SOBRECUBIERTA LIGERAMENTE DESGARRADA
THE YEARS BETWEEN THE WARS IN America were a time of dramatic upheaval – the era of sexual liberation, Prohibition, organised crime and the Great Depression. A time when ordinary Americans looked to romance and fantasy to escape their humdrum, troubled lives. During this era, along with movies and radio, came the spectacular rise of the pulp magazine. The pulp magazine grew out of the 19th-century dime novel and was soon overtaken by comics and the arrival of the paperback book. But for a brief time between the 20s and 40s the pulps ruled supreme. Their lurid colour covers depicting thrilling sex and violence (with stories to match inside) fuelled the dreams and nightmares of a generation. For a few cents they offered everything young, red-blooded Americans wanted: sex, action and adventure. And what's more, in amongst all the sleaze, they fostered the talents of some of the greatest popular writers of the century and virtually invented the modern genres of science fiction and hard-boiled crime.
From the cheap thrills of the 'hot' and 'spicy' pulps and the sexual sadism of the 'shudder' pulps to the weird worlds of the fantasy, sci-fi and horror pulps, Peter Haining takes us on a tour of their publishing history (and in particular their artistry) to impart a true sense of the original magazines in all their sleazy, sensational glory.
