Michael wrote:
<To me the pulps are about mature conflict, not necessarily
<action/adventure, but about conflict between a mature
<character and some superhuman or superevil force.
<snip>
<Maybe that's what the boys read decades ago, but when I look at <a Howard
story I see a very sophisticated style of writing.
<snip>
<But speaking of him as a pulp writer does give his work a <context or
framework of expectation which I feel is reasonable.
I don't really agree that pulp writing is, in the main, (at least as I'm
familiar with it) about mature conflict. Doc Savage, The Shadow, Op. 5,
etc. are adults fighting adults but "mature conflict" seems too heady a way
to describe them.
Also, don't sell "kids" books short. Robert Cormier, S.E. Hinton and Paul
Zindel all wrote some kick-ass kid fiction. The Chocolate War is very
MATURE stuff geared for 14 year olds. Arguably more mature than anything by
Burroughs, Dent, REH, et. al. (And I LOVE Burroughs, Dent, and REH.)
I'm pretty sure pulp writer fans my age (43) became fans from reading
paperback pulp reprints when they were teenagers. The Bantam Docs, the
Lancer Conans, the Ballantine/ACE Burroughs, etc. So I don't think equating
the HERO pulps (weird pulps, detective pulps could be exceptions) with youth
is wrong.
Anyway, I think this is an interesting discussion and I wish a few of the
pulp experts out there would pipe up an opinion about the nature and
specificity of pulps.
