What is pulp?

What is (and is not) “pulp” is something that has generated a lot of discussion over the years.

Some people are very stringent about what pulp is; others, not so much.

I can only offer my own view of what pulp is.

For me, there are different kinds of pulp. There is “original” or “classic” pulp. The real stuff. What was published in the pulp magazines that existed from the 1890s to the 1950s. Pulp magazines were so called because they were published on cheap, woodpulp paper. They were inexpensive, so pay rates were low, thus the writing was fast and furious.

Pulp magazines offered cheap reading for the masses in a highly literate society. But it’s not “bad” literature.  Nor was is “lurid” or “sensationalist” as some try to claim.

And don’t think that the stories weren’t edited. Most were. We know that Lester Dent and Walter Gibson engaged in discussions with their editors on future Doc Savage and The Shadow stories before they wrote them, even needing to get pre-approval for future stories. They revised and left out stuff. And editors edited. They cut stuff, and rewrote stuff. Apparently the Thrilling editors did a lot of rewriting. Certainly the smaller and cheaper publishers didn’t do as much editing.

And don’t think that all pulp writers were hacks. Some were. But some used the pulp magazines as a springboard to better paying fields (“slick” magazines, books, other media like movies, radio, and even tv). Many succeeded. Others did not.

Most pulps were 7×10-inches in size. Some were larger, called “bedsheet”. For a period of time during World War II, several pulp magazines were reduced to digest size.  Average page count ran from 128 to 192 pages, but some were as few as 64 pages and some as much as 320 pages.  So the prices varied.  10 cents was the standard, but some were 5 cents, others as much as 25 cents.

The kinds of stories that existed in pulps ran the gamut.  This is why we point out that pulp is a medium, not a genre. There were adventure, air, crime, detective, mystery, fantasy, horror, occult, railroad, romance, science fiction, sports, war, western.  And there are sub-genres as well.  Some genres were mainly found only in pulps, and not the slicks or more mainstream fiction magazines. Too often people think of only the hero pulps as the main genre, when there were others.  Detective was big for many years, and romance was also big.

And to re-iterate, pulps were the popular fiction for the masses.  As separted from the more literate fiction that appeared in the slicks and mainstream sources.  Thus much of what appeared in the pulps, not just what was in the spicys or weird menace pulps, but also the romance, detective, science fiction, war, pulp heroes, etc could only have appeared in the pulps and no place else.

That is the real pulp.

But there were also the forerunners of pulp, the “proto pulp” if you will. The dime novels and story papers that came before the pulp magazines and sometimes had similar works. Here you found Nick Carter and many other larger-than-life detectives, scientific characters like Frank Reade Jr. and the like, western characters like Buffalo Bill and so forth.  But what appeared in the dime novels is different from the pulps.

There are also media that popped up alongside pulp that could be “pulpish” or “pulp-like.” These are not pulp, but sometimes you saw pulp stories and characters make the transition to them. Media such as comic books (many pulp publishers also did comic books), radio, movies and movie serials.  Thus you see Zorro (a pulp character) appear in comics and movie serials.

And then there are the media that popped up and replaced pulp: digests, paperback books, men’s adventure magazines (the ‘sweats’) and TV. Again, these are not pulp, but could be “pulpish” and “pulp-like.” Paperback books reprinted a lot of stuff from the pulps. Not just the various hero pulps (The Shadow, Doc Savage, etc.), but many writers who started off in pulps would get reprints of their works, or move to writing original works.  So most science fiction, detective, westerns, and similar that were written before the 1950s that appeared later in paperback are most likely reprints from the pulps.

With the demise of pulps, most fiction magazines (especially science fiction and mystery) continued on in digest format. But most lost their pulpish aspects.  The quality of the work improved.  Others converted to men’s adventure and later lost a lot of the fiction for ‘true’ stories and articles.

I also feel that some genres that exist in the paperback medium are in some ways a continuation of pulp. The numbered men’s adventure series (The Executioner, The Destroyer, etc.) seem pulp-like. Thrillers and techno-thrillers seem pulp-like.

And keep in mind that a lot of pulp stories (hero pulps, but also western, mystery, and science fiction) were reprinted in paperback books. A lot of people have probably read pulp without realizing it because it appeared in more recently published books.

Personally, I think following pulp-like works in other media is something pulp fans should do. But don’t go for calling this “pulp.” It’s pulp-like or pulpish.

Then you have the “New Pulp” movement that has cropped up in recent years. I’ve never quite understood the animosity that some pulp fans have for New Pulp. Some turn their noses up at it. Some put it down as being only “fan fiction” or the like. (I’ve seen one person call it “self published,” which to me is a put-down, like saying someone isn’t legit enough to get a real publisher, such as going with a vanity publisher.)  New Pulp aims for a similar sensabilitiy of the old pulps, but are certainly better written then the average pulp stories, and aren’t published on cheap pulp paper.

Sorry, but to me “fan fiction” is amateurish stuff passed among fans who see themselves as wannabe writers. Those doing New Pulp are professional writers, publishing through real publishers. Also, nobody gets paid for fan fiction. The New Pulp writers do get paid. Maybe not enough to make a living, but they get paid. Calling it “self published” is incorrect, even if the New Pulp publishers are using print-on-demand services to print their works. To give an example, Barry Reese is not “self published.” His work is edited and published by real publishers, who just happened to use POD.

I do agree with some that there seems to be an attitude to slap the word “pulp” on stuff that is not pulp, and it’s something I don’t care for. It reminds me somewhat of how people glommed onto the word “cyberpunk” and started variations of the term for different things (steampunk, dieselpunk, splatterpunk, ad nauseum), such that the original term and meaning was diluted.  I see this too often on on-line forums when new people pop up with some comic book or fictional character and ask if its pulp, when the character is often two or three steps removed from pulp.  And then they get upset when its pointed out they aren’t pulp or at most only a little bit pulp-like.

As noted, I prefer a broader view of pulp and pulp-like works. But I do have limits. For myself, I’ve found that Bill Thom‘s Pulp Coming Attractions pretty well matches my own views. I’ve rarely felt that something included there didn’t belong, or that something was left out.

So, what do others think? Add your comments or if you blog, put your thoughts there.