Sexism, misogyny in writing and publishing

Posted by William at 4:52 pm Wednesday, June 12, 2013 in Bits of Pulp, New Pulp, Opinion, Websites

Writer/game designer Chuck Wendig has written “25 things to know about sexism & misogyny in writing & publishing” over at his blog, terribleminds.

And he has followed up with “Challenging responses to sexism and misogyny” and “Why men should speak out about sexism, misogyny and rape culture.”

Pulp photo gallery updated

Posted by William at 4:00 pm Tuesday, June 11, 2013 in News, Pulp Preservation, Pulps, ThePulp.Net

Don’t you wish you had a time machine?

Can’t you just imagine standing in the glory of a sidewalk newsstand overflowing with lavishly colored pulp magazines?

The first sentence above is also the opening sentence on the next-best-thing to a time machine: ThePulp.Net’s Pulp Photos page.

Today we added the photo above. It’s of a woman making a purchase at a New York newsstand in May 1936. There are copies of Short Stories (May 10, 1936), Spicy Detective (June 1936), Detective Fiction Weekly, Argosy, Wild West Weekly, Popular Western and Western Story Magazine for sale.

‘Sports Novels Magazine’ June 1951

Posted by William at 10:00 am Friday, May 31, 2013 in Great Pulp Art, Pulps

With major league baseball season well under way and the college world series in a couple of weeks, I thought this installment of Great Pulp Art should echo that.

The pulp magazines reflected what the masses were interested in reading. If readers wanted Westerns, romance, war or heroes, that’s what the pulp publishing houses gave them. Exciting Plumbing Adventures, not so much.

Sport fiction was always a part of fiction magazines, and when interest grew strong enough, it earned its very own titles. Sport Story Magazine led the way in 1923. But not until the mid-’30s would sports pulps really take the field.

Jack Vance: 1916-2013

Posted by William at 10:25 pm Wednesday, May 29, 2013 in Obituaries, People, Pulpsters

Jack Vance

Vance got his start with a novelette, “The World-Thinker,” published in Thrilling Wonder Stories (Summer 1945). Beginning in 1947, his stories regularly appeared in Startling Stories, Thrilling Wonder and other pulps.

He continued writing for the SF digest magazines into the mid-’60s.

Beside SF and fantasy, Vance also wrote mysteries.

A pulp market update, 1928

Posted by William at 10:00 am Wednesday, May 29, 2013 in Pulps

Vintage writers’ journals offer a great way to peek behind the curtains and see the goings-on in the backshops of pulp magazine publishers.

The April 28, 1928, issue of The Editor, the “journal of information for literary workers and others interested in books and writing,” includes an updated manuscript market guide for Triple-X Western Magazine, a pulp that ran from June 1924 through November 1932 (with annuals issued in 1934-36).

The following appeared in The Editor‘s Literary Market column:

Triple-X (Monthly; $.25; $2.50)
Fawcett Publications, Robbinsdale, Minn.

Tarzan revisited

Posted by William at 11:00 am Friday, May 24, 2013 in Opinion, Pulps, Review

I have a confession to make: I only recently read “Tarzan of the Apes.”

Believe me, I tried to read it several times — back in high school in the ’70s, again sometime in the ’80s, and another time still — but I could never get past the first chapter or two.

I finally decided I needed to read one of the most famous pulp characters. So I revisited Tarzan. And I’m glad I did. I enjoyed the first book so much that I quickly picked up the next three novels in the series.

I flew through each of the first three adventures — “Tarzan of the Apes,” “The Return of Tarzan” and “The Beasts of Tarzan” — in just a couple of days each. But the fourth, “The Son of Tarzan,” proved to be a completely different beast.

Putting aside the fact that the whole idea of Tarzan stretches plausibility — hey, that’s what makes many pulp stories entertaining and why we read them, isn’t it? — the fourth novel pulls and twists plausibility past the breaking point, and brings all of Edgar Rice Burroughs‘ storytelling flaws into sharp focus.

Seeking pulp photo help

Posted by William at 11:00 am Wednesday, May 22, 2013 in Pulp Collectibles, Pulps, ThePulp.Net

UPDATED 5.24.13 | Yesterday we posted six new photos over on ThePulp.Net‘s pulp photos gallery.

The earliest of the latest batch is 1913; one was from 1939; and three others from 1943. There was one from, probably, the early to mid-1940s.

We could use your help on two of those photos.

The 1939 photo was taken in San Antonio, Texas, at a newsstand selling Mexican newspapers and magazines. One of those magazines appears as if it could be a Spanish-language pulp. That’s a closeup of it at right.

The cover appears to be that of Policia Detective (or Police Detective), with subtitles of “Teatros” (Theater) and “Cines” (cinemas). The cover art teases to “El espia X-21″ (or “The Spy X-21″).

Does anyone know anything about this magazine? Was it a pulp? Or was it something else?