The American Space: Percolating the Genres in the Pulps

I'm revved up to attend PulpFest 2012 in Columbus, Ohio this weekend. I'm really interested in connecting with the pulp magazine collecting community. As a genre fiction enthusiast / aspiring writer / scholar, I often take for granted the real material origins of the genres we take for granted. I have to remind myself that science fiction, fantasy, and supernatural horror didn't emerge, fully formed, from our culture like night mushrooms. They slowly but surely evolved out of many different contexts, one of the major ones (dare I say *the* major one) being American pulpwood magazines.

Sure, sure: modern supernatural fiction or "weird literature" can be linked to the British Gothic novel; science fiction can be connected to the science romances of H.G. Wells and Jules Verne; modern fantasy can be said to be fully founded or at least fully outlined by J.R.R. Tolkien. The British Isles can claim, indeed, to be a major "ur" location for the supernatural genres we love. And yet--something happened to these genres when they were "percolated" through the pulp magazines. The American pulp writers drew from this old world traditions and began to add to them, to change them.

In comparison to H.G. Wells, Mary Shelley, and J.R.R. Tolkien, I offer Edgar Rice Burroughs, H.P. Lovecraft, and Robert E. Howard. Generally speaking, all of these writers--all six of them--have mass appeal. Their work--which the clever genre historian has firmly situated within the history of the modern supernatural genres (the "weird" genres, as I like to call them)--was read and continues to be read by a lot of people. But there are characteristics that flag Burroughs, Lovecraft, and Howard as being in distinct camps from Wells, Shelley, and Tolkien: distinct shifts in tone, content, character, style, narrative structure, etc.. It just may (just *may*) be useful to attempt to map these shifts along national grounds. Hmm... A major project.

A distinct characteristic, I'm thinking, inherent in the pulp versions of science fiction, fantasy, and supernatural horror is the presence of, simply, a lot of geographical space. In Burroughs Mars stories, for example, you have Barsoom, a new world to explore and discover, to fight in and conquer, to organize. In Howard, you have the great vistas of Hyborian Age--all the many kingdoms, cities, dread ruins, and wilderness expances plumb, explore, conquer, organize. In Lovecraft, nothing less than the entire cosmos are unflung for the characters to experience, meditate on, and finally recoil from.

This is just a start, a tentative "toe-dip" along this line of thought. But it may be a fruitful road, I'm convinced: a major distinction between pulp versions of genre and their corresponding British representatives, it seems to me, is something as simple as space, more space: in the pulps the narratives are set against a lot of room for the characters to move around in, to adventure in. Hmm...

The Best of Weird Tales in 1923: Orville R. Emerson's "The Grave"

So, I recently purchased an anthology of stories from Weird Tales titled, The Best of Weird Tales: 1923. This was supposed to be the inaugural book in a series of book--one for each year of Weird Tales publication. Not really sure what happened, but I'm sure what didn't happen: this was the only edition released.

Gods, I would have loved if they had done the entire series. Alas. Nevertheless, I've very greatful for this anthology, of which I read the first two stories and extremely enjoyed them. In this blog post I want to tell you about the first story, a story titled, "The Grave" by Orville R. Emerson. If you don't recognize this name, don't worry. I don't either. I did some google searches for him, and found nothing. Nothing whatsoever (aside froma  few passing references to this anthology and this *one* story in Weird Tales. I don't know why, but I find his anonymity intriguing.

Anyhow, what's this story about? Well, it takes place during "the Great War," and it is ostensibly written as the memoir of a German soldier who has been trapped in a underground fortress after it has been bombarded by allied rail guns. The story relates his struggles to survive: organizing supplies, rationing food, digging his way out, etc.. It's kind of a demented Robinson Crusoe, if you will. I won't give away the end because I think you should buy the anthology (it's a small press! c'mon!) and read it. But I what to reflect on some really interesting thematic issues.

Confusion and ignorance. The protagonist spends that vast majority of the time attempting to understand his situation. He thinks he will be relieved after the battle is over. He thinks one of the sides will stop to help the soldiers captured in the destroyed fortress. And so he's optimistic. After a while he starts second guessing himself. He then starts trying to keep track of the day and time, but can't, considering he's closed off from the world. And so, he doesn't know how long, i.e. how many hours, weeks, days, months he's been underground. Eventually he starts falling in and out of sleep and starts imagining that he's doing things he doesn't remember. For example, he'll committ to only eating so much of his rations; and, he'll wake up, and more rations are gone. He wonders, did he do this in my sleep?

Historical resonance. Considering this story was written in 1923, a time when the horrors of World War I were no doubt still lingering in the "cultural imagination" in the states, I think there is some intense "allegorical resonance" here. You have a protagonist extremely confused, hearing bombing all around him, struggling with rations, trying to say sane. Is it useful to think of him as a representing of a kind of universal experience of modernity at that time?

Anyhow. I wanted to share this story with particularly and this anthology with you generally. I hope to review more in the future.

Holiday Post: the Gift of Pulp, the Pleasure of Acquistion

For my first holiday post, I’d like to share some Christmas presents I received from my infinitely wise and always surprising wife, Nicole: four issues of *Weird Tales.*

I don’t want to assume everyone knows about this magazine (it’s really hard not to!). And so, here’s a little background: this is an important pulp magazine not just in terms of genre fiction but in terms of popular culture in general: film, television, comic books, etc., you name it, important elements can be traced back to *Weird Tales.*

In other words, it’s a Ur text of our popular culture (and many sub-cultures).

I study *Weird Tales* academically and have never collected it myself. Why? First: it’s an extremely expensive habit and grad students are scandalously poor (I, alas, am no exception). Second: one of the nation’s best—if not the best--popular culture library is no more than a two hour drive from my house (the Bowling Green Popular Culture Library). They have a full run of it.

I always told myself I wasn’t going to try and collect *Weird Tales* because it is one of the most sought after periodicals and can quickly become a financial liability. Well, Nicole saw to it that that tidbit of self-discipline was destroyed.

Within 10 minutes of receiving these I had begun imagining the fantastical day when I complete my collection (this will never happen, of course, unless I become an oil tycoon or a “ dot com” millionaire—better keep blogging!)

Here are the issues she got me: May 1944, January 1947, March and November of 1948. And here are some pictures of the covers:

I apologize for the crappy photography. I’ve never been good at it; however, for me, the cover art of *Weird Tales* is just as interesting as the material inside. I thought they would be a treat to see.

Here is a link to a full catalog of Weird Tales where you can consult the table of contents and see better graphics of the covers, if you so desire: Weird Tales Catalog

This is a great site for archival information on *Weird Tales* I’ve relied on often. While I’m at it, I might as well throw a reference book at you. If you’re interested in learning more about *Weird Tales,* then you might take a look at *The Weird Tales Story* by Robert Weinberg. It’s a history of the magazine with a lot of inside information related by previous writers that is simply not available anywhere else.

I am *drafting* a resources page on *Weird Tales* that you can access here. I plan on throwing things informative and useful in here as I come across them.

I plan on devoting more time to substantively discussing *Weird Tales* writers, artists, and fiction in this blog—but now! Now is not the time. Now is the time to celebrate the simple pleasure of *acquisition.*

I’m really interested in the May 1944 edition because the cover was done by Margret Brundage. She was a famous illustrator and artist who did some very good covers for *Weird Tales* from 1933-1938; however, this is only of her last covers (her final *Weird Tales* cover came out in January of 1945). I feel like I’m becoming a broken record, but, ::sigh:: I hope to devote a series of posts to her specifically in the future.

Anyhow—happy holidays!