FRIDAY’S FORGOTTEN BOOKS #707: PULP POWER: THE SHADOW, DOC SAVAGE, AND THE ART OF THE STREET & SMITH UNIVERSE By Neil McGinness

Pulp Power, a 352-page coffee table book, displays over a 100 gorgeous pulp magazine covers in breath-taking color. In his Foreword, Frank Miller expounds on the impact pulp fiction characters like The Shadow, Doc Savage, Nick Carter, and others had on our contemporary writers and artists.

Neil McGinness provides insightful histories of The Shadow and Doc Savage. He also explores the illustrators like Jim Steranko and James Bana. Bana says, “I read all 62 Doc novels that I did the covers for. And the editors let me do whatever I wanted for the cover paintings. That’s why they were so good.” (p. 274)

I’ve looked at plenty of books about pulp magazines and their artwork, but Pulp Power is stunning! If you’re a fan of this genre, you need to check this out! GRADE: A

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

 Foreword — 8

Chapter 1. The Shadow — 12

Chapter 2. Doc Savage — 142

Chapter 3. The super crew — 224

Chapter 4. Paperback revolution — 268

Chapter 5. Comics evolution — 304

Chapter 6. A new future — 336

Acknowledgments — 350

Credits — 352

19 thoughts on “FRIDAY’S FORGOTTEN BOOKS #707: PULP POWER: THE SHADOW, DOC SAVAGE, AND THE ART OF THE STREET & SMITH UNIVERSE By Neil McGinness

    1. george Post author

      Jerry, PULP POWER delivers plenty of bang for the buck! And, weighing in at almost 6 pounds, you can also work on your pectoral muscles!

      Reply
  1. Todd Mason

    And actually about pulp fiction (and even more illustration of pulp fiction). Latter-day “scholars ” might even insist its focus Too Narrow, since it doesn’t call the paperbacks “pulps”…

    Reply
    1. george Post author

      Todd, even this Super-Size format book can’t cover the whole Pulp genre. The major players and the eye-popping artwork is here. That’s enough for me!

      Reply
  2. Michael Padgett

    By the time I became really aware of this stuff my reading tastes had moved beyond it. A few years earlier and I might at least have tried it.

    Reply
    1. george Post author

      Michael, I got hooked on the paperback reprints of The Shadow and Doc Savage. By then, the original pulps were outside my price range. But, I love these marvelous books with hundreds of classic covers!

      Reply
  3. Steve A Oerkfitz

    I find most pulp writing pretty bad except for a few weird Tales and Black Mask writers. I like the cover illustrations usually more interesting than the stories.

    Reply
  4. Jeff Meyerson

    Nice. Love the artwork, but zero interest in Doc Savage. I have seen Walter Gibson talk a couple of times and read a few of his Shadows, but no eal interest there either. Gibson was a wonderful character himself.

    Reply
    1. george Post author

      Jeff, Walter Gibson and Lester Dent could pound out a million words a year. The downside of such prolific writing results in stories that might not hold up 80 years later. But, the artwork certainly does!

      Reply
      1. george Post author

        Bob, no…WORDPRESS wrote Bana after I wrote Bama! It also changed Bama to Mama in an early version! WORDPRESS is the bane of my existence!

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