The sinister street lamp: Pulp art of the day

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Thursday, January 6, 2011

Pulp art of the day

Posted by the sinister street lamp at 7:10 PM

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the sinister street lamp: vancouver, washington, United States; So there I sat with my eyes burning from hours of staring at the bright screen. I typed like my life depended on it desperate to express my fondness of the pulp of old and promote my stories still in the making. So despite the cramps in my fingers begging me to quit and the breeze coming in through the cracked window to my left I continued praying for the day my blog would get out there and my stories would be heard.

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a brief history of pulp

The first "pulp" is considered to be Frank Munsey's revamped Argosy Magazine of 1896, about 135,000 words (192 pages) per issue on pulp paper with untrimmed edges and no illustrations, not even on the cover. While the steam-powered printing press had been in widespread use for some time, enabling the boom in dime novels, prior to Munsey, no one had combined cheap printing, cheap paper and cheap authors in a package that provided affordable entertainment to working-class people. In six years Argosy went from a few thousand copies per month to over half a million. Street & Smith were next on the market. A dime novel and boys' weekly publisher, they saw Argosy's success, and in 1903 launched The Popular Magazine, which was billed as the "biggest magazine in the world" by virtue of being two pages longer than Argosy. It should be noted that due to differences in page layout, the magazine had substantially less text than Argosy. The Popular Magazine introduced the use of color covers to the pulp world. The magazine began to take off when, in 1905, the publishers acquired the rights to serialize a new work, Ayesha, by H. Rider Haggard, a sequel to his very successful novel She. Haggard's Lost World genre influenced a wide number of pulp writers such as Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert E. Howard, Talbot Mundy and Abraham Merritt.[1] In 1907, they raised the cover price to 15 cents and added 30 pages per issue; this, along with a solid stable of authors, proved a successful formula and circulation began to approach that of Argosy. This demonstrated that the market could support multiple competitors. Street and Smith's next key innovation was the introduction of specialized genre pulps, each magazine focusing on one genre such as detective stories, romance, etc.[2] At their peak of popularity in the 1920s and 1930s, the most successful pulps could sell up to one million copies per issue. Among the best-known titles of this period were Adventure, Amazing Stories, Black Mask, Dime Detective, Flying Aces, Horror Stories, Marvel Tales, Oriental Stories, Planet Stories, Spicy Detective, Startling Stories, Thrilling Wonder Stories, Unknown and Weird Tales.[3] Although pulp magazines were primarily a US phenomenon, there were also a number of British pulp magazines published between the Edwardian era and World War Two. Notable UK pulps included Pall Mall Magazine, The Novel Magazine, Cassell's Magazine, The Sovereign Magazine, Hutchinson's Adventure-Story and Hutchinson's Mystery-Story.[4] The Second World War paper shortages had a serious impact on pulp production, starting a steady rise in costs and the decline of the pulps. Beginning with Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine in 1941, pulp magazines began to switch to digest size; smaller, thicker magazines. In 1949, Street & Smith closed most of their pulp magazines in order to move upmarket and produce slicks.[5] The pulp format declined from rising expenses, but even more due to the heavy competition from comic books, television, and the paperback novel. In a more affluent post-war America, the price gap compared to slick magazines was far less significant. In the 1950s, Men's adventure magazines began to replace the pulp. The 1957 liquidation of the American News Company, then the primary distributor of pulp magazines, has sometimes been taken as marking the end of the "pulp era"; by that date, many of the famous pulps of the previous generation, including Black Mask, The Shadow, Doc Savage, and Weird Tales, were defunct. Almost all of the few remaining pulp magazines are science fiction or mystery magazines now in formats similar to "digest size", such as Analog Science Fiction and Fact and Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. The format is still in use for some lengthy serials, like the German science fiction weekly Perry Rhodan (over 2,450 issues as of 2009). Over the course of their evolution, there were a huge number of pulp magazine titles; Harry Steeger of Popular Publications claimed that his company alone had published over 300, and at their peak they were publishing 42 titles per month.[6] Many titles of course survived only briefly. While the most popular titles were monthly, many were bimonthly and some were quarterly. The collapse of the pulp industry changed the landscape of publishing because pulps were the single largest sales outlet for short stories. Combined with the decrease in slick magazine fiction markets, writers attempting to support themselves by creating fiction switched to novels and book-length anthologies of shorter pieces also many pulp develped into what we now know as comic books.

