Pulp around the world

[archangel1]

Didn't know whether this should go here or in Open Talk but I'll try here first.

Going by the numbers, Pulp is a clear favourite amongst the members of this forum.  I was just curious as to what 'Pulp' means around the world, since we have members from all over.

Here in North America, Pulp had a massive presence until shortly after the war.  We had such characters, amongst others, as Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon, Doc Savage, Fu Manchu, Nick Carter, Tarzan, Zorro, The Avenger, The Spider and, of course, probably the most famous of all, The Shadow.  In Britain, I know of Biggles, Raffles and Sexton Blake.  But what about the rest of the world? Was there a Pulp 'culture' in Germany or France or Scandinavia? Or is it simply a North American-British phenomenon? 

I'll be interested to hear what you have to say about this.

Cheers,
Mike

[Vanvlak]

Malta: forget it. Doesn't exist except in imported forms.

The only thing I could do would be to create it myself.

[Torben]

I think that it is primarily an American/british thing; but we Danes got some sampling of it in the likes of Flash Gordon (who's translated name read Jens Lyn), Superman and other comics/cartoons of the era. But I do believe that Tarzan and Zorro was printed in and around that era.

However, I do believe my dad had some sort of western pulp litterature which he bought circa 1960, so pulp in some form might have made an appearance here much later; although it's not any of the classics like Doc Savage, The Shadow and so on.

So it would seem that it is a rather curious US-only phenomenon, as far as Denmark (and possibly the rest of the North) goes. Maybe we're just not able to believe in extraordinary people in our bleak and winterladen part of the world 

[Poliorketes]

Pulp in germany had one name - Hans-Rudi Wäscher.

[Hammers]

There is a very exhaustive htread on this somewhere, where we all turned this topic inside out for a while. A hijacked thread, I wouldn't be surpirsed, so I doubt it is properly labeled.

[Argonor]

There is a very exhaustive htread on this somewhere, where we all turned this topic inside out for a while. A hijacked thread, I wouldn't be surpirsed, so I doubt it is properly labeled.

WHAT?? A hi-jacked thread?? IN HERE? 

[winterborn]

Lets hijack this thread to talk about hijacked threads 

Back to topic, there wasnt much of a culture here in Oz AFAIK, but we did pick up some american and brit influences.

[Operator5]

I think you'll find that many other countries did not have pulp in the same way that America had it. You may come across a series or two in other countries, but America in particular has a craving for heroes. Being a young country, we don't have many historical figures to turn to (and none so far back that they seemed almost mythical). And because of the diverse population, there are no ingrained folk heroes.

We're also a country of mass production. If an idea seems popular, you can bet a dozen others will jump on the badwagon and try to produce similar. Because of that, a single pulp magazine could turn into 20, 40, 100 rather quickly.

[Will Bailie]

Back to topic, there wasnt much of a culture here in Oz AFAIK,

I've heard that quite often, but it isn't often an Australian actually admits it!

(ducks for cover)

[argsilverson]

In Greece the situation is something like Malta, with a little difference.

In my early youth, the term comics did not exist. The term we used is "mickey mouse". However the Marvel comics (Superman et co) appeared. The boom in the comics started when Asterix (& Lucky Luke) stories appeared for 1st, 2nd and 3rd editions. Nowdays the situation with comics in general is small. You can only find them in special bookshops.

In the 50's, just beafore my time, there was a series of local "Pulp" production. There were several sets of stories, editing a lot of heroes, of Greek origin that do marvel things in the 4 corners of the planet. Just an example we had the Greek-Tarzan (and another copy of this hero with different name -friend of the pygmies) we had the Young cowboy/ Young sheriff [a teenager sheriff - better texas marshall, with a mexican teenager deputy and his american sweetheart] but the most well known hero of all was Phantom kid [a teenager with a couple of friends, yes surprise he had a sweetheart,too,] a hero with special abilities. he could see in pitch dark we could calm the most fierce dog with a simple magic whistle, who helped the allies and fought the entire world against the occupation. If you count the enemies he has killed, you exceed the actual numbers of casualties in the whole war by 3. Anyhow they played a part in ourtimes and still you can hear some expressions from these stories. For example "who you are you the phantom kid!" Among them there was also some sets directly derived from the pulp genre with detectives and adventurers, but this was more to the adult side. So, as a very young youth at that time, access was denied.

These stories run for a couple of decades and most of them were the work of one single person, who also edited the magazines. Nowdays some relics may be found in the antiques shop, at enormous high prices. Only few copies survived. The rest were recycled to pulp paper.

Sorry, for a long reply

[Grimm]

The Americans bing us pulp after ww 2 and coka cola and lucky strike and .........

hey who is Hans-Rudi Wäscher ?!?

BTW is Edgar Walace Pulp ?

Grimm

[Lazarus Long]

hey who is Hans-Rudi Wäscher ?!?

Didn't recognize the name but Mr. Google and Ms Wiki knows:

http://www.hrw-fanclub.de/

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hansrudi_W%C3%A4scher

you should know his work...

[Captain Blood]

And I guess you have to ask - did they know they were creating 'pulp' at the time?

I mean, we now look back on a whole range of stuff from (broadly) the 1930s/1940s (but maybe actually from the 1920's - 1950's) and classify it as pulp.

In fact, what we now term pulp covers lots of different sub-genres, from detective fiction, to Wild West, to Sword and Sorcery, to 'true' pulp - by which I mean adventure stories in the Thrilling Tales (I mean the magazine) vein...

So, for instance, Herge's Adventures of TinTin looks and feels a lot like classic pulp era output now - both in the stories, and the interwar/postwar setting. And that's clearly not British or North American. But did Herge know he was creating pulp fiction at the time? Probably not, because whilst the concept of 'pulp' (literally, cheap as chips paperbacks which could be pulped because they weren't great works of literature) was certainly known at the time, the concept of 'pulp' as an entire milieu / artform encompassing film, literature and much more besides, has only emerged in the last 20 or 30 years.

So - all in all - tough question to answer! 

[Le matou rouge]

old topic, short answer :

http://www.coolfrenchcomics.com/timeline.htm

meow,
Matt

[Westfalia Chris]

Pulp in germany had one name - Hans-Rudi Wäscher.

I strongly object to allowing Wäscher "pulp" status in the "lovable piece of camp" meaning which we have come to use. I advocate "Schundheftchen" in the truest sense of the word.

Of course, another classic example of "SciFi Pulp" would be the Perry Rhodan novelets although it is certainly not "classic pulp". But "Schundheftchen" in a more joking tone nonetheless.