http://pulprack.com/ Each Issue a Feast for the Eyes 2009-12-13T20:00:29-05:00 http://pulprack.com/arch/2009/12/150_years_of_th.html The weird menace pulps might be said to owe a debt to Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White -- along with the Gothic novel -- as what has been described as the first Sensation Novel. Pulp Magazine History ds 2009-12-13T20:00:29-05:00 http://pulprack.com/arch/2009/12/the_gnome_press.html eI.]]> Bibliography ds 2009-12-07T18:06:15-05:00 http://pulprack.com/arch/2009/11/jules_verneas_u.html Over the recent decades, Verne’s literary portrait of the United States has been gradually filled in, first with Walter James Miller’s The Annotated Jules Verne: From the Earth the Moon (1978), then with the first publication of “The Humbug” as part of The Jules Verne Encyclopedia (1996), and in 2006 with the publication of the original text of The Meteor Hunt. Yet one more book, however, while known to Verne aficionados since it was published in England, has never appeared in the United States -- The Will of an Eccentric. Adventure Pulps ds 2009-11-22T13:00:15-05:00 http://pulprack.com/arch/2009/09/athe_fist_and_t.html For some reason I’ve had stuck in my head for years that Fulton T. Grant was one of H. Bedford-Jones’ many pseudonyms. Adventure Pulps ds 2009-09-20T10:04:10-05:00 http://pulprack.com/arch/2009/09/the_dartagnan_r_1.html The Three Musketeers as a romp. The sequel, which began its serialized appearance in 1845 -- the year following its precursor’s publication -- starts out much more somberly. Taking up, as its title suggests, two decades after the first volume, this tale opens with our heroes having gone their separate ways. D’Artagnan, the witty, apparently irrepressible youthful leader of the earlier band, has turned bitter, his witticisms now cynical asides.]]> Adventure Pulps ds 2009-09-05T10:57:25-05:00 http://pulprack.com/arch/2009/07/athe_cardinal_s.html We continue our Swashbuckling theme with a look at a story by a swashbuckling fictioneer, H. Bedford-Jones. Adventure Pulps ds 2009-07-31T06:21:17-05:00 http://pulprack.com/arch/2009/07/a_foundation_fo.html romp. The camaraderie of the four heroes, and their contrasting characteristics -- that sometimes put their intentions at odds until adversity rears its head -- lays the groundwork for a multitude of teams that follow: Doc Savage’s scrappy adventurers, the Shadow’s slew of agents, the Challengers of the Unknown, the Fantastic Four, the X-Files, even Luke and Han and Chewie and a couple of robots, and so on. Dumas includes lots of action, with a dose of historical events (which aren’t necessarily accurate in their historic details), plus humor and court intrigue. And swordplay!]]> Adventure Pulps ds 2009-07-02T22:35:10-05:00 http://pulprack.com/arch/2009/06/the_sinister_ra.html Gadgets, colorful characters with catchy names, and a lack of conjunctions mark Lester Dent’s work on the Doc Savage series in its early supersaga years. The same can be true in some of his pre-Doc work. Adventure Pulps ds 2009-06-21T16:47:15-05:00 http://pulprack.com/arch/2009/05/the_hero_in_jul.html Heroes, as we know them from pulp and other popular fiction, comic books, action movies, and TV shows, do amazing things: rescue maidens, battle dragons and monsters and alien civilizations attempting to enslave Earth, find treasure, discover lost civilizations, and light out for the territories to explore unknown lands, seas, planets, or simply The Unknown. Adventure Pulps ds 2009-05-30T14:14:32-05:00 http://pulprack.com/arch/2009/05/tom_lovell_pulp.html Thanks to the efforts of Anthony Tollin and Will Murray, more pulp fans today are more familiar with the artwork Tom Lovell created for the pulp magazines. Art of the Pulps ds 2009-05-02T12:23:02-05:00 http://pulprack.com/arch/2009/03/blue_book_artis.html I want to pass along some links to a dandy blog I visit on a frequent basis, Today's Inspiration. It focus on illustration -- for magazines, books, whatever -- and the illustrators who have made their mark in our cultural awareness of our world. Many of them toiled away, basically unknown -- not everyone became a household word like Norman Rockwell. Art of the Pulps ds 2009-03-04T21:28:57-05:00 http://pulprack.com/arch/2009/01/edgar_poe_200_y.html 2009 marks the Bicentennial of Edgar Allan Poe. Given a variety of titles posthumously -- the United States first literary critic, creator of the detective story, creator of the horror story, among other things -- his was a unique talent in our country's literary history. ds 2009-01-29T19:59:37-05:00 http://pulprack.com/arch/2009/01/pulps_at_the_ne.html a-fiction-ados will discuss Pulp Fiction at the February 6-8 New York Comic Con, courtesy of Ed Catto.]]> Pulp Magazine History ds 2009-01-20T20:21:21-05:00 http://pulprack.com/arch/2009/01/the_longest_run.html bon vivant. Mike wrote the following article for the Pulp Era Amateur Press Society (PEAPS), a collection of pulp fiction fans, collectors, and readers. Mike very graciously provided permission to publish it here, and I am very, very happy to do so.]]> Pulp Magazine History ds 2009-01-17T20:03:54-05:00 http://pulprack.com/arch/2009/01/inspector_frayn.html By Monte Herridge, who brings us another essay about a series character from Detective Fiction Weekly. Harold de Polo created a short-lived series about a dandy police inspector named Frayne. Frayne prides himself on being the best-dressed man in the police department and one of the best in the city. His personal assistant is a red-haired detective named Don Haggerty, who was known in the department as Frayne’s right-hand man. He did many of the basic detective chores required in investigations, such as looking over the crime scene for any interesting signs or clues. In this role, he serves as a sort of Archie Goodwin to Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe. Adventure Pulps ds 2009-01-09T22:06:05-05:00