{"id":191,"date":"2006-11-22T15:01:15","date_gmt":"2006-11-22T22:01:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thepulp.net\/PulpBlogs\/YellowedPerils_test\/?p=191"},"modified":"2006-11-22T15:01:15","modified_gmt":"2006-11-22T22:01:15","slug":"the-popularity-of-pulp-characters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/2006\/11\/22\/the-popularity-of-pulp-characters\/","title":{"rendered":"The popularity of pulp characters"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve recently been thinking about the popularity of pulp characters. Not just popularity among pulp fans, but their popularity among the general public. Could any Average Joe or Jane name a pulp character? Probably not, not knowing what the pulps were. But many of them would probably recognize a character if named for them.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Buck
Buck Rogers first appeared in Amazing Stories<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

So, thinking along those lines, I tried to come up with the Top 10 Widely-known Pulp Characters. This wasn\u2019t a scientific study, but just the results of ruminating on the question over the past week.<\/p>\n

The disappointing thing was that I could only come up with six characters that were truly pulp characters and that would be known by the teeming masses. I came up with two other lists of characters that, one, were widely recognized, but not pulp originals; and, two, used to be more widely known, but are probably mostly forgotten today.<\/p>\n

Here are my picks for the Top 6 Widely-known Pulp Characters<\/strong> (in alphabetical order):
\n\u2022\u00a0Buck Rogers<\/a>
\n\u2022\u00a0Captain Future<\/a> (though not in the United States)
\n\u2022\u00a0Conan<\/a>
\n\u2022\u00a0The Shadow<\/a>
\n\u2022\u00a0Tarzan<\/a>
\n\u2022\u00a0Zorro<\/a><\/p>\n

Say the name of any of those characters to your co-worker, and he or she would probably recognize it, though not necessarily from the pulp stories. Yes, I would hazard to say that most widely-known pulp characters earned their mass recognition, not from the pages of pulp magazines, but from other media, chiefly movies, television and, to a lesser degree now, radio.<\/p>\n

My second tier of widely-known characters are those that originated in other media, but turned up in the pages of pulp magazines. (They are also in alphabetical order.)
\n\u2022\u00a0Dr. Kildare<\/a>
\n\u2022\u00a0Flash Gordon<\/a>
\n\u2022\u00a0The Lone Ranger<\/a><\/p>\n

My last tier is made up of characters that used to have a higher recognition quotient, but have lost it over the passage to time. (Also in alphabetical order…)
\n\u2022\u00a0Jack Armstrong<\/strong>
\n\u2022\u00a0Torchy Blayne<\/strong>
\n\u2022\u00a0Captain Blood<\/strong>
\n\u2022\u00a0Bomba the Jungle Boy<\/strong>
\n\u2022\u00a0Brick Bradford<\/strong>
\n\u2022\u00a0Nick Carter<\/strong>
\n\u2022\u00a0Sheena<\/strong>
\n\u2022\u00a0Tailspin Tommy<\/strong><\/p>\n

Certainly my second and third tier character lists aren\u2019t definitive, but neither is my Top 6 list. Are there others I\u2019m missing?<\/p>\n

\u2013 William<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve recently been thinking about the popularity of pulp characters. Not just popularity among pulp fans, but their popularity among the general public. Could any Average Joe or Jane name a pulp character? Probably not, not knowing what the pulps were. But many of them would probably recognize a character if named for them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_has_post_settings":[],"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[8,11],"tags":[],"hashtags":[],"class_list":["post-191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion","category-pulps"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2qgXO-35","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191"},{"taxonomy":"hashtags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtags?post=191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}