Fukuoka Posted January 21 Share Posted January 21 (edited) Sorry if I am asking a question that has been answered before... I'm just a little confused about what publications can be considered to be pulps. Looked at the Wikipedia page which had a lot of great info. However, the criteria are obviously not the publication dates... Is a 'pulp' solely determined by paper quality? Content? So for example, the following from my collection: Are these pulps? I should add that the paper quality on the following 3 mags is far better than 1930s-50s 'pulps' I own. Edited January 21 by Fukuoka Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MattTheDuck Posted January 21 Share Posted January 21 Wikipedia says, "The term 'pulp' derives from the cheap wood pulp paper on which the magazines were printed." I think these are all magazines - the Stag and Saga would be "Men's Adventure" magazines. A lot of folks on here will know by sight, but you can also look up your books on MyComicShop and identify them that way when there's a question. Fukuoka 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OtherEric Posted January 21 Share Posted January 21 I would call all of those magazines, not pulps. But they're pulp-adjacent, to various degrees. Pulps are like pornography: somewhat hard to define but I know a pulp when I see one. Fukuoka and Darwination 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Darwination Posted January 21 Popular Post Share Posted January 21 (edited) https://www.pulpmags.org/contexts/essays/what-is-pulp-anyway.html There's an old article I wrote on the subject that's got a bunch of pulp manufacturing photos as well as a little early history. A short answer - purists classify pulps as only the all fiction magazines printed on pulp paper stock almost always at the smaller size than the traditional magazine (as well as including bedsheets which were a bit bigger) and the cutoff for what magazines are considered is somewhere in the ballpark of 1950. However, when you read old articles on the menace of lowbrow magazines, etc., or in trade journals many other genres of magazine are included as pulp - pretty much anything printed on pulp paper (true crime/confessions, tabloid magazines, etc.) Then you add the modern genre definition of pulp which is truly wide. "Pulp Fiction" includes anything lowbrow and trashy excluded from the mainstream culture. B-Movies, paperbacks, supermarket tabloids, etc. The magazines above are, in my opinion, pulp magazines. Just because a story is heralded as "true" doesn't mean they aren't fiction. Many of the same authors and artists that worked in the pulps worked in the True (detective,confessions,etc.) magazines as well as the Men's Adventure Magazines (sweat mags). The digests that came after the pulps often get excluded, too, for their size or maybe because of the fact there could be so much reprinted material, but I tend to think of those as pulps as well. Anyways - this is a question you will get a different answer to depending on who you ask Edited January 21 by Darwination OtherEric, jimjum12, BitterOldMan and 5 others 7 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fukuoka Posted January 21 Author Share Posted January 21 Thanks to everyone for the informative comments. I appreciate your time. That 'Pulp Magazines Project' site looks very good! Darwination, your article is excellent! Darwination 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fukuoka Posted January 21 Author Share Posted January 21 (edited) As a follow-up, you mentioned 'bedsheets.' Are the following examples of bedsheets? They are a bit larger, thinner than the other pulps I have. Edited January 21 by Fukuoka clarity pmpknface and comicjack 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darwination Posted January 21 Share Posted January 21 On 1/21/2024 at 1:29 PM, Fukuoka said: As a follow-up, you mentioned 'bedsheets.' Are the following examples of bedsheets? They are a bit larger, thinner than the other pulps I have. Yeah, I think so. I don't actually own any of those, but I know it's a revered title among SF enthusiasts. https://www.pulpmags.org/content/info/wonder-stories.html <---nice little entry on the mag here Gernsback definitely has a big place in magazine publishing in the 20s and 30s beyond any one title. This seems like as good of place as any to link this tool I use for magazines all the time, a little search function that acts as a nice onramp to the Fictionmags magazine indexes: https://pulpflakes.com/fmisearch/ The gent that made it does the most excellent pulpflakes blog If you search a magazine, you get to the basic publishing history pretty quickly as well as a cover index (and you can get more details about any specific issue that's been indexed with a little navigation, too). You can enter an author or artist, too. Fukuoka 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fukuoka Posted January 21 Author Share Posted January 21 (edited) Wow! Great resources! Thanks again for your help! Edited January 21 by Fukuoka Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
