Beginning with its first convention in 2009, PulpFest has drawn countless raves from pop culture enthusiasts. Planned as the summertime destination for fans and collectors of vintage popular fiction and related materials, PulpFest seeks to honor pulp fiction and pulp art by drawing attention to the many ways they have inspired writers, artists, film directors, software developers, game designers, and other creators over the decades. That’s why PulpFest is renowned for its fantastic dealers’ room and wide range of interesting and entertaining programming. So what will be happening at PulpFest 2017?
Back in October, we told you about the hardboiled dicks that transformed the traditional mystery story into the tough guy (and gal) crime fiction that remains popular to this very day. Today, we’re turning our attention to the dangerous dames of the pulps, the hardboiled ladies who helped to pave the way for such modern day gumshoes as Sue Grafton‘s Kinsey Millhone, Marcia Muller‘s Sharon McCone, and Sara Paretsky‘s V. I. Warshawski. Collectively, these authors and their characters have helped the hardboiled school of detective fiction writing evolve in new directions.
Many leading authors of contemporary female hardboiled detective fiction cite Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, as well as the Nancy Drew and Judy Bolton series books, as major influences on their writing. Pulp collector and mystery author Bill Pronzini has also suggested that writers such as Grafton, Muller, and Paretsky “owe at least of small debt of gratitude to” pulp authors Georgiana Ann Randolph Craig, better known as Craig Rice; Leigh Brackett, whose novel NO GOOD FROM A CORPSE led to her co-writing the screenplay for Chandler’s THE BIG SLEEP; and Dorothy Dunn, who published over sixty stories in DIME DETECTIVE, DETECTIVE TALES, BLACK MASK, and other detective pulps.
Additionally, female pulp characters such as Cleve Adams’s Violet McDade and Nevada Alvarado, Lester Dent’s Pat Savage, Paul Ernst’s Nellie Gray and Rosabel Newton, John Russell Fearn’s Golden Amazon, Walter Gibson’s Myra Reldon and Margo Lane, Robert E. Howard’s Bêlit, the “Queen of the Black Coast,” C. L. Moore’s Jirel of Joiry, Norvell Page’s Nita Van Sloan, Les Savage’s Senorita Scorpion, Theodore Tinsley’s Carrie Cashin, Gene Francis Webb’s Grace Culver, and the pseudonymously written Domino Lady and Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, all depicted women in roles often reserved for men. Generally, they performed equal to or better than their male counterparts. These dangerous dames helped to remove women from the drawing rooms of Carolyn Wells and Agatha Christie, the love and western romance pulps, and into the mean streets of “a world gone wrong.”
We’ll be back in a month with another post on our 2017 themes. Next time, we’ll explore the psychos of the pulps. Meanwhile, stay tuned to PulpFest.com for news on our “New Fictioneers” readings, Saturday Night Auction, and much more. We’ll have a new post each and every Monday in the weeks ahead. So visit often to learn all about PulpFest 2017, “Summer’s Hardboiled Pulp Con!”
(Designed by PulpFest’s artistic director, William Lampkin, our PulpFest 2017 post card features the work of artist Norman Saunders. His painting was originally used as the cover for the May 1936 number of Fiction Magazines’ SAUCY ROMANTIC ADVENTURES. Saunders painted all three covers for the magazines that featured The Domino Lady.
The Spring 1951 issue of STORIES OF SHEENA, QUEEN OF THE JUNGLE, a Fiction House magazine, was the only issue of this pulp. It featured front cover art by Allen Anderson. He worked for Fawcett Publications from 1929 through 1939. After moving to New York City in 1940, Anderson painted covers for pulp magazines published by Ace, Fiction House, Harry Donenfeld, and Martin Goodman.)
