Peni Griffin
First Post
When you want pulp, turn to pulp, not to celluloid.
Pulp is a style rather than a genre, so poll your players on what intrigues them most, then read a bunch of it. Hero (Doc Savage, The Shadow, The Spider)? Weird horror (H.P. Lovecraft et al)? Western (Max Brand, Louis L'amour)? Detective (Chandler, Hammet)? Science fiction (Barsoom, Flash Gordon)? Unabashed imperialist adventure (Sax Rohmer, Bulldog Drummond, Tarzan)? Improbable war stories (G-8 and His Battle Aces, Zeppelin Stories)? Adventure/erotica (Spicy all-of-the-above - I'm not kidding you, there was a Spicy Zeppelin Stories magazine at one time!) Some combination thereof?
Your FLGS can get you current reprints of hero pulps and your local Half-price store probably has battered dusty shelves full of 70s reprints of all kinds of pulps and pulp-style comics. Depending on the budget of your local public library system or the kinds of pop culture courses offered at your local college, you might be surprised at the number of collections of this sort of material (scholarly and fan-based) you can access with ease for free.
These people can give you a glimpse of what's available; though of course, they wish you to spend money. Go the library and used bookstore route first to orient yourself.
http://www.adventurehouse.com/history.htm
Pulp is a style rather than a genre, so poll your players on what intrigues them most, then read a bunch of it. Hero (Doc Savage, The Shadow, The Spider)? Weird horror (H.P. Lovecraft et al)? Western (Max Brand, Louis L'amour)? Detective (Chandler, Hammet)? Science fiction (Barsoom, Flash Gordon)? Unabashed imperialist adventure (Sax Rohmer, Bulldog Drummond, Tarzan)? Improbable war stories (G-8 and His Battle Aces, Zeppelin Stories)? Adventure/erotica (Spicy all-of-the-above - I'm not kidding you, there was a Spicy Zeppelin Stories magazine at one time!) Some combination thereof?
Your FLGS can get you current reprints of hero pulps and your local Half-price store probably has battered dusty shelves full of 70s reprints of all kinds of pulps and pulp-style comics. Depending on the budget of your local public library system or the kinds of pop culture courses offered at your local college, you might be surprised at the number of collections of this sort of material (scholarly and fan-based) you can access with ease for free.
These people can give you a glimpse of what's available; though of course, they wish you to spend money. Go the library and used bookstore route first to orient yourself.
http://www.adventurehouse.com/history.htm
