By Jedidiah Ayres
Hardboiled Wonderland
Thursday, December 7th, 2017
Just picked up my own copy of Girl Gangs, Biker Boys, and Real Cool Cats, the latest lingering, loving look at ‘the pulps,’ edited by Ian McIntyre and Andrew Nette.
I love this kind of thing – in depth looks at the lurid, mass-market
yet still underground, arts of yesteryear, presented as scholarly social
study, but in place of a dry monotone it’s clearly a labor of love and
an endeavor of enthusiasm.
Because… all the thoughtfulness is appreciated and engaging, but the
real value of these type of books is in collecting all the great artwork
(poster art – cover art) in one place. If you don’t have your own
library of pulp novels or VHS/16mm grindhouse movies, you can still lose
yourself in the garish garbage of the artwork and re-live your first
awakening and attraction to working out anxieties via engaging
narrative.
For me these books recall my favorite part of weekly trips to the
grocery store with my mom – I’d get a nickel and walk by the newsstand
taking in the western, fantasy, romance, crime and science fiction
paperbacks with my tiny peepers on the way to the gumball machine, or
visits to out of town cousins discovering the closet full of Robert E.
Howard books, or countless hours spent wandering the aisles of video
stores imagining the stories the pictures represented (because I was not
going to be allowed to watch them).
And that’s… an important thing to note.
Often the jacket art is more important in the long run than the
books/films themselves. It’s the cover design that sells us, grabs our
attention and infects us with an itch, or rather enflames the itch we
didn’t know was already within… Regardless of how satisfying said book
or film actually turned out to be, the awakening, the realization that
we have an appetite is what inspires us to become active agents in our
own evolution.
If we have a hunger… there must be a satisfaction out there somewhere.
If you visit my home you’ll be able to browse my physical media – books,
films, albums – but these types of books – these collections of
artworks are among the most valuable objects I own.
A few favorites from my shelves…

The Art of Noir by Eddie Muller

Cult Magazines A to Z by Earl Kemp, Luis Ortiz

Dames, Dolls and Delinquents by Gary Lovisi

Dope Menace by Stephen J. Gertz

Film Posters: Exploitation by Tony Nourmand, Graham Marsh

Men’s Adventure Magazines by Max Allan Collins, George Hagenauer

Pulp Art by Robert Lesser

Science Fiction of the 20th Century by Frank M. Robinson, Ann G. Bennett

Teenage Confidential by Michael Barson, Steven Heller

Trash by Jacques Boyreau

Furthering the argument that the advertising’s importance often trumps the actual product’s check out Stephen Romano’s Shock Festival – a collection of poster art, lobby cards and memorabilia for non-existent horror films. Beautiful.
Scott Adlerberg has a nice piece on Girl Gangs, Biker Boys, and Real Cool Cats at Lithub and if you’re inclined to digitally ingest pulp art you’d do well to follow Christa Faust‘s or Will Viharo‘s social media platforms.
Back to Iain McIntyre’s Author Page | Back to Andrew Nette’s Author Page