Pulp Fiction

[TwilightWhisper]

Would someone please explain "pulp fiction" in a little more depth and give me some examples? Perhaps some reading material?

 

[Teflon Billy]

Jules and Vincent need to get that briefcase back to Marcellus.

Butch double crosses Marcellus, who has paid to have a fight fixed.

 

[Mouseferatu]

I knew someone was going to make that joke.

I think the question, though, was about fiction that is pulp.

"Pulp" isn't actually a genre of its own, so much as it is a style. You can have pulp adventure, pulp horror, pulp fantasy, noire, etc.

Pulp comes from the early decades of this century, and it refers to a style of story in which many of the elements are fairly sensational or over the top.

"Conan" is pulp fantasy. Some of Lovecraft is pulp horror. Many of the gangster and detective movies--"The Maltese Falcon," for instance--are considered film noire, which is pulpy.

Pulp adventure involves cliff-hangers, two-fisted heroes, and dastardly villains. Indiana Jones is a good modern example of pulp adventure (with occasional elements of horror). The upcoming movie "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" is, judging by the previews, about as pulp as you can get without actually going back in time to the 1930s. "The Phantom" and the "The Shadow"--in both their original and movie incarnations--are pulp adventure (with noire elements, where the Shadow is concerned).

Oh, the recent Hellboy movie has a good many pulp aspects to it.

As far as RPGs, pick up White Wolf's "Adventure!" either in the original Storyteller system, or the newly released D20 version. No other game out there so perfectly encapsulates pulp in all its glory. (I don't count Eberron, because Eberron is specifically D&D-style fantasy pulp, where it's pulpy, not the more general pulp of Adventure!.)

 

[Derulbaskul]

(snip) Pulp comes from the early decades of this century, and it refers to a style of story in which many of the elements are fairly sensational or over the top. (snip)

In other words, a lot like most modern news reporting in real life.

 

[johnsemlak]

BTW, the term 'pulp fiction' refers to the cheap pulpwood paper the magazines were printed on, which lended to the generally poor reputation they had among upper-establishment types.

 

[Morrus]

Pulp adventure involves cliff-hangers, two-fisted heroes, and dastardly villains.

As opposed to other fiction, where the heroes usually have only one fist or, on occasion, three.

 

[Mouseferatu]

As opposed to other fiction, where the heroes usually have only one fist or, on occasion, three.

Or, if you're watching Spider-Man 2, four-fisted villains. And as we all know, forewarned is four-armed.

(So is "two-fisted heroes" a purely American slang, then? Or were ya just making fun of me because you could? )

 

[Morrus]

Oh, I've heard it before. I always thought it was a silly phrase, though.

 

[Hand of Evil]

See the following...

http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=93605&highlight=pulp
Pulp had more to do with the paper the stories were printed on but pulp heros also had timing on their side, the stories crossed over to other media, mostly radio and then movies. Pulp mixed action, adventure, and 'visuals' (images/desriptions) it was a lot of different types of stories, such as crime, horror, jungle tails, swashbucking, occult, space...but did not explain how things worked. Pulp went out of fashion after WW2 because of a new term Science Fiction but is now finding its way back because of the 'visuals' it creates and the move away from hard science.

 

[CombatWombat51]

Pulp comes from the early decades of this century, and it refers to a style of story in which many of the elements are fairly sensational or over the top.

Wow, pulp is from the future? Since we're not even halfway through the first decade of this century....