Pulp Fiction

PulpArk brings together readers, writers, artists, gamers

Pulp fiction is not “that god-awful Travolta movie,” says Tommy Hancock, a partner in Pro Se Productions. The Batesville company not only publishes “genre” - or “pulp” - fiction but is host of this weekend’s PulpArk convention in Springdale, “the only genre fiction pulp culture convention in the South.”

What that means requires some explanation, and Hancock is more than happy to wax eloquent on the topic. The term “pulp fiction,” he says, comes from a time, primarily in the 1930s and ’40s, when magazines printed serialized dramas like Doc Savage and the Shadow on “very cheap pulp paper.” But pulp fiction, he says, wasn’t just adventure. It was - and is - everything from romances to westerns.

The recent resurgence has been largely due to new technology that makes publishing a comic book or novel simple, Hancock says. Pro Se Productions has been around since 2010 and has published stories about masked heroes, fantastic lands, sci-fi and more, including a new line of “black pulp,” in which the heroes are African American.

Hancock is especially proud of that. The project includes Joe Lansdale, who wrote “Bubba Ho-Tep” but is best known for his “Hap and Leonard” series about a duo of crime-solving friends, and Walter Mosley, author of the Easy Rawlins detective series.

“We got really lucky,” Hancock says simply.

But the convention - Pro Se’s third and the first in Northwest Arkansas - is not just a gathering of authors.

“We want to make sure that we provide something for everybody,” Hancock says. “Wewant to let the public know that pulp is everywhere- video games, TV shows, movies - so we started looking at things that broadly cover the spectrum and threw the net out to invite people to come.”

The response he got was indeed a little bit of everything, including the debut of two roleplaying games, one a tabletop version, the other a LARP (liveaction role playing).

Brandon Olmstead is one of the creators of “Debate of the Dead: The Serial Version,” a brand-new spin-off of a popular Memphis, Tenn., LARP. He and the rest of lostgamers productions - always lowercase, he instructs - “have been hardcore gamers forever and needed something different.”

The original premise had players serving as counselors to the president when the zombie apocalypse started. Only once in the 30 to 40 times the game has been played did the humans come to agreement and have a chance of surviving, Olmstead says.

That game has been retired, and the new “serial” version is set in September 1945, just after the end of World War II.

It’s been a challenge for the designers, he admits, because there are no cellphones, no Internet, no streaming video updates.

But Olmstead thinks thehumans might stand a better chance.

“Part of me thinks if we can get into the more simplistic ways of thinking, we might be better off.”

His lostgamers productions is also developing the tabletop game that will debut, Hancock’s “Yesteryear,” based on a pulp hero who becomes a superhero.

What makes it unique, Hancock says, is that it’s played with a four-square “quadrant sheet” and cards, not multi-sided dice, and can become a LARP by just standing up and taking the cards along.

There will also be special guest authors - two of Hancock’s favorites, crime novelist Paul Bishop and MartinPowell, who has written for Marvel, DC and other comics along with sci-fi, history and horror books - a costume contest, a metal concert, a trivia challenge and a performance by The Magic Cabaret, featuring Big Daddy Cool & The Swing Kittens, described as “a troupe of eight variety artists who fuse hit music from the 20th century, amazing magic and illusion, dance, comedy sideshowstunts, circus acts and audience participation.”

Hancock says “pulp” may not sound mainstream, but “we’ve got publishers and writers and artists and performers coming from all over the country.” Whether it’s Popeye written into the “Mars Attacks” storyline or graphic novels starring Little Red Riding Hood or Paul Bunyan, it’s all part of the “new pulp movement.”

Whats Up, Pages 14 on 04/26/2013

Upcoming Events