Pulp Art: Original Cover Paintings for the Great American Pulp Magazines - Hardcover

Several famous fantasy and science fiction authors had their beginning in the pulp magazines of the 1930s and 1940s, including Robert E. Howard, H.P. Lovecraft, Fritz Leiber, Isaac Asimov, and Ray Bradbury (not to mention Dashiell Hammett and Tennessee Williams). There were also crime fighters so popular they had their own magazines, such as the still-popular Doc Savage and the Shadow. But besides the writers and the series heroes, there was yet another element for which the lurid pulp magazines (called "pulp" in reference to the cheap grade of paper they were printed on by the millions) are fondly remembered to this day: the cover art. Robert Lesser offers a fascinating history from the perspective of the commercial artists who produced this often less-than-respectable work, thereby bringing the acclaim that these now mostly forgotten artists richly deserve. The author also includes 18 essays about various aspects of the long extinct industry, from such legendary SF scholars as Forrest J. Ackerman and Sam Moskowitz. Needless to say, the book is also stuffed with some amazing artwork. Pulp Art is a perfect introduction to a once nearly lost aspect of pop culture, which just now is being properly appreciated. --Stanley Wiater