All right you hordes of DISContented readers, I have something for you to burn some grey matter:
1) What are the top five genres of pulp?
Notice I'm looking for genres and not just titles, so THE SPIDER, THE SHADOW and DOC SAVAGE are all grouped in the same "Hero" genre. I'm looking for the top five genres - which can be just about anything. It gets tough because I would put characters like TARZAN or CAPTAIN FUTURE - while they are heroes - in different genres (Adventure and Science Fantasy respectively).
2) Give me an example in each genre.
So like the examples above you would write: Adventure - Tarzan....and so forth.
7 comments:
A great idea for audience participation, and as soon as I get home I'll post my full answer. But I would disagree with you about lumping Doc Savage, The Shadow, the Spider and Tarzan in the same genre. While you're correct, they are all heroes, The Shadow and the Spider would fall into the DARK AVENGER genre, Doc Savage would be ADVENTURE, and Tarzan would be JUNGLE ADVENTURE. All valid genres, and each had plenty of titles/participants.
The hard thing to do will be to figure out what genre theAvenger falls into, as he elements of both DARK AVENGER and ADVENTURE. Given his main motivation (the murder of his wife and daughter), though, I think I'd peg him as a DARK AVENGER-type.
Actual Pulps?
If so, you have...
ADVENTURE (which includes Doc)
WEIRD TALES
ASTOUNDING SCI-FI
ROMANCE
WESTERN
DETECTIVE
Yikes, that's 6. There were also WAR pulps and TRUE STORIES and some others.
Each ofthose main genres could be broken down into subs - so detective pulps had everything from BLACK MASK to THE SHADOW... but they were all about solving crimes (or crimes themselves). They were not about going to exaotic foreign lands or fighting the elements (including natives).
But there were no BORING ADVENTURES! pulps - all of them were about exciting things happening - usually fantastic things.
- Bill
Are those your top five, Bill?
Here's mine:
ADVENTURE - Tarzan
HERO - The Spider, Shadow, et al.
AVIATION - G8 and his Battle Aces
MYSTERY/DETECTIVE - Black Mask
SCIFI - Amazing Stories
There are certainly others - westerns for example - but I would like YOUR top five. Some people will only read HERO pulps so I guess I should open it up for that since there are several that mix mystery with hero (Phantom Detective?).
PLANETARY ROMANCE -- John Eric Stark and John Carter
LANDS OF MYSTERY -- Tarzan and Beyond Thirty
WEIRD TALES -- Clark Ashton Smith's Averoigne and Robert E. Howard's Solomon Kane
SWORD AND SORCERY -- Conan, Kull, Lamb's Cossack tales
MYSTERY -- The Thin Man
I'm on something of a pulp kick right now, and mainly interested in anything to do with crime in the city. I know that's not a real genre, as it ranges over everything from The Shadow to more traditional hardboiled detective fare, and I'm not even limiting my reading strictly to pulps, but also throwing in the bastard offshoot of sixties Sleaze, especially the rougher stuff where slashers, maniacs, and violent peepers abound.
Science Fantasy - Barsoom
Weird Horror - Lovecraft
Adventure - Tarzan
Sword & Sorcery - Conan
Science Fiction - Heinlein
Okay, back home and the elctricity is finally on. Here are my five top pulp genres:
ADVENTURE - Doc Savage, Operator 5, Argosy
MYSTERY - The Shadow, the Spider, Phantom Detective
SCIENCE FICTION - Amazing Stories, Planet Stories, Wonder Stories
WESTERN - the Lone Ranger, Texas Rangers, Buck Jones Western
AVIATION - G8 and His Battle Aces, the Lone Eagle, Terrence X. O'Leary's Warbirds
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