Do Pulp Stories Matter?

Do Pulp Stories Matter?

YES they do! Now more than ever. For the last ten years, we’ve been invaded by mostly soulless computer-generated imagery disguising itself as art, and fiction where some sort of a message, point of view, or “awareness” has been given more attention than the story’s actual plot or entertaining aspects. What happened to just reading a story because it was fun? What happened to just sitting down to watch a movie because you wanted to escape the real world for a little while? Are you old enough to remember those times? You must be if you stumbled into this blog. “Ok,” you might say, “But what does all that have to do with the Pulps?”

Everything! Because the Pulps are entertainment in its purest form. No fillers. No agendas. Just story.

Even if you don’t realize it, the pulps have always been there entertaining you. Did you read or watch Alice in Wonderland or one of its many adaptations? Yes? Then you were consuming Pulp. All right, you can get technical on me and offer the counter-argument that the term “pulp fiction” didn’t exist when Lewis Carroll published “Alice” in 1865. I know that glorious term showed up in 1896. But the term “Penny Dreadfuls” had been around since the 1830s. Many conservative parents in the 1870s considered the Alice books to be “Penny Dreadfuls” or disposable trash with no moral or intellectual value. The “Pulps” are the descendants of the “Penny Dreadfuls,” just like “hippies” are the descendants of “beatniks.” The Alice books offered kids fast, weird, and fun entertainment just like the “Pulps” did for adults.

Did you ever read Edgar Allen Poe stories for fun or for an assignment in school? Yes? Then you my friend, were reading Pulps again. Poe basically invented the modern detective story with “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” in 1841. Detectives are one of Pulp Stories’ main characters.  H.P. Lovecraft (a Pulp King who only shares his throne with Robert E. Howard) was known for saying that Poe was one of his models. And even Weird Tales magazine reprinted Poe’s most famous stories. (Technically, Poe’s work can be categorized as being in the grandparents of the Pulps genre, the Penny Dreadfuls.)  I could go on and on talking about how influential the Pulps have been in our lives. But the point is that we really need them to come back again. We need new Pulp stories NOW. Otherwise, we all might end up giving up on all forms of fictional entertainment and start watching the clouds in the skies or tree leaves blowing in the wind (or trash bags like Ricky Fitts loved doing in American Beauty).

Want to know more about the Pulps? Check out the links below:

https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2023/11/edgar-allan-poe-in-first-year-of-weird.html