Starter Drawing (Pulp Girl)

Pulp Art

Pulp magazines (often referred to as "the pulps") are inexpensive fiction magazines published from 1896 through the 1950's.  The typical pulp magazine was 7 inches wide by 10 inches high, 0.5 inches thick, and 128 pages long.  Pulps were printed on cheap paper with ragged, untrimmed edges.

The term pulp derives from the cheap wood pulp paper on which the magazines were printed.  Magazines printed on higher quality paper were called "glossies" or "slicks".  In their first decades, pulps were most often priced at 10 cents per magazine, while competing slicks were 25 cents each.  Pulps were the successor of the penny dreadfuls, dime novels, and short fiction magazines of the 19th century.  Although many respected writers wrote for pulps, the magazines are best remembered for their lurid and exploitative stories and 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.

July 1946 New Detective Magazine cover by Rafael "Ralph" de Soto

1942 sci-fi cover by Earle Bergey, who spent much of his career as a pulp illustrator.

Starter Drawing: Pulp Girl.  Many Solutions Possible

The concept is simple: Take a blank sheet with nothing but the basic outline of pulp girl and illustrate a unique scene around her. As someone who can only draw conclusions, the work of David Jablow is imaginative and humorous. He has an active Flickr Stream with over 30+ illustrations, be sure to check all of them out! Below is a gallery of the Sifter’s personal favorites. Enjoy!

All Illustrations by David Jablow

All Illustrations by David Jablow