![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/files\/2011\/08\/pulp-fiction-sports.png?resize=150%2C161&ssl=1\" "\\"Fiction")
\u201cPulp\u201d is a medium. It is a pulpwood magazine.<\/p>\n\u201cPulp\u201d is a medium. It is a pulpwood magazine.<\/p>\n
It is not a style of writing<\/a>. Not a genre of fiction. Not one end of a spectrum of literature<\/a>.<\/p>\n Pulp is not science fiction. Fantasy. Horror. Western. Romance. These are fiction styles that appeared, along with countless others, in the pulp magazines.<\/p>\n Pulp isn\u2019t paperback books. Pulp isn\u2019t hardback books. Pulp isn\u2019t comic books. Pulp isn\u2019t artwork.<\/p>\n Pulp was a method of distribution of popular fiction on pulpwood paper from the late 1890s through the late 1950s. Pulp is no more.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not a set of rules. It\u2019s simply a definition of \u201cpulp.\u201d<\/p>\n Don\u2019t like the definition? Does it sound too restrictive? Take it from an actual pulp fictioneer when asked, \u201cTell us a little bit, in a few brief words, about the pulps and what we mean by that term\u201d:<\/p>\n The term is a somewhat of a misnomer. It was a thing that was used among writers to differentiate as to the kind of markets to which they sold their stories.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n That\u2019s a quote from Walter B. Gibson<\/strong>, who was churning out a million words a year during the heyday of the pulp magazine. He\u2019s a pretty reliable source.<\/p>\n See Gibson say it for himself<\/a>. It\u2019s the first comment out of his mouth.<\/p>\n He didn\u2019t call the stories he or other fictioneers wrote \u201cpulp.\u201d He called the medium \u201cpulp.\u201d<\/p>\n No matter how much you wish to call a story a \u201cpulp\u201d story, it is wrong to do so unless you are referring to a story printed in the pulp magazines.<\/p>\n There are already perfectly clear, widely recognized names for styles of stories \u2014 and those names also apply to the stories that appeared in the pulps: science fiction, fantasy, horror, western, romance, sports, war, aviation, and the list goes on.<\/p>\n Descriptions such as pulp-like, pulp-inspired, pulp-derived and, to a much lesser degree (because it\u2019s kind of a stupid word), \u201cpulpy\u201d work when you\u2019re talking about fiction written after the pulp magazines died.<\/p>\n Though pulp fiction is dead, pulp fandom lives on and will live as long as there is interest in reading stories published in the pulps \u2014 whether in the crumbling magazines themselves, in reprint books and replicas, or on digital devices<\/a>.<\/p>\n That said, the phrase “new pulp” is a whole different can of worms. Current writers, publishers and readers are using it to describe new material written as a homage to the pulp-magazine era.<\/p>\n