Pulp Fiction Art: Cheap Thrills & Painted Nightmares -Film Screening/Discussion June 20, 2008

8 PM, FRI. JUNE 20
PULP FICTION ART: CHEAP THRILLS & PAINTED NIGHTMARES
Film Screening/Discussion
Hosted by NYC documentarian JAMIE MACDONALD
With Special Guest: Pulp Art Historian ROBERT LESSER
Hard-boiled dicks, lantern jawed thugs, dames in distress, jungle warlords, and evil oriental masterminds. Pulp magazines, frequently sadistic, occasionally rascist, and always misogynistic, reigned for about a quarter of a century as the most popular entertainment medium in America. They were cheaply produced and cheap to buy, generally a dime. And they were plentiful. After a low-key beginning, the format took off and the initially tame art became more garish, promising endless excitement and ever greater thrills. Western covers went from an illustration of a serene Indian gently paddling his canoe to ferocious savages tomahawking a defenseless frontier family. Mystery covers went from cops on the beat to hoodlums ripping blouses off buxom young blondes.

Pulp writers knew how to write compelling stories and, indeed, many of the best went on to extremely successful and more respectable careers (Dashell Hammett, H.P. Lovecraft, Ray Bradbury, Raymond Chandler, Isaac Asimov, and Tennessee Williams). But with the exception of N. C. Wyeth, the pulp painters (J. Allen St. John, Margaret Brundage, Rafael de Soto) rarely left their lurid beginnings.

This documentary takes a look at the macabre magazine covers that even the artists who painted them sadly seemed to disown. Winner of the 2006 Best Documentary award at both the Dragon*Con Film Festival and The International Horror and Sci-Fi Film Festival, documentary filmmaker Jamie McDonald gained exclusive access to the world s largest pulp art collection - owned by pulp art historian Robert Lesser. Whether you are a true fan of the form or a curious newcomer, Cheap Thrills & Painted Nightmares will leave you thinking differently about what constitutes true art. Filmmaker MacDonald and historian Lesser will introduce the film and answer questions following the screening. FREE!

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