| Vintage Pulp | Nov 11 2016 |
I'd like to thank all my fans—particularly the one I'm holding.
It's been a while since we shared an issue of Paris Plaisirs, so today we have a nice example for you with Lily Damita, aka Liliane Marie-Madeleine Carré, on the cover. Mid-century paperback art generally features tough guys and femmes fatales, and that aesthetic has become intertwined in most people's minds with the idea of pulp, but during the movement's actual heyday in the early 20th century the visual style most commonly seen in publications was art deco. This art deco styled issue of Paris Plaisirs hit newsstands in Paris in November 1929, which is when U.S. magazines like Life and Vogue were also busily churning out art deco covers, and newspapers were filled with the exploits of gangsters and flappers. At the same time, legendary pulp publications like Argosy, Amazing Stories, and Black Mask were on their way to establishing a different visual style, and that would in turn evolve into the lurid paperback art of tough guys and femmes everyone knows and loves. We're quite fond of Paris Plaisirs and have quite a few more of them which we'll try to share down the line
