*** January 2016 Challenge: Re-map a Pulp World ***

[Diamond]

Okay, fellow Guildites! After that awesome 2-month mega challenge, here's a little more low-key one. Your challenge this month is to re-map a pulp world. By 'pulp world', I mean the setting of one of the great old adventures from the early to middle part of last century:

-Buck Rogers
-Barsoom
-Gor (in the early, pre-misogynistic days)
-Tarzan's Africa
-Pellucidar
-She
-just about any of Lin Carter's books/worlds

By 're-map', I mean that it's pretty wide open. You can do a world map, regional map, town, spaceport, whatever, as long as it relates in some way to the pulps.

If you're not familiar with ANY of that, some quick online research will yield you at least some image results. Also, I'm sure there are/were some non-American/British pulp adventure/worlds, and feel free to use any of those you know of as well.
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Be sure to title your thread: January 2016 Challenge: <your title here>

Precede all work-in-progress images with: ### Latest WIP ###
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This challenge will end on Sunday, January 31st, at about 10PM Pacific time. Three days of voting will follow, after which the winner will receive a BRAND NEW CAR! Just kidding. But you will get a groovy golden compass to start out the new year.

[ChickPea]

Hahaha laughing at 'Brand New Car'. We nearly had a gazillion entries there!

I have to confess I'm not familiar with more than half of the topics you listed, but I'm interested to see what people come up with.

[J.Edward]

This sounds like an awesome challenge.
I don't know that I'd have time but it should be fun for any that can get in on it.
Yep, that NEW CAR would have been a jump point for galactic loads of spam too.

[xpian]

It sounds like a challenge with a lot of potential. With a quick Google search, I can see that TONS of people have already taken a crack at mapping Barsoom, the Mars of the John Carter stories...

Questions:

1) How broadly do we define "pulp?" Most of us concentrate on fantasy and sci-fi maps, and Diamond's examples fit that mold, but "pulp" itself might actually be most associated with gritty, sensationalistic crime fiction. Femme fatales and hard-boiled detectives. I could imagine someone doing a map of downtown San Francisco, showing all the movements and murders at the heart of the Maltese Falcon (the pulp novel by Dashiell Hammett).

2) How strictly do we adhere to the time period constraint? It's true that the great era of the pulp magazine and pulp novel was the 1910s through 1940s, and I've seen some dates for bracketing the pulp time as 1896 to 1955. BUT -- there are many modern tales that are considered "pulp" by the public or by the community of critics, such as Star Wars. Would mapping Mos Eisley be considered mapping something pulp? How about mapping Jack Rabbit Slim's from Pulp Fiction?

3) By the way, I'm not necessarily pushing for the broadest of categories, here. I like constraints, ultimately. I'm of the opinion that creativity, art, and invention thrive *within* constraints. Boundaries are important because they help us focus and give us something to push against or bounce off of.

[Diamond]

1. I think any detective pulp should qualify as well. That's the REAL pulp, actually.

2. Time periods are flexible to an extent but I think we need to have a cut-off, in 'feel' if not time. Some people may feel that Star Wars is pulp, but due to its modern genesis along with its more space opera feel, I don't think we can include it. Indiana Jones, on the other hand, fits the mold perfectly.

Ultimately, the voters will decide, and these contests have always been pretty flexible. If you want to map Jack Rabbit Slim's, go for it. I personally wouldn't vote for it, but I'm only one voter.

[J.Edward]

I have to ask, and I assume the answer would be yes...
would this include Lovecraft and the other mythos writers of that time?

edit - perhaps this might not fit the theme, eventhough it does fit the time and was published in Pulp rags of the era.

[tainotim]

A possible J.Edward Lovecraft-themed map? I have chills already

Cheers,
Tainotim

[snodsy]

Would the EC comic series be viable? Tales from the Crypt, Vault of Horror, Shock Suspense, Frontiline Combat, Crime Suspense, etc. I have a lot of these old beautifully illustrated comic, before the comic book code went into effect around 1954. Johnny Craig's illustrations are really beautiful. These were some of the best illustrators of the time - Reed Crandall, Jack Davis, Jack Kamen and Johnny Craig to name a few. If you haven't heard of these comic, look them up really cool. I'll have to go back a read a few to find one that fits a map.

[xpian]

Here are a couple of good links I came across that talk about the pulp era.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...lps-big-moment

http://www.pulpmags.org/history_page.html

[Meshon]

I was also going to ask about other authors, like Clark Ashton Smith's world of Zothique, or Fritz Leiber's Nehwon. My interpretation is that we'll let the final vote decide who's really pulpy? I guess if you choose something that you're not sure about, justify it's pulpiness in your first WIP post? I would definitely like to see someone's interpretation of something a little unusual.

cheers,
Meshon