (The Spider) and Nita Van Sloan are apparently
living together – betrothed but not married. In the teens, we were
treated to gentlemanly thieves, which gave way to the violent Roaring
Twenties, molls and gun rule. With the 1930s came the heroes and heroines,
who were equally as tough as the mobs, and we now saw a milder drop in the
moral appearance between men and women. This would be the ground rule for the
next two decades, until the pulps began to fade, and the age of the paperbacks
brought sex and profanity to the printed stories. It wasn’t long until the Aggressor
novels threw out all semblance of morality in the new fiction. Today’s new pulp
appears to be anchored in a mixture of the original and the modern, sometimes
difficult to recognize, but the readers in 1913 likely felt that way about the
1930s.
However, there remains a subtle difference in the original
pulp story and the stories today. Our heroes and heroines seemed more pure,
without hang-ups, and a clear vision between right and wrong. Even through the
1930s & ‘40s publishers and editors would have rejected manuscripts
outright that contained sex and profanity. Plus, it was made clear that drugs
and crime were wrong.
There were problems, of course, as every generation has them.
There was very little political correctness back then, though the editors tried
to eliminate most blatant stereotypes of minorities. Still, there was a certain
acceptance of the current views. However, the pulps entertained the racial
masses for sixty years. The heyday of the pulp heroes was from 1931 to 1953.
Twenty-two years. Which wasn’t a bad run. They gave rise to the comic book
super heroes, and the 1960s’ Aggressor paperback novels. Some of the
pulp heroes, like Doc Savage and The Shadow, are still popular
today.
I’m thrilled that the new generation is calling their work
pulp, for it means the essence of the old pulp magazines will live on. But I
certainly want to remember where my influence comes from, and honor those who
came before me.
I created The Black Ghost as
homage to The Shadow in honor of Walter Gibson, a man I greatly admired.
Perhaps The Shadow, more than any other fictional character has been my
greatest influence since I listened to his adventures on the radio as a child
in the 1940s. I met Walter Gibson in the mid 1970s, and we corresponded until
his passing. I wrote the first Black Ghost story in 1995, however he was
originally called Compere before the underworld gave him his nom-de-guarre.
His stories appeared in Clancy O’Hara’s PULP FICTION MAGAZINE. (Clancy was a
friend of Quentin Tarantino at the time, but later they parted ways.)
The Black Ghost was the name that stuck!
The
Black Ghost is set in contemporary times, as is my Man In The Black Fedora, and both seem to prove that characters
written in the pulp tradition can still be a success today. However, I do love
the classic period of the 1920s through the 1950s, and prefer my pulp reading
in those long ago times.
Whatever your preferred reading,
there is a large variety of new pulp out there. Most of it good, and worth
reading, with some excellent new writers. Give it a chance, and find special
authors to follow. Let’s face it, we love those wild pulpy action novels with
over the top heroes and heroines and blazing automatics. Long live the pulps.
Happy reading.
