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44-495: Fiction House started out as a pulp magazine publisher, with one of their more popular titles being Wings (which ultimately ran 133 issues [11+ volumes], from January 1928 to Spring 1953). Wings Comics , which was produced by the Eisner and Iger Studio , took its title and themes from the pulp title. The title initially targeted "flight enthusiasts, with articles about the history of flight and aerobatics, such as wing walking ." With

88-609: A 68-page-monthly, eventually settling on 52 pages per issue until issue #106. The title went to 36 pages for the duration of its run; also becoming quarterly with issue #110 (Winter 1949). Ultimately, Fiction House published 124 issues of Wings Comics from September 1940 to Summer 1954. During the 1940s, John Celardo was an assistant art director and a major contributor to the Fiction House line, notably for Wings Comics. Art Saaf produced covers for issues #7, 15, 19-57, and 98. Pioneering female cartoonist Lily Renée worked on

132-414: A continuation of his Hugo Award-winning ERB-dom which began in 1960. It ran for 75 issues and featured articles about the content and selected fiction from the pulps. It became Pulpdom Online in 2013 and continues quarterly publication. After 2000, several small independent publishers released magazines which published short fiction, either short stories or novel-length presentations, in the tradition of

176-424: A few quick dollars could bolster their income with sales to pulps. Additionally, some of the earlier pulps solicited stories from amateurs who were quite happy to see their words in print and could thus be paid token amounts. There were also career pulp writers, capable of turning out huge amounts of prose on a steady basis, often with the aid of dictation to stenographers , machines or typists . Before he became

220-483: A magazine called Pulp Adventures reprinting old classics. It came out regularly until 2001, and then started up again in 2014. In 1994, Quentin Tarantino directed the film Pulp Fiction . The working title of the film was Black Mask , in homage to the pulp magazine of that name , and it embodied the seedy, violent, often crime-related spirit found in pulp magazines. In 1997 C. Cazadessus Jr. launched Pulpdom ,

264-435: A novelist, Upton Sinclair was turning out at least 8,000 words per day seven days a week for the pulps, keeping two stenographers fully employed. Pulps would often have their authors use multiple pen names so that they could use multiple stories by the same person in one issue, or use a given author's stories in three or more successive issues, while still appearing to have varied content. One advantage pulps provided to authors

308-454: A package that provided affordable entertainment to young working-class people. In six years, Argosy went from a few thousand copies per month to over half a million. Street & Smith , a dime novel and boys' weekly publisher, was next on the market. Seeing Argosy ' s success, they launched The Popular Magazine in 1903, which they billed as the "biggest magazine in the world" by virtue of its being two pages (the interior sides of

352-498: A rescuing hero . Cover art played a major part in the marketing of pulp magazines. The early pulp magazines could boast covers by some distinguished American artists; The Popular Magazine had covers by N. C. Wyeth , and Edgar Franklin Wittmack contributed cover art to Argosy and Short Stories . Later, many artists specialized in creating covers mainly for the pulps; a number of the most successful cover artists became as popular as

396-662: A similar format to American pulp magazines, in that it was printed on rough pulp paper and heavily illustrated. During 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. Following the model of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine in 1941, some magazines began to switch to digest size : smaller, sometimes thicker magazines. In 1949, Street & Smith closed most of their pulp magazines in order to move upmarket and produce slicks . Competition from comic-books and paperback novels further eroded

440-521: Is a collection of "pulp fiction" stories written by such current well-known authors as Stephen King , Nick Hornby , Aimee Bender and Dave Eggers . Explaining his vision for the project, Chabon wrote in the introduction, "I think that we have forgotten how much fun reading a short story can be, and I hope that if nothing else, this treasury goes some small distance toward reminding us of that lost but fundamental truth." The Scottish publisher DC Thomson publishes "My Weekly Compact Novel" every week. It

484-569: Is literally a pulp novel, though it does not fall into the hard-edged genre most associated with pulp fiction. From 2006 through 2019, Anthony Tollin's imprint Sanctum Books has reprinted all 182 Doc Savage pulp novels, all 24 of Paul Ernst's Avenger novels, the 14 Whisperer novels from the original pulp series and all but three novels of the entire run of The Shadow (most of his publications featuring two novels in one book). Ruth Atkinson Ruth Atkinson Ford , née Ruth Atkinson and a.k.a. R. Atkinson (June 2, 1918 – June 1, 1997),

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528-1027: The Connecticut Historical Society, through the Iger Studio , a comic book packager that produced comics for publishers on an outsource basis. Fellow female artists Fran Hopper , Lily Renée , and Marcia Snyder also worked for Iger, where one of the business partners was a woman, Ruth Roche . Atkinson's first confirmed, signed work is the single-page "Wing Tips" featurette in Wings Comics #42 (Feb. 1944). Atkinson continued to pencil and ink that airplane-profile featurette, as well such Fiction House features as "Clipper Kirk" and "Suicide Smith" in Wings Comics , "Tabu" in Jungle Comics , and "Sea Devil" in Rangers Comics . At some point, she became

