EDITOR's NOTE: Pulp Tales #1 will be in stores October 8th.

If nothing else Pulp Tales is a testament to the ways comic artists and writers will rally around one of their own when the proverbial chips are down. Designed as a benefit for Josh Medors and his family as he battles cancer, BOOM! Studios assembled quite the cast for this sample book of stories that play on the tropes of pulp as a genre. And a far-reaching genre it is. As far as the setup goes, I can’t play the hardened reviewer. That so many talented artists and writers would donate their time to a project like this is touching, and it speaks to a spirit of fraternity that’s missing from a lot of other mediums. Okay, I got the cheeseball out; let’s look at these stories.

Bluejacket: The Bluejacket’s, an A-Team of the paranormal, have ventured down south to battle an Aztec were-jaguar. Like “Newt Lawman,” the art feels very pulpy, and the gadgets look as if they were conceived in the '50s. The one-liners similarly offer an air of authenticity, and it’s only when we get into the Bluejacket’s boardroom that this piece reeks of being contemporary, which isn’t a complaint at all. The humor really works there. Unfortunately, this chapter tries to walk the line between being an introduction to the group and a story in its own right, and can’t quite fulfill either role. The pacing is too manic, and the space too limited.

Newt Lawman: My first impression is to write down “patently offensive” and move on. Then I think that I’m not being fair, that this story is in some way dressed in drag and therefore undermining traditional thinking and pushing the boundaries of creative expression. And then I think, maybe it’s just a story that two guys got together to create because they thought it was fun. And I like fun. But I’m not entirely convinced.

Newt Lawman, a General Custer lookalike – but with red hair – is battling “injuns” as he enters the Valley of Gold, where he will supposedly find the Golden Ox, which he needs to trade with the evil Hayes Rutherford for his helpless damsel, Maggie Mae. Gleefully pulpy this is, though with a lot more blood than you’d find in any of those '50s books. The art and pacing are good, the introduction and teasers are spot on, and the whole feel is that of stepping back in time. On a construction level, I found a few panel transitions confusing, though the framing and composition is well executed.

The Crescent Flame: Harry sells newspapers for a nickel a piece, but his real dream is to be a photographer. When he’s able to snatch some photos of the Crescent Flame – New Orleans’ local superhero – the reward should not only solve his money troubles but get him the recognition he so desperately desires.

Kody Chamberlain does a great job on double duty here. The art is stylized and visceral, while the writing strikes a good balance between tension and cohesion within the panels. Nothing in this story is redundant, nor does it overextend its aim. Of all the pieces this is by far my favorite, and worth the cover price alone. This guy is one to watch out for.

Crash Winters: What collection of pulp stories would be complete without a hard-boiled P.I. and the client/femme-fatale who ends up dead? Chapter eight in the series, “Fallen Angels” opens with that femme-fatale found dead, and Crash Winters has got to find out what her secret was. This story is simply a joy to read. For those not familiar with the series, Crash Winters is an ex-boxer turned P.I. who does most of his investigating with his fists and has a nose that’s a testament to how many he’s seen in return. While still pulpy, the art has a nuance to it that I found surprising and disarming. At first glance this looks like the kind of comic you’d find in the Sunday edition of your paper, but Tony Fleecs knows what he’s doing. I know I’ve got a new mini to start following.

Limbo’s Assassin: Carl Henderson isn’t a nice guy. He works for the mob, or what’s left of it, by beating guys up for a living. He’s good at his job, though, and only lost control one time, when he killed a guy who used to hit on his sister. At the present though, Carl’s got other things to deal with, like the girl who looks an awful lot like that dead sister who’s offing his boss in the local pizzeria.

In my opinion, if you put a prose story in a collection of comic shorts, that piece has got to sizzle. And this one doesn’t. The heart of a fiction story is in its scenes, and we don’t get to one until nearly half-way through Limbo’s Assassin and when we finally do, the thing meanders back into exposition so many times the whole ordeal is more tiring than entertaining. The story is too dependent on background information to be suitable for a five-pager, but even with its breakneck speed I was able to count three or four words in nearly every sentence that could be cut. Even worse, the plot is poorly constructed and poorly conceived. In short, there’s a lot of fat here and not a lot of story. Skip it, and you’ll feel your money is much better spent.

To be sure, the past few decades haven’t been kind to pulp entertainment. Part of this trend can be traced to the rise of film, but even popular novels have shifted away from the hard-boiled and weary detective, from the perfectly disposable packaging of dime novels past. Genre novels published today aren’t any better; in fact the formulas are more entrenched now than ever before. In all the westerns and romances, mysteries and thrillers published today, though, there’s a spirit of fun lacking, a spirit of fun that’s found in these stories. Not the tongue-in-cheek, we know this is corny kind of fun, but a genuine joy in telling these kinds of stories is evident in every page of Pulp Tales.

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