New Pulp

I've tended to describe the kinds of stories I love to write and talk about as "adventure fiction," but another way of labeling them is Pulp. In fact, I've pretty much abandoned the more-encompassing Sci-Fi as a genre that I like. I dig Space Pulp: robots, aliens, rayguns; that kind of thing. Jungle adventure stories started in the pulps too. As of course did Robert E Howard's Conan, and Lovecraftian horror. So many of the stories I've enjoyed my entire life fall under the Pulp umbrella. Depending on how broadly you define Pulp, maybe all of them do.

At SpringCon a couple of weeks ago I got to sit next to Mike Bullock (The Phantom, Lions Tigers and Bears), someone I've known for a long time, but didn't know that well. Mike's one of the major writers in the current Pulp revival and one of the best things about that weekend was getting to know him better and just chatting about Pulp for a couple of days. I left the weekend excited about the genre (or, more accurately, the collection of genres) and determined to do more writing in it. Especially prose, which I've been neglecting for comics projects the last few years. Comics projects are fun and I'm going to keep doing them (especially Kill All Monsters, of course), but they take a while to get going and there's no reason I couldn't be cranking out some short stories at the same time.

Something else that came from my conversation with Mike was the discovery that he and Tommy Hancock (another long-time acquaintance and current Pulp revivalist) have started a New Pulp blog dedicated to talking about today's Pulp fiction. So of course I asked if I could chip in. Mike and Tommy graciously accepted and my first post (part of a new column called "Pulptacular") went up at the end of last week. It's about some of the new Pulp TV shows coming out next season and there are some good ones. So check out the post and if you like adventure fiction, follow the site. It's going to be a great place to stay caught up on this stuff.