great pulp characters

While the majority of pulp magazines were anthology titles featuring many different authors, characters and settings, some of the most enduringly popular magazines were those that featured a single recurring character. These were often referred to as "hero pulps" because the recurring character was almost always a larger-than-life hero in the mold of Doc Savage or The Shadow.[7] Popular pulp characters included: The Avenger Biggles Big Nose Serrano The Black Bat Bran Mak Morn Buck Rogers Captain Future Conan the Barbarian The Continental Op Dan Turner, Hollywood Detective Doc Savage Doctor Death Dr. Yen Sin Domino Lady The Eel Flash Gordon Fu Manchu G-8 Green Lama Hopalong Cassidy Jim Anthony John Carter of Mars Jules de Grandin Ka-Zar of the pulps Khlit the Cossack Ki-Gor Kull Moon Man Nick Carter Operator No. 5 The Phantom Detective Race Williams Lord Lister (AKA Raffles) Secret Agent X Sexton Blake The Shadow The Spider Solomon Kane Tarzan Terence X. O'Leary Wu Fang Zorro

great pulp authors

Well-known authors who wrote for pulps include: Poul Anderson Isaac Asimov Robert Leslie Bellem Alfred Bester Robert Bloch Leigh Brackett Ray Bradbury Max Brand Fredric Brown Edgar Rice Burroughs William S. Burroughs Ellis Parker Butler Hugh B. Cave Paul Chadwick Raymond Chandler Arthur C. Clarke Joseph Conrad Stephen Crane Ray Cummings Jason Dark Lester Dent August Derleth Philip K. Dick Arthur Conan Doyle Lord Dunsany C. M. Eddy, Jr. Arthur Guy Empey C. S. Forester Arthur O. Friel Erle Stanley Gardner Walter B. Gibson David Goodis Zane Grey Edmond Hamilton Dashiell Hammett Robert A. Heinlein O. Henry Frank Herbert Robert E. Howard L. Ron Hubbard Donald Keyhoe Rudyard Kipling Henry Kuttner Harold Lamb Louis L'Amour Fritz Leiber Murray Leinster Elmore John Leonard Jack London H. P. Lovecraft Giles A. Lutz John D. MacDonald Elmer Brown Mason F. Van Wyck Mason Horace McCoy Johnston McCulley John D. McDonald Merriam Modell C.L. Moore Walt Morey Talbot Mundy Philip Francis Nowlan Fulton Oursler Hugh Pendexter Emil Petaja E. Hoffmann Price Seabury Quinn John H. Reese Sax Rohmer Rafael Sabatini Richard S. Shaver Robert Silverberg Upton Sinclair Clark Ashton Smith E. E. Smith Guy N. Smith Jim Thompson Thomas Thursday Mark Twain Jack Vance E. C. Vivian H. G. Wells Tennessee Williams Cornell Woolrich

classic film noir of the 1930'3

1939 - Each Dawn I Die King of the Underworld The Roaring Twenties They Made Me a Criminal
1938 - The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse Angels with Dirty Faces
1937 - Marked Woman San Quentin You Only Live Once Dead End
1936- Bullets or Ballots Fury Great Guy The Petrified Forest Satan Met a Lady
1935 - Bordertown The Florentine Dagger The Glass Key The Scoundrel
1934 - Midnight The Thin Man
1933 - Private Detective 62
1932 - The Beast of the City I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang Scarface 20,000 Years in Sing Sing
1931 - Blonde Crazy City Streets Five Star Final Little Caesar The Maltese Falcon (aka Dangerous Female) The Public Enemy