comicjack Posted January 21 Share Posted January 21 On 1/21/2024 at 5:06 AM, Fukuoka said: Sorry if I am asking a question that has been answered before... I'm just a little confused about what publications can be considered to be pulps. Looked at the Wikipedia page which had a lot of great info. However, the criteria are obviously not the publication dates... Is a 'pulp' solely determined by paper quality? Content? So for example, the following from my collection: Are these pulps? I should add that the paper quality on the following 3 mags is far better than 1930s-50s 'pulps' I own. Those mags have some hidden gems inside the pages Pat Calhoun 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OtherEric Posted January 22 Share Posted January 22 Yes, the Wonder Stories are bedsheet pulps. I've only got a couple issues in that size: jimjum12, Pat Calhoun, comicjack and 1 other 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darwination Posted January 22 Share Posted January 22 On 1/21/2024 at 8:04 PM, OtherEric said: Yes, the Wonder Stories are bedsheet pulps. I've only got a couple issues in that size: The mysterious testicle creatures of the wayward asteroid pmpknface, OtherEric and Fukuoka 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Darwination Posted January 22 Popular Post Share Posted January 22 On 1/21/2024 at 3:11 PM, comicjack said: Those mags have some hidden gems inside the pages For real, though, some of the men's adventure magazines, especially the earlier ones, were full of great stories and articles (believe it or not). The top one, Stag, was a Martin Goodman (Marvel) magazine (he had an earlier mag by the same title c.1940 that was an oversized Esquire clone that only lasted a few issues), and I think it's pretty excellent. There were mags that had much better articles or stories, but the art in the Goodman sweat magazines was great. Was just looking at this one today, a scan hot off the presses from a pal, November 1957: check out the splashes, Al Rossi, Mort Kunstler, and Lou Marchetti PopKulture, Pat Calhoun, Sarg and 5 others 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sarg Posted January 23 Share Posted January 23 Pulps were periodicals printed on uncoated pulp wood paper. It was a medium that thrived between 1895 and 1950. Pulps specialized in popular fiction, and selling at a price of 25 cents, were more affordable than hard cover books ($3.00 to $6.00). The introduction of comic books and mass market paperbacks in the USA in the mid-to-late 1930s started a competition with pulps, which contributed to their decline. True Detective, Stag, Saga, and many more men's adventure titles from the 1950s onward are magazines, not pulps. However, the writing style in many stories in those magazines can be called "pulp fiction." Weird Tales, Black Mask, The Shadow, Doc Savage, The All-Story, Astonishing Stories, Adventure, are prime examples of pulps. johnenock, waaaghboss, jimjum12 and 1 other 3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Hall Posted February 18 Share Posted February 18 "The magazines above are, in my opinion, pulp magazines. Just because a story is heralded as "true" doesn't mean they aren't fiction. Many of the same authors and artists that worked in the pulps worked in the True (detective,confessions, etc.) magazines as well as the Men's Adventure Magazines (sweat mags). The digests that came after the pulps often get excluded, too, for their size or maybe because of the fact there could be so much reprinted material, but I tend to think of those as pulps as well." Does "pulp magazine" mean any magazine that is mostly fiction? Is there a difference from a "Pulp Magazine" and a "Fiction Magazine"? If Stag and Saga are pulps, so are the "True Romance" magazines of the 50s. Even "Woman's Day" and "Family Circle" carried some fiction. Popular Science carried a fiction story fo 18 months back in the late 20s. The more publications that are grouped into a category, in this case "Pulp Magazine", the weaker the distinction between that category and other categories. A pulp magazine is best categorized by the nature of the fiction there in. There are digest-size magazines that are pulps. But most digest-size magazines that are all-fiction, or nearly so, are Digests. Originally, most digest-sized magazines were pulps in a smaller, "more modern" format. But over time, the nature of the fiction gradually changed to the point where one can easily tell there has been a change. Over time there was an "evolutionary change". Pulps evolved into Digests. It is not the paper. Some early pulps were printed on very nice paper, paper much better than "pulp paper". Canadian pulps were printed on pulp paper, but a much nicer grade of pulp paper. It is not the cover price. Some publishers toyed with nickel pulps. Annuals or "quarterly reissues" cost 50 cents. It is not the authors. Authors gonna auth. Editorial requirements changed. Authors had to change their style to sell their work. The readers changed what they wanted to read. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
