PopKulture

John Gunnison has it as Belarski in his Pulp Art Masters book. In my corner of the world, his opinion carries substantial weight.

There was already a documentary years ago on Kerr by the same name… but if they rehash old ground, throwing Emily Blunt into the mix is never a bad idea.

I give the Old Guard more credence I guess, just like I do in comics. When I was young, it was already decided that Detective 31, Target 7, Superman 14, More Fun 54, Master 27, etc. were classics, and you know what? They got it right! At some point more recently every PCH and GGA cover was designated or, as you allude, hawked by sellers as classic. If everything’s classic, then nothing is classic. A “notable cover,” a “cool cover,” a “cover that I really like,” a “striking cover” - that’s subjective and to the point, but very different. A “classic cover” should connote consensus, in that most everyone that collects pulps is familiar with it and concedes that’s it's classic. In comics, if you mention Startling Comics 49, pretty much everybody with some sense of GA knows that cover. In pulps, when you mention the Weird Tales ‘Batwoman’ cover, most pulp collectors both know it and would likely concede it was a classic. They wouldn’t do that with issues of Wings or Planet Stories where there’s a girl in bondage, as so many of those covers feature a woman in some manner of distress. A similar caveat I’d make for both comics and pulps is that there exists an unavoidable paradox for books like Action 1 or Tarzan’s first appearance in All-Story. Everyone knows those covers and (damn straight) they’re iconic, but for some reason they don’t seem to be considered “classic.” Batman 1, Detective 27, Marvel 1: those are as recognizable as can be, and every one a classic to me, but they don’t get denoted as such.

Take these three - Action 279, 298 and 308

Take these two

For me, it’s a little like the baseball hall of fame. Even the folks at CGC are seeing some covers for the first time and being too impressed. These are like the Harold Baines of pulp covers - really solid, but not HoF nor “classic.” Like your example, I’ve dabbled in pulps for almost fifty years. I’ve read almost all the old school books and reference on the subject, and yet, many of these recently designated “classic” covers were never even given a second glance by pulp collectors or broken out for consideration. How did they hide all these classic covers from the Goodstones, Sterankos, and Robinsons of the world?? Granted, in the good old days, the contents mattered way more than the covers, and that’s the opposite of what is fueling the current resurgence in pulps. However, if you designate every cover a “classic,” then the designation really begins to lose its gravity.

My wife is trying to convince me to embrace a similar but more aggressive approach: she suggests I get rid of two items for each new item I acquire! As of now I remain unconvinced.

I think they’re going to the well too often with the “classic cover” designation. If every cover that has a skull on it, or a woman in bondage, gets the “classic” designation, collecting a subset of pulps CGC doesn’t consider classic will eventually be more challenging! A nice group of submissions, by the way!

Take these three also

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That’s a really nice assortment. I’ve never run across that Selchow Tom and Jerry. Great stuff!!

You’ve got some great board games in those cabinets like the Terry Toons, Outer Limits, Lost In Space, Johnny Ringo and more.

I’ll take them at 20% off

That’s interesting. I’ve hit “refresh” a few times on my tablet and only sixteen of the twenty thumbnails show up in the larger format.

Some of the candidates don’t show up full-size.

Very true. He's much more a graphic artist with an eye towards montage and design than an artist per se.' The results were right on point: great eye-catching covers!

What is he wearing on his feet??

I love the finished products, but this guy, as much as anyone, was only as good as his swipe file. Did he render much of anything organically? I recognized this as one of my girlie digests - I don’t know if this is an already established and known swipe… The cover model is Anita Ekberg, by the way.

I’d be very surprised if that’s a legitimate result. There are a lot of shenanigans going on right now in pulps. Jordan Belfort would be proud of some of the “pump and dump” strategies being employed in this newly-hyped field. Unfortunately when some new money comes rushing into a collecting field, there are always going to be big bad actors creating the same sort of FOMO that we just saw unfold in comics over the past four years. Rinse and repeat… At least with NFT’s, the treachery was right up front.

I don’t see how this doesn’t cause a stagnation going forward for the later printings. Who’s going to throw around that kind of money even for a lower grade copy knowing that the asterisk that was perhaps long bubbling under the surface is now front and center for everyone henceforth? At the very least, if you have a June 2nd version, you should take some of the people in this thread out to a really, really nice dinner!

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