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July 12, 2007
Mexican Pulp Art review from San Antonio Express News
http://www.mysanantonio.com/entertainment/books/stories/MYSA070807.9P.book.pulp.1ad75fc.html
Book Review: 'Mexican Pulp Art' an eyeful of pop fantasy culture
Web Posted: 07/07/2007 08:17 PM CDT
Michael Knoop
Express-News Staff Writer
Mexican Pulp Art
Introduction by Maria Cristina Tavera
Feral House, $16
One thing I remember about being a kid in pre-revolutionary Tehran is the garish movie marquees. Chainsaw battles, giant reptiles, people laying face down in pools of blood — images burned into an impressionable young mind.
These memories came flooding back as I flipped through "Mexican Pulp Art," a nifty collection of covers of Mexican pulp novels from the '60s and '70s. One look at the cover featuring a young dandy in a cravat being menaced by three beautiful blonde bee-women, yes, bee-women, and I was hooked. The flying saucer entering stage left is gravy.
The book is chock-a-block full of images straight from a male teenager's fantasy files: zombies, ghosts, aliens, rampaging robots and cough, cough beautiful, busty women. What the art may lack in style or finesse, it more than makes up for in energy and drama. Many of the covers are just plain wonderfully weird like the giant eyeballs of El Cementerio Aguarda or the gonzo fight scene unfolding in La última Jugada.
The introduction by researcher Maria Cristina Tavera explains the covers in this collection were made by a defunct Mexico City publishing company called Editorial Continental that specialized in micro-cuentos (mini-tales). These little 2-inch-by-3-inch books featured horror, sci-fi, action, even romance, albeit of a twisted variety. The covers were illustrated by one of eight artists of whom little information remains but their signatures. The art comes from the collections of Bobbette Axelrod of Sister Fun Vintage Pulp Fiction Art Shop and Ted Frankel at the American Visionary Art Museum's Sidehow.
As cool as the pictures are, I am left wanting more. None of the book titles are translated, leaving non-Spanish speakers to make sense using cognates or their best guess. More often than not, the artist info is unavailable, so it's near impossible to get a sense of a particular artist's style. Are the recurring images of faceless floating eyes by the same artist? There is also no context about the actual story. What are those bee women up to in El Planeta Apis?
An interesting idea would be to pair these paintings with a creative writing assignment, in which students supplied the opening sentence. For example: "When Mega-Gorilla came home early and found his gorgeous blond wife in bed with yet another puny man — well — who could blame him for going a little ape?"
"Mexican Pulp Art" is a quick, breezy read and a surefire conversation starter if you leave it lying around at your next party. Even better, go to www.sister-fun.com and get those buxom bee women printed on a T-shirt or coffee mug. Then you can create a buzz wherever you go.
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