You may have noted how the Kaastor database has been growing lately, in particular when it comes to Pulp, Action and Western magazines. With 20K+ magazines in the database, and a couple of thousand pulp covers gracing the site, a little history is warranted...

The name "pulp" comes from the cheap wood pulp paper on which these magazines were printed. Frank A. Munsey pioneered the format in 1896 with The Argosy. Magazines printed on better paper and usually offering family-oriented content were often called "glossies" or "slicks". Titles such as Adventure and Blue Book (featured in Kaastor)  increased the exposure of the format, which really took off with Edgar Rice Burroughs' "Tarzan of the Apes."

Although many respected writers wrote for pulps, the magazines are perhaps best remembered for their lurid and exploitative stories, and for their similarly sensational cover art. Modern superhero comic books are sometimes considered descendants of "hero pulps"; pulp magazines often featured illustrated novel-length stories of heroic characters such as the Shadow, Doc Savage, and the Phantom Detective.

Pulp covers, printed in color on higher-quality (slick) paper, were famous for their half-dressed damsels in distress, usually awaiting a rescuing hero. Cover art played a major part in the marketing of pulp magazines, and a number of the most successful cover artists became as popular as the authors featured on the interior pages. Among the most famous pulp artists were Frank R. Paul, Virgil Finlay, Edd Cartier, Margaret Brundage and Norman Saunders. Covers were important enough to sales that sometimes they would be designed first; authors would then be shown the cover art and asked to write a story to match.

In 1931, Street & Smith was promoting Detective Story by having stories from the magazine dramatized on a radio show. The program's narrator called himself "The Shadow" and S&S were quick to jump on this memorable name that had eclipsed the title of the magazine he was promoting. Within a few years The Shadow had started a whole rush of "hero pulps" including The Phantom Detective, Doc Savage, Nick Carter, G-8 and His Battle Aces, and The Spider. In the early Thirties, before radio really had its heyday, pulps were the dominant entertainment, like television is today.

After World War II, the demand for pulp magazines waned as a more durable cheap entertainment took hold: paperbacks. (These were often just as "pulpy" since they were being written by a lot of the same authors.) In the Fifties, television became the favored form of escapism and the surviving pulps finally ceased publication. 

• Biggles
• Big Nose Serrano
• Bran Mak Morn
• Buck Rogers
• Adam Zero
• Captain Future
• Conan the Barbarian
• Dan Turner, Hollywood Detective
• Doc Savage
• Doctor Death
• Dr. Yen Sin
• Domino Lady
• Flash Gordon
• Fu Manchu
• G-8
• Green Lama
• Hopalong Cassidy
• John Carter of Mars
• Jules de Grandin
• Ka-Zar
• Kull
• Lord Lister AKA Raffles
• Nick Carter
• Operator No. 5
• Refugee Smith
• Secret Agent X
• Sexton Blake
• Solomon Kane
• Tarzan
• The Avenger
• The Black Bat
• The Continental Op
• The Eel
• The Phantom Detective
• The Shadow
• The Spider
• Zorro

PulpFest, the venerable convention catering to fans and collectors of pulp, will be held in Columbus, Ohio from July 31-Aug. 2, 2009.  Here you can learn more about the history of the pulps and indulge yourself in the world of pulp fiction collecting.

Sources:
http://www.pulpfest.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulp_magazines
http://kaastor.com/pulp-action-western