| Vintage Pulp | Feb 14 2019 |
People say romance is dead now, but in this magazine it was on life support a long time ago.
In parts of the world today is Valentine's Day, so in commemoration of this lovely corporate holiday we have this issue of True Romances, with awesome cover art painted by Georgia Warren. It goes way back to 2012. Well, it goes back, really, to 1935. But for us it goes back to 2012, when we picked it up on a trip to Denver. We gave it to one of the Pulp Intl. girlfriends, and she was flattered, but strangely, never read it. She prefers to read about cryptocurrencies for some reason. So after a while we took the magazine back, and now we've torn it apart and scanned it. We actually swore not to damage it, but it was impossible to scan something so fragile and keep that promise, so now Romances is truly dead.
But it's not a great loss, because there isn't much romance in the magazine anyway—certainly not enough to lure P.I.1 away from her cryptocurrency news. There are a few sweet stories, yes, but it's mostly emotional extortion and body shaming. Scan five, titled “Mental Cases I Have Met,” pretty much encapsulates the entire enterprise. Turns out the mental cases were suffering from a lack of confidence in their maxi pads. The P.I. girlfriends say all of this had to be written by men, and they could be right, though most of the credits are feminine. We tend to think the attributions are accurate, but we'll never know. Below we have almost forty scans from this rare publication, and whether the content was created by men in disguise or not, from a 2019 perspective it's all pretty enjoyable. See for yourself.
But it's not a great loss, because there isn't much romance in the magazine anyway—certainly not enough to lure P.I.1 away from her cryptocurrency news. There are a few sweet stories, yes, but it's mostly emotional extortion and body shaming. Scan five, titled “Mental Cases I Have Met,” pretty much encapsulates the entire enterprise. Turns out the mental cases were suffering from a lack of confidence in their maxi pads. The P.I. girlfriends say all of this had to be written by men, and they could be right, though most of the credits are feminine. We tend to think the attributions are accurate, but we'll never know. Below we have almost forty scans from this rare publication, and whether the content was created by men in disguise or not, from a 2019 perspective it's all pretty enjoyable. See for yourself.
| Vintage Pulp | Feb 14 2009 |
Pulps for women found a major market in the U.S.
Pictured below, you see assorted romance pulps from the 1930s and 1940s. These did quite well during the golden age of pulp, and in fact, Ranch Romances was among the last true pulp magazines published, appearing on newsstands until the 1960s. The people who painted these covers remain mostly unknown, but these are some representative examples of the art.
Ranch RomanceRomance Western RoundupRodeo RomancesReal Stolen SweetsStreet & Smith‘s Real Love MagazineRangeland RomancesGay LoveNew LoveIdeal RomancesTrue Romancesmagazine art