572-515: The Nobel Prize in Literature , worked as an editor for Adventure , writing filler paragraphs (brief facts or amusing anecdotes designed to fill small gaps in page layout), advertising copy and a few stories. The term pulp fiction is often used for massmarket paperbacks since the 1950s. The Browne Popular Culture Library News noted: Many of the paperback houses that contributed to the decline of

616-500: The "Jane Martin" feature in 1943–1944. Similarly, Ruth Atkinson 's first confirmed, signed work is the single-page "Wing Tips" featurette in issue #42 (Feb. 1944). Atkinson continued to pencil and ink that featurette, as well as "Clipper Kirk" and "Suicide Smith." Long-time Superman inker Murphy Anderson 's first confirmed credit is the two-and-two-thirds-page nonfiction aviation featurette "Jet Propulsion" in Wings Comics #48 ( cover-dated Aug. 1944), and his first fiction feature

660-692: The 1920s–1940s, the most successful pulps sold up to one million copies per issue. In 1934, Frank Gruber said there were some 150 pulp titles. The most successful pulp magazines were Argosy , Adventure , Blue Book and Short Stories , collectively described by some pulp historians as "The Big Four". Among the best-known other titles of this period were Amazing Stories , Black Mask , Dime Detective , Flying Aces , Horror Stories , Love Story Magazine , Marvel Tales , Oriental Stories , Planet Stories , Spicy Detective , Startling Stories , Thrilling Wonder Stories , Unknown , Weird Tales and Western Story Magazine . During

704-535: The 1950s. Pulp magazines often contained a wide variety of genre fiction , including, but not limited to: The American Old West was a mainstay genre of early turn of the 20th-century novels as well as later pulp magazines, and lasted longest of all the traditional pulps. In many ways, the later men's adventure ("the sweats") was the replacement of pulps. Many classic science fiction and crime novels were originally serialized in pulp magazines such as Weird Tales , Amazing Stories , and Black Mask . While

748-641: The Air Commanders" — title's other most enduring feature; contributors included Ruth Atkinson , Alvin Hollingsworth , Murphy Anderson , and Jack Keller . "Suicide Smith" also appeared in Fiction House's Jungle Comics and Rangers Comics . "Wing Tips" — nonfiction airplane profile featurette produced by, among others, Ruth Atkinson and Gene Colan "Yank Aces of World War II" — biographical feature; contributors included Fran Hopper Pulp magazine Pulp magazines (also referred to as "

792-521: The Amazon Queen by E.A. Guest, their first contribution to a "New Pulp Era", featuring the hallmarks of pulp fiction for contemporary mature readers: violence, horror and sex. E.A. Guest was likened to a blend of pulp era icon Talbot Mundy and Stephen King by real-life explorer David Hatcher Childress. In 2002, the tenth issue of McSweeney's Quarterly was guest edited by Michael Chabon . Published as McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales , it

836-470: The Fiction House art director , but left the position to freelance after finding that the managerial position left little time for her art. With writer Otto Binder , she went on to draw and co-create the feature " Patsy Walker ", for Marvel Comics predecessor Timely Comics in Miss America Magazine #2 (Nov. 1944). She would draw that humor/romance feature for two years, as well write and draw

880-492: The U.S entry into World War II , Wings Comics began emphasizing "patriotic war stories," similar to those of Captain Midnight and Quality Comics ' Blackhawk . With the end of the war, Wings Comics returned its focus to historical stories, "real-life heroes of aviation," and text pieces on model aircraft . Long-running recurring features in Wings Comics were "Jane Martin" and "Suicide Smith." Wings Comics started out as

924-653: The annual pulp magazine convention that had begun in 1972. The magazine, devoted to the history and legacy of the pulp magazines, has published each year since. It now appears in connection with PulpFest , the summer pulp convention that grew out of and replaced Pulpcon. The Pulpster was originally edited by Tony Davis and is currently edited by William Lampkin, who also runs the website ThePulp.Net. Contributors have included Don Hutchison, Robert Sampson, Will Murray , Al Tonik, Nick Carr, Mike Resnick , Hugh B. Cave , Joseph Wrzos, Jessica Amanda Salmonson , Chet Williamson , and many others. In 1992, Rich W. Harvey came out with

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968-428: The art was black lines on the paper's background, but Finlay and a few others did some work that was primarily white lines against large dark areas. Another way pulps kept costs down was by paying authors less than other markets; thus many eminent authors started out in the pulps before they were successful enough to sell to better-paying markets, and similarly, well-known authors whose careers were slumping or who wanted

