# Pulp Magazine Cover

> The painted colour covers of American pulp fiction magazines, printed on slicker cover stock around cheap wood-pulp interiors (period 1896 to 1957, the year the American News Company was liquidated, a date sometimes taken as the end of the pulp era). An original painting, reproduced by offset, shows one lurid scene of peril, a heroic figure, a threatened woman and a villain or monster, under a huge masthead, and the cover alone had to sell the issue on the newsstand.

- Period: 1896–1957
- Where: North America
- Origin: United States: Frank Munsey's Argosy (1896, regarded as the first pulp) and Street & Smith's The Popular Magazine (1903, credited with introducing colour covers to pulp publishing)
- Branch: Pictorial & machine age
- Also known as: Pulp cover art, Pulp fiction magazine covers, Pulp illustration
- Page: https://stylogeny.com/styles/pulp-magazine-cover/

## Use it with care

Pulp covers sold peril through sexualised and violent imagery: the 'damsel in distress' was often half-dressed or bound, and Margaret Brundage's Weird Tales covers (1933-38) showed nude or semi-nude women, with whipping scenes noted as controversial, until a new decency standard was imposed on newsstand pulps in 1938. Spicy Detective and the other 'spicy' pulps made this their selling point. Pulp fiction of the 1930s also carried many Yellow Peril villains loosely based on Fu Manchu, so cover villains often rest on racial caricature, and exoticising colonial stereotypes were common too. Do not copy these conventions as neutral decoration: if the style is used, keep the drama but drop the gendered violence and ethnic stereotypes, or treat them knowingly and critically.

## How it works

- Paint one scene of peak action and make it the single point of entry.
- Stack a huge, shaded masthead across the top and let the painting run behind it.
- Stage hero, victim and threat in a diagonal clash of bodies and weapons.
- Use saturated reds, yellows and blues against deep shadow to catch the eye across a newsstand.
- Code the genre by cover: crime, western, science fiction or horror, each with its own props, and promise more than the story delivers.

## Its design choices

Defining choices make the style, characteristic ones are usual, occasional ones turn up now and then.

### Layout & composition
- [Full bleed](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/full-bleed/) (defining)
- [Diagonal axis](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/diagonal-axis/) (characteristic)
- [Dynamic asymmetry](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/dynamic-asymmetry/) (characteristic)
- [Framed panels](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/framed-panels/) (occasional)

### Space & hierarchy
- [Single focal point](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/single-focal-point/) (defining)
- [Extreme scale contrast](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/extreme-scale-contrast/) (characteristic)
- [Visual tension](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/visual-tension/) (characteristic)
- [Illusion of depth](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/illusion-of-depth/) (characteristic)
- [Horror vacui](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/horror-vacui/) (occasional)

### Typography
- [Hand-lettering](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/hand-lettering/) (characteristic)
- [Ornamented display](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/ornamented-display/) (characteristic)
- [All caps](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/all-caps/) (characteristic)
- [Type as image](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/type-as-image/) (characteristic)
- [Slab serif](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/slab-serif/) (occasional)
- [Condensed display](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/condensed-display/) (occasional)
- [Tight setting](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/tight-setting/) (occasional)

### Colour
- [Primary triad](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/primary-triad/) (characteristic)
- [Full polychrome](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/full-polychrome/) (characteristic)
- [Complementary clash](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/complementary-clash/) (characteristic)
- [Dark ground](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/dark-ground/) (occasional)

### Form & shape
- [Naturalistic depiction](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/naturalistic-depiction/) (defining)
- [Distortion & exaggeration](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/distortion-and-exaggeration/) (occasional)

### Surface & texture
- [Painterly brushwork](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/painterly-brushwork/) (characteristic)
- [Hard offset shadow](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/hard-offset-shadow/) (characteristic)
- [Halftone & Ben-Day dots](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/halftone-and-ben-day-dots/) (occasional)
- [Paper & letterpress bite](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/paper-and-letterpress-bite/) (occasional)

### Ornament
- [Borders & frames](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/borders-and-frames/) (occasional)

### Imagery
- [Painterly illustration](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/painterly-illustration/) (defining)

### Medium & production
- [Offset printing](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/offset-printing/) (defining)
- [Hand-painted](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/hand-painted/) (characteristic)

### Tone & intent
- [Agitational & persuasive](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/agitational-and-persuasive/) (characteristic)
- [Nostalgic & retro](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/nostalgic-and-retro/) (occasional)

Avoids: Generous white space, Ornament-free, Grotesque & neo-grotesque, Typography only, Comic & cartoon, Non-representational, Calm & contemplative, Rational & objective

Palette: #c8281e, #f2c230, #1d4a8a, #14110f, #e9d9b0

Typefaces: Hand-lettered shaded mastheads, Slab and Egyptian display faces, Condensed gothic display caps

Known for: Argosy (Frank Munsey): the first pulp, 1896; its early covers were not the later painted scenes; The Popular Magazine (Street & Smith, 1903): early colour covers, with covers by N. C. Wyeth; Black Mask and The Spider (Popular Publications); Weird Tales; Amazing Stories (Hugo Gernsback); Spicy Detective (Culture Publications), one of the 'spicy' or 'girlie' pulps; Frank R. Paul, Norman Saunders, Margaret Brundage, H. J. Ward and Rudolph Belarski (cover artists named in the Wikipedia article on pulp magazines)

## Where it comes from, and what it’s close to

- Influenced by: [Belle Époque Lithographic Poster](https://stylogeny.com/styles/belle-epoque-poster.md) (1866–1914)
- Influenced by: [Victorian Letterpress & Wood Type](https://stylogeny.com/styles/victorian-letterpress.md) (1810–1900)
- Alike in its design choices: [Ghanaian Movie Poster](https://stylogeny.com/styles/ghana-movie-poster.md) (1985–2005), 66% alike
- Alike in its design choices: [Italian Painted Film Poster (Rome Studios)](https://stylogeny.com/styles/italian-painted-film-poster.md) (1914–1990), 63% alike
- Alike in its design choices: [Yeşilçam Film Poster (Turkish Hand-Painted Afiş)](https://stylogeny.com/styles/yesilcam-film-poster.md) (1950–1988), 58% alike
- Alike in its design choices: [Socialist Realist Propaganda Poster](https://stylogeny.com/styles/socialist-realism.md) (1932–1989), 57% alike
- Alike in its design choices: [Hand-Painted Bollywood Poster](https://stylogeny.com/styles/bollywood-poster.md) (1940–1999), 57% alike
- Alike in its design choices: [Egyptian Painted Film Poster](https://stylogeny.com/styles/egyptian-film-poster.md) (1932–1996), 56% alike

## Sources

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulp_magazine
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argosy_(magazine)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Brundage
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_Peril

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From Stylogeny (https://stylogeny.com/), an atlas of graphic-design styles by Van Riel Online Services. How it is made: https://stylogeny.com/about/. Cite as: Stylogeny, “Pulp Magazine Cover”, https://stylogeny.com/styles/pulp-magazine-cover/