The Pulp Era Comes to Colorful Life

By
Scott D. Parker

One of my favorite websites is  Shorpy's. It's a curated website chock full of old photos, mostly black and white. It's a snapshot into our past world. These images are utterly fantastic and I look forward to looking at the new one each day. I have bookmarked a number of them for inspiration for my stories.

One image in particular really captured my imagination. Here it is. 

Here is the original link.

On the surface, it's two ladies letting their eyes surf over all those selections of the current pulp magazines. In an era where no TV existed for the public, entertainment via pulp magazines was prevalent. It wasn't until this image was posted that I got a look at what a typical newsstand actually looked like.

But then, the good folks at Shorpy's did something wonderful: they colorized the image! When this image landed in my Feedly feed this week, I literally gasped. How frigging cool is this picture.

 

Here is the link. 

But Shorpy's didn't just break out a pack of crayons. No, they spent a year researching the actual covers shown in this image. You can read about the research here. The result is stunning, especially for all of us born too late to live through the glory days of pulp fiction.

Be sure to head over to the website and gaze upon the high res version. Then just drool.