1012-513: The authors featured on the interior pages. Among the most famous pulp artists were Walter M. Baumhofer , Earle K. Bergey , Margaret Brundage , Edd Cartier , Virgil Finlay , Frank R. Paul , Norman Saunders , Emmett Watson , Nick Eggenhofer , (who specialized in Western illustrations), Hugh J. Ward , George Rozen , and Rudolph Belarski . Covers were important enough to sales that sometimes they would be designed first; authors would then be shown

1056-487: The cover art and asked to write a story to match. Later pulps began to feature interior illustrations, depicting elements of the stories. The drawings were printed in black ink on the same cream-colored paper used for the text, and had to use specific techniques to avoid blotting on the coarse texture of the cheap pulp. Thus, fine lines and heavy detail were usually not an option. Shading was by crosshatching or pointillism , and even that had to be limited and coarse. Usually

1100-426: The cover price rose to 15 cents and 30 pages were added to each issue; along with establishing a stable of authors for each magazine, this change proved successful and circulation began to approach that of Argosy . Street and Smith's next innovation was the introduction of specialized genre pulps, with each magazine focusing on a particular genre, such as detective stories, romance, etc. At their peak of popularity in

1144-448: The direct precursors of pulp fiction. The first "pulp" was Frank Munsey 's revamped Argosy magazine of 1896, with about 135,000 words (192 pages) per issue, on pulp paper with untrimmed edges, and no illustrations, even on the cover. The steam-powered printing press had been in widespread use for some time, enabling the boom in dime novels; prior to Munsey, however, no one had combined cheap printing, cheap paper and cheap authors in

1188-735: The economic hardships of the Great Depression , pulps provided affordable content to the masses, and were one of the primary forms of entertainment, along with film and radio . Although pulp magazines were primarily an American phenomenon, there were also a number of British pulp magazines published between the Edwardian era and World War II . Notable UK pulps included The Pall Mall Magazine , The Novel Magazine , Cassell's Magazine , The Story-Teller , The Sovereign Magazine , Hutchinson's Adventure-Story and Hutchinson's Mystery-Story . The German fantasy magazine Der Orchideengarten had

1232-466: 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 (though some of those titles have been revived in various formats in the decades since). Almost all of the few remaining former pulp magazines are science fiction or mystery magazines, now in formats similar to " digest size ", such as Analog Science Fiction and Fact , though

1276-570: The front and back cover) longer than Argosy . Due to differences in page layout however, the magazine had substantially less text than Argosy . The Popular Magazine did introduce color covers to pulp publishing, and the magazine began to take off when in 1905 the publishers acquired the rights to serialize Ayesha (1905), by H. Rider Haggard , a sequel to his popular novel She (1887). Haggard's Lost World genre influenced several key pulp writers, including Edgar Rice Burroughs , Robert E. Howard , Talbot Mundy and Abraham Merritt . In 1907,

1320-951: The genre–Ace, Dell, Avon, among others–were actually started by pulp magazine publishers. They had the presses, the expertise, and the newsstand distribution networks which made the success of the mass-market paperback possible. These pulp-oriented paperback houses mined the old magazines for reprints. This kept pulp literature, if not pulp magazines, alive. The Return of the Continental Op reprints material first published in Black Mask ; Five Sinister Characters contains stories first published in Dime Detective ; and The Pocket Book of Science Fiction collects material from Thrilling Wonder Stories , Astounding Science Fiction and Amazing Stories . But note that mass market paperbacks are not pulps. In 1991, The Pulpster debuted at that year's Pulpcon ,

1364-682: The majority of pulp magazines were anthology titles featuring many different authors, characters and settings, some of the most enduring 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 . Popular pulp characters that headlined in their own magazines: Popular pulp characters who appeared in anthology titles such as All-Story or Weird Tales : Pulp covers were printed in color on higher-quality (slick) paper. They were famous for their half-dressed damsels in distress , usually awaiting

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1408-594: The most durable revival of Weird Tales began in pulp format, though published on good-quality paper. The old format is still in use for some lengthy serials, like the German science fiction weekly Perry Rhodan (over 3,000 issues as of 2019). 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. Many titles of course survived only briefly. While

1452-519: 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 trying to support themselves by creating fiction switched to novels and book-length anthologies of shorter pieces. Some ex-pulp writers like Hugh B. Cave and Robert Leslie Bellem had moved on to writing for television by

1496-512: The premiere issue of the long-running series Millie the Model . Atkinson later drew true-life adventures for Eastern Color Printing 's Heroic Comics , as well for some of the first romance comics , including Lev Gleason Publications ' Boy Meets Girl and Boy Loves Girl , through the early 1950s. Atkinson retired from comics sometime after her marriage. She was living in Pacifica, California , at

