WHAT HAPPENED TO THE PULPS?

Did pulps die a natural death or were they murdered to make room for something else? I don't know the answer, I just don't believe the explanation that's out there, i.e., that the War provided so many real horrors that the pulps just couldn't compete. If that were true how come noirs were so popular after the war? How come horror films were so popular after WWI?

Milt claims that humorous 50s rock (like the kind of thing The Coasters did) never died a natural death...it was killed by radio execs while it was still exhuberant and healthy. The public loved it. He says the radio people were so certain that funny music wouldn't last long that they decided to kill it off near the height of its popularity and phase in something new to replace it.

Could something like this have have happened to the pulps?

I find it hard to believe that magazines with this much appeal (above) could have slipped away so quickly.

Yikes! Getting sliced up by a giant paper cutter...how gruesome! Yet it must have sold well.

I wonder if the paperback revolution killed the pulps.

Maybe cheap sci-fi paperbacks replaced the pulp magazines. Maybe paperbacks were perceived to offer a whole novel for the same price as short stories in the pulps. Maybe...I wish I knew!

THE SCARIEST BROTHERS GRIMM STORY

And it's their shortest, too! Only one paragraph long. In German it's called "das eigensinnige Kind." In English it's called:

THE STUBBORN CHILD
From The Brothers Grimm, translated by Maria Tatar

There once lived a stubborn child, and she never did what her mother told her to do. And so our dear Lord did not look kindly on her, and let her become ill. Doctors could not cure her, and before long she was lying on her deathbed. Her coffin was being lowered into the grave and they were about to cover it with earth when suddenly one of her little arms emerged and reached up into the air. They pushed it back in again and covered the coffin with more earth, but it was no use. The little arm kept reaching out of the grave. Finally her mother had to go to the grave and strike the little arm with a switch. After she did that, the arm withdrew, and the child finally began to rest in peace beneath the earth.

Thanks to Dr. Psycho at the Childhood Fear site for the nifty graphic:

http://childhoodfear.com/tag/undead/