
After two episodes,
Dial P For Pulp is fast becoming one of my favourite podcasts. To quote
The Lair of The Evil DM: "It’s a first rate resource for Pulps. If David stays on the course he’s set I can see this being the definitive pod cast of the genre."
HeroPress caught up with the show's producer and main presenter David Drage for a quick chat.
(1) How do you define “pulp”? Is it a genre?
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The term pulp originates from the “pulp” magazines that were produced between the 1920s and 1950s predominantly in the US.
The paper that was use was the cheapest pulped quality paper, very rough and grainy.The pulp magazines were the equivalent of popular television today, being the mass media entertainment of their day.
They evolved into both comics and paperback books. In fact, many of the authors who wrote for the pulps went on to have their work reproduced in paperbacks years later.
"Pulp" started off covering a wide variety of genre’s and to a certain extent it still does. From science fiction and horror, through hardboiled or noir and on to adventure stories and even Romance stories. The whole heroic fantasy/sword and sorcery genre pretty much started with the works of Robert E. Howard.
Today the term "Pulp" generally refers to somewhat naive adventure, hardboiled detective, and sword and sorcery stories - usually with clear cut good and bad characters, “dames” in distress and dastardly plots!
(2) If someone wanted to read their first pulp adventure, what titles or authors would you recommend as a gateway?
This really depends on the interests of the reader. Personally I would recommend some of the recently restored editions of Robert E. Howard stories. Not only his
Conan tales, but also
Solomon Kane (which has a
movie in pre-production at the moment) and particularly the Bran Mak Morn story
Worms of the Earth. Some of Howard’s boxing stories are also interesting if not really to my taste.
Otherwise there are the
Tarzan and
John Carter of Mars stories by Edgar Rice Burroughs,
Doc Savage,
The Shadow,
Fu Manchu and even characters like
The Saint.
(3) Who are your personal favourite pulp writers and why?
As you can probably tell from my last answer Robert E. Howard probably comes top of the list, I have been reading and collecting Howard books for many years.
I find a lot more depth and passion in his works than in many of the other pulp authors (or indeed heroic fantasy authors).
Many peoples' opinions of
Conan, for example, have been influenced by the
Conan comics and movies, but if you go back to the actual Howard texts there is much more depth to the character and the stories than many would imagine.
Otherwise being British I tend to enjoy Leslie Chartris’
The Saint and also John Buchan’s
Richard Hannay books.
Certainly
The Saint is pure pulp, and although
Hannay may not be considered “pulp”, I think the stories have enough “pulp” in them for inclusion here; high adventure, plenty of action and those dastardly plots!
(4) Do you find your passion for the pulps influencing any other hobbies e.g. roleplaying games, wargames, comic books etc
Most certainly! I used to roleplay quite a bit during and after my university years and as well as the usual high fantasy games like
Runequest and
Rolemaster (no, I was never a fan of D&D), we regularly played
Call of Cthulhu, the grandaddy of all pulp RPGs.
I ran
CoC for so long that I don’t need to refer to the rulebook anymore, unless something pretty extreme happens.
I have also picked up a copy of
Spirit of the Century, which looks very interesting, but I don’t really get much chance to roleplay now so it is more just for my own reading pleasure.
I wargame and boardgame on a fairly regular basis and I am slowly amassing a fair collection of pulp styles wargaming figures, from companies like Bob Murch’s Pulp Figures, Artizan Designs and Copplestone Castings.
Ruleswise I have the Rattrap Productions
.45 Adventure rules and also
Astounding Tales from Howard Whitehouse.
I don’t read many comics, although I have been reading the Dark Horse
Conan comics. Other than that I tend to enjoy some of the stories that have come out of
2000AD.
Slaine (a celtic barbarian clearly influenced by Conan) and
Strontium Dog, a science fiction bounty hunter series that I suppose has some hardboiled/noir overtones.
Oh and the
Cal MacDonald stories by Steve Niles. MacDonald is a hardboiled detective, very much in the style of Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe, but the stories are filled with supernatural horrors, in fact MacDonalds’ favourite source of information is a zombie called Mo’lock. I prefer the actual fiction but I have read the comics as well!
(5) What made you decide to get into podcasting? And how difficult was it?
I started listening to podcasts around January or February 2005, which was fairly early in the development of the medium.
I have found that they are great to listen to while commuting (about an hour each way) to work. When you have listened to a group of people over a couple of years you find that quite a community has developed.
The successful podcasts develop a good interaction with their audience, which is very important and makes everyone feel included. Shows like
The Babylon Podcast (for fans of
Babylon 5)
The Dragon Page: Cover to Cover, Mur Lafferty’s
Geek-Fu Action Grip, Ken Newquist’s
Nuketown Radioactive and
The Kick Ass Mystic Ninjas, are all wonderfully produced and have great communities following them!
Dial P For Pulp is my second podcast. The first one was a model making and wargaming show. I decided to stop that show as I needed to produce a new project every month and then base the podcast on it. I have a young family and I just didn’t have the time for that.
With
Dial P For Pulp I can draw on my passion and knowledge of the pulps, as well as call on pulp fans to help promote their own interests.
When I first decided to do this show, I was going to concentrate on either just Robert E. Howard or Sword and Sorcery. But I felt that they would be fairly limiting, both in scope and audience.
So I broadened it out to cover all aspect of the pulps. A decision, that I am very happy about as my enthusiasm for particular genres tends to wax and wane on a regular basis and to have the whole pulp field to play with I can always find something to hold my interest!
As for the technical side of podcasting. That was a steep learning curve. There are two excellent books that are both written by established podcasters,
Podcasting for Dummies by Tee Morris and Evo Terra, and
Tricks of the Podcasting Masters by Rob Walch and Mur Lafferty. I would definitely recommend reading them both before starting out.
Then it is simply a matter of getting the equipment together and giving it a go. You certainly don’t need a high end recording set up, but a decent microphone and a quiet place to record are pretty much essential.
I made plenty of mistakes with my model-making podcast and fortunately it gave the experience that I need to improve things for
Dial P For Pulp.
I have heard it often said that the first five shows for any new podcast will be pretty awful as you have to work through the ways of doing things before it all falls into place. I feel that with
Dial P For Pulp I pretty much hit the ground running, as I did four episodes of the model-making show and that ironed out a lot of the inexperience before I started this new show.
I am sure it will improve as I fine tune the way I do things, but I am pretty happy with the two
DPFP shows I have put out so far!
(6) What future plans and ambitions do you have for Dial P for Pulp?

In the short term I will be happy to keep the show running as it is, hopefully with some more input from other pulp fans
(who certainly know more about their particular favourites than I do).
I would like to develop a network of people who could report back on various pulp conventions,with panel recording and news reports.
Hopefully as the show becomes more established I will have more companies including me in their mailing list for press releases so that I can pass on any news to my listeners.
I would eventually like to be able to visit some of the bigger conventions in the US, in person, so that I can record some interviews and other pieces, but that is a long way off!
The is a great pulp community online and with good interaction between creators and fans, so I would hope to be able to attract some reasonably high profile interviews for the show in the not to distant future.
Finally, I would like to be able to premiere some new fiction, at the moment I am using public domain recordings and stories to round off the show
(although I do have something a little special lined up for the December show).
I have discussed the possibility of using some new pieces of fiction with a couple of writer/podcasts and so I can see that actually happening, hopefully in the early part of 2008.
I suppose my main ambition for the podcast is to help build a community of pulp fans that can interact together and promote the pulp genres to a wider audience, help spread news of new pulp publications and help the whole pulp genre to grow!