1540-410: The pseudonym "Clyde North") were also Wing Comics contributors. "Clipper Kirk" — ran issues #1–70 (1940–1946); contributors included Art Saaf , Ruth Atkinson , and Gene Colan "Greasemonkey Griffin" — ran issues #1–96 (1940–1948); contributors included Alex Blum "Jane Martin" — espionage feature starring a female pilot working in the male-dominated aviation industry, which ran throughout

1584-433: The pulp magazines of the early 20th century. These included Blood 'N Thunder , High Adventure and a short-lived magazine which revived the title Argosy . These specialist publications, printed in limited press runs, were pointedly not printed on the brittle, high-acid wood pulp paper of the old publications and were not mass market publications targeted at a wide audience. In 2004, Lost Continent Library published Secret of

1628-489: The pulps ") were inexpensive fiction magazines that were published from 1896 until around 1955. The term "pulp" derives from the wood pulp paper on which the magazines were printed, due to their cheap nature. In contrast, magazines printed on higher-quality paper were called "glossies" or "slicks". The typical pulp magazine had 128 pages; it was 7 inches (18 cm) wide by 10 inches (25 cm) high, and 0.5 inches (1.3 cm) thick, with ragged, untrimmed edges. Pulps were

1672-530: The pulps' market share, but it has been suggested the widespread expansion of television also drew away the readership of the pulps. 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 also began to draw some former pulp readers. The 1957 liquidation of the American News Company , then the primary distributor of pulp magazines, has sometimes been taken as marking

1716-672: The successors to the penny dreadfuls , dime novels , and short-fiction magazines of the 19th century. Although many respected writers wrote for pulps, the magazines were best known for their lurid, exploitative , and sensational subject matter, even though this was but a small part of what existed in the pulps. Digest magazines and men's adventure magazines were also regarded as pulps. Modern superhero comic books are sometimes considered descendants of "hero pulps"; pulp magazines often featured illustrated novel-length stories of heroic characters, such as Flash Gordon , The Shadow , Doc Savage , and The Phantom Detective . The pulps gave rise to

1760-464: The term pulp fiction in reference to run-of-the-mill, low-quality literature. Successors of pulps include paperback books, such as hardboiled detective stories and erotic fiction . Before pulp magazines, Newgate novels (1840s-1860s) fictionalized the exploits of real-life criminals. Later, British sensation novels gained peak popularity in the 1860s-1870s. Sensation novels focused on shocking stories that reflected modern-day anxieties, and were

1804-432: The title's entire run. Drawn by female artists Lily Renée from issues #31 to 48 (March 1943–Aug. 1944) and Fran Hopper from issue #67 to issue #84 (March 1946–August 1947). George Tuska was also a contributor; scripts for the feature are credited to the possibly pseudonymous "F.E. Lincoln." "Jet Propulsion" — featurette "Parachute Patrol" — ran issues #1–23; artists included Henry C. Kiefer "Suicide Smith and

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1848-589: Was an American cartoonist and pioneering female comic book writer-artist who created the long-running Marvel Comics character Millie the Model and co-created Patsy Walker . Born in Toronto , Ontario, Canada, Ruth Atkinson as an infant moved with her family to upstate New York . One of the first female artists in American comic books , she entered the field doing work for the publisher Fiction House beginning either 1942 or 1943, and either on staff or, as noted by

1892-609: Was an eight-page "Suicide Smith" story in issue #50 (Oct. 1944). Gene Colan 's first illustration work was in 1944 for Wings Comics ("[J]ust a summertime job before I went into the service"). This led to Colan's the one-page "Wing Tips" non-fiction filler " P-51B Mustang " (issue #52, Dec. 1944). His first comics story was a seven-page "Clipper Kirk" feature in the following month's issue. Pioneering black cartoonist Alvin Hollingsworth produced "Suicide Smith" at least sporadically from 1946 to 1950. Howard Larsen , George Evans , Tom Gill , George Tuska , and Klaus Nordling (under

1936-851: Was that they paid upon acceptance for material instead of on publication. Since a story might be accepted months or even years before publication, to a working writer this was a crucial difference in cash flow . Some pulp editors became known for cultivating good fiction and interesting features in their magazines. Preeminent pulp magazine editors included Arthur Sullivant Hoffman ( Adventure ), Robert H. Davis ( All-Story Weekly ), Harry E. Maule ( Short Stories ), Donald Kennicott ( Blue Book ), Joseph Shaw ( Black Mask ), Farnsworth Wright ( Weird Tales , Oriental Stories ), John W. Campbell ( Astounding Science Fiction , Unknown ) and Daisy Bacon ( Love Story Magazine , Detective Story Magazine ). Well-known authors who wrote for pulps include: Sinclair Lewis , first American winner of

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