classic film noir of the 1940's

1949 - Abandoned (aka Abandoned Woman) The Accused Act of Violence Beyond the Forest The Big Steal Border Incident The Bribe Caught Champion (1949 film) Chicago Deadline City Across the River The Clay Pigeon Criss Cross The Crooked Way A Dangerous Profession Flamingo Road Flaxy Martin Follow Me Quietly Gun Crazy (aka Deadly Is the Female) House of Strangers Impact I Married a Communist (aka The Woman on Pier 13) Johnny Stool Pigeon Knock on Any Door Manhandled Moonrise Port of New York The Reckless Moment Red Light Scene of the Crime The Set-Up Shockproof The Third Man The Threat Thieves' Highway Too Late for Tears Trapped The Undercover Man Whirlpool White Heat The Window A Woman's Secret Undertow
1948 - The Amazing Mr. X (aka The Spiritualist) Assigned to Danger Behind Locked Doors Berlin Express The Big Clock Bodyguard Call Northside 777 Canon City Cry of the City The Dark Past Force of Evil He Walked by Night Hollow Triumph (aka The Scar) I Love Trouble (1948 film) I Walk Alone I Wouldn't Be in Your Shoes Key Largo Kiss the Blood Off My Hands The Lady from Shanghai Money Madness The Naked City Night Has a Thousand Eyes Pitfall Raw Deal Road House Rope Ruthless Secret Beyond the Door Sleep, My Love So Evil My Love Sorry, Wrong Number The Street with No Name They Live by Night To the Ends of the Earth
1947- Backlash Blackmail Blind Spot Body and Soul Boomerang Born to Kill The Brasher Doubloon Brute Force Bury Me Dead Calcutta Crossfire Daisy Kenyon Dark Passage Dead Reckoning Desert Fury Desperate The Devil Thumbs a Ride A Double Life Fall Guy Fear in the Night Framed The Gangster The Guilty High Tide High Wall Ivy Johnny O'Clock Kiss of Death Lady in the Lake Lighthouse The Long Night Lured The Man I Love Moss Rose Nightmare Alley Nora Prentiss Out of the Past The Paradine Case Possessed The Pretender Railroaded! The Red House Ride the Pink Horse Shoot to Kill They Won't Believe Me T-Men The Two Mrs. Carrolls The Unfaithful The Unsuspected Violence The Web Whispering City The Woman on the Beach
1946- The Big Sleep , Black Angel The Blue Dahlia The Chase Cloak and Dagger Crack-Up The Dark Corner The Dark Mirror Deadline at Dawn Deception Decoy Fear Gilda The Killers The Locket The Mysterious Mr. Valentine Night Editor Nobody Lives Forever Nocturne Notorious The Postman Always Rings Twice Shadow of a Woman Shock So Dark the Night Somewhere in the Night The Spiral Staircase Strange Impersonation The Strange Love of Martha Ivers The Strange Woman The Stranger Suspense Temptation Three Strangers Tomorrow Is Forever Undercurrent
1945 - Bewitched , Circumstantial Evidence , Conflict , Cornered , Danger Signal , Detour , Escape in the Fog , Fallen Angel , Hangover Square , The House on 92nd Street , Jealousy , Johnny Angel , Leave Her to Heaven , The Lost Weekend , Mildred Pierce , My Name is Julia Ross , Scarlet Street , Spellbound , The Spider , Strange Illusion (aka Out of the Night) , Two O'Clock Courage , Uncle Harry (aka The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry) , The Unseen , Voice of the Whistler
1944- Bluebeard , Christmas Holiday , Dark Waters , Double Indemnity , Experiment Perilous , Guest in the House , Laura , The Lodger , The Mark of the Whistler , The Mask of Dimitrios , Ministry of Fear , Murder, My Sweet (aka Farewell, My Lovely) , Phantom Lady , The Suspect , To Have and Have Not , Voice in the Wind , When Strangers Marry , The Whistler , The Woman in the Window
1943 - The Fallen Sparrow , Journey into Fear , Meshes of the Afternoon , The Seventh Victim , Shadow of a Doubt , Whispering Footsteps
1942- Crossroads , The Glass Key , Johnny Eager , Moontide , Street of Chance , This Gun for Hire
1941-A Woman's Face , Among the Living , Blues in the Night , High Sierra , I Wake Up Screaming , Ladies in Retirement , The Maltese Falcon , Out of the Fog , Rage in Heaven , The Shanghai Gesture , Suspicion
1940- Angels Over Broadway, The Letter, Rebecca , Stranger on the Third Floor , They Drive by Night

