I get jealous when folks mention in newsgroups or on blogs that they stopped by a flea market or an antique store and picked up a half-dozen pulp magazines here, another handful there.
Jonathan Jenson wrote on his blog, The Adventure Continues, in May about such a find.
Hmm. I must be stopping at the wrong places.
In the past 20 years, I’ve come across no more than five pulps in such establishments: a couple of Argosys from the ’40s, a couple of Weird Tales from the ’50s, and an issue of the 1950s pulp Two Complete Science-Adventure Books.
That’s not a stunning cache. But I have to admit I’m not hitting the flea markets every week — not even every month. That may have something to do with it.
But it probably has more to do with where I’m shopping. I’ve come to the conclusion there weren’t very many pulp magazines released into the wild in the Southeast during the pulp era. As a result, there aren’t many to be found today.
Earlier generations of my family weren’t familiar with the pulps. I asked my grandparents and parents. None recall the magazines. But, I should mention that none of them were big readers either — mostly newspapers, crossword puzzles, maybe Reader’s Digest and the like. None, I would imagine, would be likely to sit down with a pulp and read it cover to cover.
It’s possible that pulps found their way to newsstands in the major Southeastern cities, such as Atlanta, New Orleans, Memphis or Miami. But outside of those, I wouldn’t think it would make financial sense to distribute them to a 10,000-citizen burg far from the publishing hubs of the northeast and midwest.
My searches during residence in Arizona proved even less successful, probably for the same distribution argument.
Extremes in weather in the Southeast may play a role, too. Put a box of pulps in the attic or a storage room off the garage, and it will be subjected to extreme changes in temperature and humidity from day to day and season to season. That’s not a recipe for keeping supple, white pages and bright, colorful covers.
I’m just wondering, has anyone else had much success tracking pulps in the wild?
I’ve had the same experience here in Western Pennsylvania, Bill. I bought one 1950’s Action Stories issue at an indoor flea market, but that’s it. I also asked my grandparents (who were alive during the pulp era) about the pulps and none of them recalled them. They lived in rural areas though and I’m not sure if they went into the cities such as Erie or Pittsburgh often enough to encounter the pulps on news stands. They all remembered the Shadow from the radio though.
You’re right about “The Shadow” radio program, Jason. My family remembered that, too.