by John Soennichsen

You're working in the lab late one night, methodically mixing a dangerous concoction of chemicals in an effort to create a life-prolonging elixir. Suddenly, you sense an eerie presence in the room. Gazing into the curved glass of the beaker in your hand, you see a strangely contorted reflection of some unknown entity standing directly behind you. Turning quickly, you scream (Did we mention that you are a shapely redhead in a low-cut dress?) and you're suddenly confronted by a red, misshapen body and two groping tentacles – obviously a barbarous alien creature from deepest space!

How will you get out of this mess?

For the first time in a quarter of a century, portions of a collection of several hundred rare science fiction pulps will be displayed in a JFK Library exhibit called "Those Amazing Pulps – the Almeron T. Perry Collection." To be held May 1-31, 2000, the exhibit will consist of several dozen covers or cover reproductions, select excerpts from interior stories, and historical information on science fiction pulps and their readers.

Pulp magazines have existed as a form of popular fiction since the last decade of the nineteenth century. Science fiction pulps made their debut early in the 20th century. With a hundred pages or more per issue, these precursors to Star Trek and its progeny often commanded the bulk of space on newsstands across America. Their fanciful, frequently scandalous covers reflected a mistrust in science gone amok, while feeding on fears of alien invasion. Pulp cover artists also were known for their fascination with the idealized (if exaggerated) features of the female form. With an average 128 pages between full-color, glossy covers, the Pulps ranged in size from 9-1/2" x 7-1/2" to the more standard 8-1/2" x 11" and featured a novel of 50,000 to 60,000 words plus five or six short stories, adding another 15- 20,000 words. Pulps were issued either weekly, monthly, bi-monthly or quarterly; at any given time, some 250 titles could be found on newsstands.

The JFK Library's remarkable Perry Collection of science fiction materials (containing some 6,000 books and 1,500 pulps) was originally accepted and overseen by Librarian Emeritus William Barr, who recalls the circumstances that brought this rare collection to Eastern.

"One day in the mid-1970's," Barr recalls, "Circulation asked me if I could speak to a gentleman on the phone who wanted to donate some books to the library. I said sure, so they transferred the call to me. The caller introduced himself as Dr. Almeron T. Perry, and went on to say that he had an extensive collection of science fiction books and magazines that he wanted to donate."

"Was the EWU Library interested?" the doctor asked.

Barr's answer, "Yes."

Then the doctor asked what Eastern might do with the collection if he donated it. Barr's answer: "It depends exactly what the items are and the quantity." Doctor Perry then described hundreds of paperbacks, hardbacks, and magazines, including some old pulp-paper magazines.

"As soon as I heard that," Barr remembers, "I figured we had some real goodies coming our way."

Barr accepted the offer, thanked the good doctor profusely, then began arranging transportation of the gift to JFK, which came in two or three installments.

"I recall making at least one trip to Dr. Perry's home," says Barr, "which was located in the mobile home development at the old Nat Park site on the Spokane River."

One of the reasons Barr was so intrigued with the collection was that he had always been a science fiction fan.

"Throughout my undergraduate and graduate studies, army service and several years residence in Southern California, I had read science fiction. I was a faithful reader of Astounding/Analog Science Fiction/Fact Magazine. I also had lengthy runs of the same, which occasionally I gave away when I ran out of storage room." Barr says he stopped reading science fiction when the literature got a bit too speculative and "downright freaky" for his tastes. But his personal bias was to "glom onto that collection and make sure it was preserved and protected."

In any case, JFK accepted the gift, inventoried it, and stored it for a number of years in what was then known as "The Repository" section of the old JFK building. When Special Collections and Documents were remodeled following the departure of the computer center from the building, the Perry Collection was housed directly in Special Collections, enabling greater access.

At one time, some of the English Department faculty used the Perry Collection as part of a proposal made to bring the Clarion Science Fiction Writers Workshop to Eastern from its home back east. But that never panned out, Barr recalls.

Because of the rarity and fragile nature of the materials, the collection is not generally available to library users except students and faculty members conducting legitimate research activities. It has been carefully maintained for the past quarter century in a temperature-controlled environment that protects its pages from yellowing or becoming brittle.

"I will admit that I am not an aficionado of science fiction," says Charles Mutschler, assistant archivist at Eastern's JFK Library, "but there has definitely been a large following for this genre of writing over the years, and a surprising number of people – when they see or hear about this collection – have said, ïyou know, I think I might have a box of those in my attic.'"

The JFK Library exhibit will be open to the public from May 1 to 31, and represents a rare opportunity to see actual examples of reading material as popular with the general public in the '20s and '30s as People or Reader's Digest are today.

A Brief History of Pulp Magazines

"The story is worth more than the paper it is printed on."
– Frank Munsey

Frank Munsey turned those words into action when he revamped Argosy in the 1890s and transformed American magazine publishing for the next 50 years.

Munsey's new Argosy introduced American readers to the "pulp" magazine, so named because the inexpensive paper it was printed on was made from pulpwood scraps.

The pulps grew into their own over the next 35 years. Though their content dealt mainly with "spicy" love stories, detective, western and war fiction, the magazines did produce a few shining stars. It was during these years that Edgar Rice Burroughs introduced his two most famous characters, Tarzan and John Carter of Mars.

Hugo Gernsback's Amazing Stories introduced "science fiction" to readers. And pulps introduced readers to H.P. Lovecraft, Dashiell Hammett, Talbot Mundy, Robert E. Howard and E.E. "Doc" Smith, among scores of other authors. Then in 1931, Street and Smith Publications offered readers a completely new type of pulp called the ñcharacter magazine.î The first character to appear in his own magazine became the most famous of these pulp characters – The Shadow.

The first issue of The Shadow, A Detective Magazine, sold out within days of its initial release and became an instant hit with readers. Publishers scrambled to match its success. Street and Smith followed with a second hit, Doc Savage. From there, the character pulp blossomed with the likes of The Spider, G-8 and His Battle Aces, The Avenger and Operator 5. Other characters – The Ghost, The Black Bat, The Whisperer, Captain Hazard, The Masked Detective and Captain Zero – were basically rip-offs of the successful magazines. Most of these characters lasted but a few issues in their own magazines and a while longer as back-up stories in the more popular character magazines.

The pulps continued in popularity until World War II, when most fell victim to the wartime paper shortage which cut the amount of paper available for "nonessential" publications. A few of the magazines, including The Shadow, lasted through the war until their popularity diminished with the introduction of television and they were canceled.

Pulps still exist today, but in the more familiar form of the paperback book and the digest magazine. (For example, Analog magazine was originally the pulp Astounding Science Fiction.)

One hundred years after Frank Munsey introduced the pulp magazine, the ideal is still around and interest in pulp-magazine stories continues.

"A Brief History" is courtesy of William Lampkin and Charles Corder Jr. (www.thepulp.net) Both Lampkin and Corder have been fans and readers of the pulps since the late 1960s. Corder currently is a copy editor at the Clarion-Ledger newspaper in Jackson, Miss., while Lampkin is a copy editor/designer at the St. Petersburg Times in St. Petersburg, Fla.