classic fim noir of the 1950's

1959 - The Beat Generation The Crimson Kimono The Man in the Net Odds Against Tomorrow The Trap
1958 - I Want to Live! The Lineup Murder by Contract Party Girl Thunder Road Touch of Evil
1957 - Affair in Havana Baby Face Nelson The Brothers Rico The Burglar Crime of Passion The Garment Jungle Hit and Run House of Numbers Nightfall The Night Runner Plunder Road Slaughter on Tenth Avenue Sweet Smell of Success The Tattered Dress The Unholy Wife
1956 - Accused of Murder Beyond a Reasonable Doubt Julie A Cry in the Night The Harder They Fall A Kiss Before Dying The Killer Is Loose The Killing Nightmare Please Murder Me Slightly Scarlet Storm Fear While the City Sleeps The Wrong Man
1955 - Bad Day at Black Rock Crashout The Big Combo The Big Knife A Bullet for Joey 5 Against the House Hell's Island House of Bamboo I Died a Thousand Times Illegal Killer's Kiss Kiss Me Deadly Mr. Arkadin (aka Confidential Report) Murder Is My Beat New York Confidential The Night Holds Terror The Night of the Hunter The Phenix City Story Tight Spot
1954 - Black Tuesday Black Widow Crime Wave Cry Vengeance Down Three Dark Streets Drive a Crooked Road Female Jungle Hell's Half Acre Human Desire The Long Wait Loophole Make Haste to Live Naked Alibi The Other Woman Private Hell 36 Pushover Rogue Cop Shield for Murder Suddenly Witness to Murder World for Ransom
1953 - The Big Heat The Blue Gardenia A Blueprint for Murder City That Never Sleeps Dangerous Crossing The Glass Wall The Glass Web The Hitch-Hiker I Confess I, the Jury Inferno Jeopardy Niagara 99 River Street Pickup on South Street Second Chance Vicki
1952 - Affair in Trinidad Angel Face Beware, My Lovely The Captive City Clash by Night Don't Bother to Knock Kansas City Confidential The Las Vegas Story Loan Shark Macao The Narrow Margin Night Without Sleep On Dangerous Ground Scandal Sheet The Sniper Strange Fascination Sudden Fear Talk About a Stranger The Thief The Turning Point Without Warning
1951 - Ace in the Hole (aka The Big Carnival) Appointment with Danger The Big Night Cause for Alarm! Cry Danger Detective Story The Enforcer (aka Murder, Inc.) He Ran All the Way His Kind of Woman The Hoodlum The House on Telegraph Hill I Was a Communist for the FBI The Killer That Stalked New York M The Man Who Cheated Himself The Man with My Face The Medium The Mob The People Against O'Hara Pickup The Prowler The Racket The Raging Tide Roadblock The Scarf The Second Woman Strangers on a Train The Strip The 13th Letter Tomorrow Is Another Day Try and Get Me Under the Gun Hollywood Story The Unknown Man
1950 - Armored Car Robbery The Asphalt Jungle Between Midnight and Dawn The Breaking Point Caged Convicted The Damned Don't Cry! Dark City Deported Destination Murder D.O.A. Edge of Doom The File on Thelma Jordon Guilty Bystander Highway 301 House by the River In a Lonely Place The Killer That Stalked New York Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye A Lady Without Passport Mystery Street No Man of Her Own No Way Out One Way Street Panic in the Streets Quicksand Red Light The Secret Fury 711 Ocean Drive Shakedown Side Street The Sleeping City The Sound of Fury Southside 1-1000 Sunset Boulevard The Tattoed Stranger Tension Try and Get Me (aka The Sound of Fury) The Underworld Story Union Station Walk Softly, Stranger Where Danger Lives Where the Sidewalk Ends Woman on the Run

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Thursday, January 6, 2011

Pulp art of the day

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classic film noir of the 1930'3

classic film noir of the 1940's

classic fim noir of the 1950's