Remember the Quentin Tarantino movie about a day in the life of hit men, a wife of a gangster, a boxer, a pair of young lovers which all collectively are related to crime? Add to that the unforgettable dance scene of Uma Thurman and John Travolta. The movie even earned Tarantino an Oscar for Best Screenplay and was included in American Film Institute’s 100 Greatest Movies. That critically-acclaimed movie, Pulp Fiction, was actually a homage to the pulp magazine Black Mask, which represents the chaotic, violent, law-breaking character of pulp magazines. The movie actually introduced ‘pulp fiction’ to people unacquainted with the phrase, since pulp magazines and ‘the pulp’ era ended during the ‘50s.
Pulp magazines, pulp fiction, or ‘the pulps’ were cheap fiction magazines commonly published from the 1920s through the 1950s. The term ‘pulp’ was derived from the breakable, high-acid wood pulp paper on which the magazines were printed. The magazines contain explicit violence and loud, striking cover illustrations. Some well-known characters of pulp fiction, also known as ‘hero pulps’ include Doc Savage, The Shadow and the Phantom Detective. Other regular pulp fiction characters include Buck Rogers, Captain Future, Nick Carter, Secret Agent X, Conan the Barbarian, Flash Gordon, Tarzan, The Avenger, The Spider and Zorro, among others.
Pulp magazines were at the summit of their popularity in the 1920s and 1930s, but during the 1950s, there was a decline due to the rising expenses and the serious competition from television, comic books and paperback novels, until the primary distributor of pulp magazines went bankrupt which marked the end of the ‘pulp era.’
But during the onset of the 21st century, numerous minor independent publishers issued magazines in the custom of the pulp magazines of the first part of twentieth century. One example is McSweeney’s Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales, which is a compilation of “pulp fiction” stories written by some recent well-known authors such as Stephen King, Nick Hornby, Aimee Bender, and Dave Eggers.