Tag Archives: pulp art

Hot Women’s Planetary Defense Corps

Fantastic Adventures published between 1939 and 1953 and rarely stinted on the sexy in its covers, as this cover by Walter Popp (1920-2002) shows, albeit perhaps a bit more subtly than many similar covers in its genre.

Interior art by Ed Emshwiller (1925-1990) illustrating Rog Phillips’s story “The Man who Lived Twice” contributes a definite Erotic Mad Science feel.

This issue of Fantastic Adventures is available to be read or downloaded at the Internet Archive.

Hat tip to Pulp Covers for bringing this issue to my attention.

Deadly shudder pulp two-fer

I summoned Doctor Death by Ralson Shields.

It’s unfortunate racial tropes ahoy in this interior illustration taken from the February 1937 edition of Dime Mystery Magazine (honestly, I just don’t think we’re any poorer for not having the word “Negress” in common use). A beautiful and helpless woman is up for some procedure. The illustration is (I think) by Monroe Eisenberg (1914-1999). It’s his style, although Amos Sewell also contributed interior art to this issue and his style can be close.

What with all the material in the comics about women becoming (or un-becoming) art it seemed worthwhile to throw in another illustration from that theme:

His Avenging Muse by Emerson Graves.

That’s a nice use of implied nudity, among other things.

The cover was another painting by Tom Lovell, and it certainly suggests dirty work afoot.

Dime Mystery Magazine, February 1937.

This issue of Dime Mystery Magazine is available to be read at or downloaded from the Internet Archive.

ASFR in reverse

A modern Pygmalion:

His touch turned flesh to stone.

(It’s a big image, so downloading is recommended for the full effect.) The art is by the prolific sci-fi and fantasy artist Virgil Finaly. It’s from Dream World, August 1957.

Dream World had a pretty short life under the editorship of Paul Fairman, apparently running to only three issues. It managed to attract some significant talent. Here’s the cover, by Ed Valigursky:

A smaller but cleaner version of the cover can be found via the issue’s ISFDB entry:

The magazine seems to have attracted real writing talent, as well. The August issue contains stories by Robert Silverberg and Harlan Ellison. You can read or download it from the Internet Archive.

Someone has bungled, cosmically

Just a bit more Harold McCauley pulp illustration. Boy are we going to be sorry when oxygen tanks gain sentience.

A robot blows up a city while enmeshing a dishy blond in its mecho-tentacles.

This painting graced the cover of the January 1956 issue of Imaginative Tales.

We are going to be sorry when oxygen tanks become sentient.

Both versions of the illustration are courtesy of this post at Pulp Covers. The entire issue can be downloaded from or read at the Internet Archive. It’s pretty pulpy: I counted I think four interior illustrations of helpless dames needing rescue from manly sci-fi heroes. But at least one illustration, sadly uncredited, does seem very Erotic Mad Science:

Interior illustration in Imaginative Tales, January 1956

It illustrates a story by Richard O. Lewis, “Practical Joke.” The promo copy:

Hypnotapes were a proven boon to industry, where difficult problems could be experienced and solved vicariously. But to marriage — sheer chaos!

Well all righty then!

Two more examples of Redpulp as master of tube girls

Redpulp has been at this for a long time. From 2012:

Helpless coeds abducted in tubes after an alien invasion subdues the earth!

This illustration is the work of Redpulp (a DeviantArt user ID). Please do not copy, reproduce, or alter it without its creator’s permission.

The illustration’s presentation page contain’s Redpulp’s narrative explanation:

The Aliens found a particularly fertile encampment of humans in what was called a “Uni-versity” before the bombardment. After subduing any resistance, the females are placed into sterile canisters for transport to the alien breeding centers…

And just recently, a return to theme:

Coed Monique is being turned into a tube full of Monique-flavorted seltzer!

This illustration is the work of Redpulp (a DeviantArt user ID). Please do not copy, reproduce, or alter it without its creator’s permission.

And the narrative:

Monique had only volunteered to be his Lab Assistant to bring up her abysmal grade. As it turns out – skipping 3 lectures and blowing the final WASN’T the way to pass an advanced science class, who knew?

Now she was paying the price, Summer had just started! Her friends were all partying on a beach in Miami while she was stuck here listening to her Professor drone on about whatever boring-ass science crap he was excited about. She took another sip of the bizarre Tea concoction he had given her, maybe the caffeine would keep her awake as he chattered on. Strangely though – it seemed to be having the opposite effect…

When she woke next, Monique found her circumstances much more INTERESTING…

Word to the wise: if a mad scientist offers you tea and you’re the sort who can ignore whether your space-costume makes sense or not, don’t accept it,, unless you really up for something, uh, “interesting.” Like intimate involvement the production of Monique-flavored seltzer, or whatever else is going on here.

You can and should visit Redpulp’s DeviantArt site. Long may he illustrate!

A bit of sci-fi mutation pulp

It has been a while since I’ve run any classic pulp on this site, and as we’re on a brief break between two comics features now might be a good time for some. Over to Imagination for July 1954.

Harod McCauley cover art -- a giant hand reaches for a spacewoman exploring in her bathing suit.

That’s pretty fantastic cover art by Harold McCauley (1913-1977), complete with rocket and ray-gun tropes. Why the red-headed woman is exploring an alien planet in a bathing suit is perhaps best explained only by Faustus’s Law: If you’re pretty enough it doesn’t matter if your space costume makes any sense. Running the hell away from the giant hand at least seems like a sensible course of action.

But perhaps more intriguing is the interior art for the first story, done by W.E. Terry (1921-1992).

A giant space octopus-woman thrashes a hapless crewman. Spaceman versus octopus woman.

A giant topless space space octopus-woman, tentacles and all. Fuck yeah! I bet your puny ray-gun will be no match for her, capitalist space-tool!

And again with the spacewoman in a bathing suit. Maybe it’s some kind of union rule.

This issue of Imagination is available to be read and downloaded at the Internet Archive.

Monsters that once were men?

However else they might have changed, the monsters that once were men are still like men in at least one important respect. This is the cover of the August 1959 edition of Super Science Fiction, which I am reblogging from this 6 March 2016 post at Infernal Wonders, and which came into the tumblr ecosystem via this Pulp Covers post.

If you’re so inclined you can read and download this magazine at the Internet Archive. And let’s not forget that the Archive is a magnificent free Internet resource supported by user donations: please donate to them if you can.