Today in pulp... a quick look at at the Golden Age marvel that is Planet Comics!
Planet Comics ran from January 1940 to Winter 1953, and is widely credited as being the first comic dedicated solely to science fiction.
The comic was a spin-off from the pulp magazine Planet Stories, and covered many of the same themes: ray guns, bug-eyed monsters and rowdy space girls.
Planet Comics employed many leading women illustrators like Fran Hopper & Lily Renée, whose amazing life story became a 2011 graphic novel.
Regular Planet Comics characters included Mars God of War, Mysta of the Moon, Reef Ryan, Gale Allen and the Girl Squadron, and The Red Comet.
Planet Comics often featured 'good girl' covers: improbable dresses and poses! This pin-up style was also used by Planet Stories magazine.
By the early 1950s Planet Comics was struggling, sometimes producing only one issue a year, and the title finally closed in 1953.
There's certainly a lot of 'John Carter of Mars' type action going on in many editions of Planet Comics.
But there's also plenty of Dale Arden/Flash Gordon type action happening as well. It's a nice mix.
And that's it my our look at Planet Comics today. I hope you enjoyed it!
(And for everyone asking "whatever happened to Spurt Hammond?" he was a minor character in the first 10 issues of Planet Comics, before being replaced by Cosmic Corrigan in March 1941)
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Today in pulp I make my predictions for 2022, based on what was happening in 1922!
What goes around comes around...
Streaming services will continue to dominate 2022, so to combat FOMO a new TV channel will launch that shows summaries of all the streaming shows you don't have time to watch any more.
Wearable Tech will finally go mainstream in 2022, and shop doorways will contain wireless charging stations to encourage more window shopping.
"A dream to some. A nightmare to others!" As it's Christmas let's look back at a film that I think helped redefine an old genre, captivated the imagination and launched many successful acting careers.
Let's look at John Boorman's Excalibur!
For a long time the film industry found the King Arthur story amusing. Camelot (1967) was a musical comedy; Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) was pure comedy.
But director John Boorman had been thinking seriously about the Arthurian legend since 1969, particularly Sir Thomas Malory's 1469 telling of the story 'Le Morte d’Arthur'. The mythic theme greatly appealed to him.
Today in pulp I look back at the publishing phenomenon of gamebooks: novels in which YOU are the hero!
A pencil and dice may be required for this thread...
Gamebooks are a simple but addictive concept: you control the narrative. At the end of each section of the story you are offered a choice of outcomes, and based on that you turn to the page indicated to see what happens next.
Gamebook plots are in fact complicated decision tree maps: one or more branches end in success, but many more end in failure! It's down to you to decide which path to tread.