A team of experts in each of the ten major Pulp genres, from action Pulps to spicy Pulps and more, chart for the first time the complete history of Pulp magazines-the stories and their writers, the graphics and their artists, and, of course, the publishers, their market, and readers. Each chapter in the book, which is illustrated with more than 400 examples of the best Pulp graphics (many from the Editors' collections-among the world's largest) is organized in a clear and accessible way, starting with an introductory overview of the genre, followed by a selection of the best covers and interior graphics, organized chronologically through the chapter. All images are fully captioned (many are in essence "nutshell" histories in themselves). Two special features in each chapter focus on topics of particular interest (such as extended profiles of Daisy Bacon, Pulp author and editor of Love Story, the hugely successful romance Pulp, and of Harry Steeger, co-founder of Popular Publications in 1930 and originator of the "Shudder Pulp" genre). With an overall Introduction on "The Birth of the Pulps" by Doug Ellis, and with two additional chapters focusing on the great Pulp writers and the great Pulp artists, The Art of the Pulps covers every aspect of this fascinating genre; it is the first definitive visual history of the Pulps.

Brilliant, decisive, and hard-charging, Deputy Inspector Allhoff was the NYPD's ace detective until bullets from a mobster's machine gun robbed him of his legs, his career, and-in the opinion of an associate-his sanity. Yet Allhoff was too good a man to be put out to pasture, so New York's police commissioner found a way to keep him employed and refer to him such cases as the department couldn't or wouldn't handle. Confined to a wheelchair and operating from a seedy tenement flat, Allhoff is assisted by two cops: Battersly, the rookie patrolman whose brief moment of cowardice cost the inspector his legs, and Simmons, the bitter career cop who detests Allhoff but sticks with the embittered cripple to protect his own pension. Created by D.L. Champion, Inspector Allhoff denied most conventions of detective-pulp fiction. He could never be confused for one of Raymond Chandler's knights errant, trudging down those mean streets. Allhoff was no Rover Boy in trench coat and fedora. He was, in fact, a sadist and a psychopath. With 30 entries published between 1938 and 1946, the Allhoff series was among the most popular and long-lived to appear in Dime Detective, the prestigious crime pulp second only to the legendary Black Mask in its impact on the genre.

New York-based private investigator Cass Blue is a morally flexible tough guy who backs up his hard-boiled rhetoric with frequent applications of the blackjack he carries in a hip pocket. No case is too seedy or sordid for him to take, and he's capable of taking as much as he dishes out when it's necessary. The cops don't trust him much more than they do the criminals, but that doesn't keep him from giving clients full value for their retainers. With the dubious assistance of speakeasy owner Al Lascoine, Cass sasses and slugs his way through a succession of Depression-era adventures. The Cass Blue yarns are related in the first person by stylish pulp writer John Lawrence, who guides his protagonist through a maze of conventional plots and countless gunfights. What the series lacks in polish and innovation, it makes up for with vigorous action and the tough-as-nails attitude that gave Dime Detective the distinctive flavor that made it the most important crime pulp excepting the legendary Black Mask.