I remember reading a post by Roger Ebert about his love of science fiction pulps back in early 2012.
Ebert, who died April 4 from cancer, was best known for his role as the Chicago Sun-Times‘ Pulitzer-Prize-winning film critic and his time on TV’s “At the Movies.” But he was also a fan of pulp magazines.
The first I remember hearing about it was when I stumbled across a post on his blog in early 2012. I thought I posted a link to it at ThePulp.Net, but see now that the link is bad. (I’ll update it.)
In the post, Ebert talks about how he discovered the pulps (a couple of foreign-exchange students gave him a boxful of science-fiction pulps), his love of the classic SF authors and the fabulous covers (which are displayed a gallery).
Earlier this week, the editors of RogerEbert.com posted an essay by Sun-Times tech writer Andy Ihnatko titled “Roger’s Passion for Pulp Lit.” He writes:
Roger sent me a box just a couple of weeks before he died. It contained some selections from his library: some volumes of P.G. Wodehouse (an author we both loved)… and a thick stack of pulp magazines from the ’40s and ’50s.
Each with a title and a cover designed to sell. Astounding Science-Fiction, Weird Tales, Fantastic Story Magazine. Here’s the Summer 1944 edition of Thrilling Wonder Stories. The cover shows a frightened woman wearing a daring backless number that Sir Mix-A-Lot would have approved of, but (I’m guessing) not the community standards of the day. She’s clutching the muscular arm of a beefy, confident man firing a zap gun at a tentacled monster who’s dragging a spaceship down into a luminescent ocean.
There’s much more to read if you follow the link.
I’m not aware that Ebert ever made it to a Windy City Pulp and Paper Show, a Pulpcon or a PulpFest. It’s a shame if he didn’t. He would have found a community that also appreciates those classic magazines as much as he did.
A hat-tip to Mike Glyer at File 770 for posting about Ebert’s blog earlier tonight.
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