What does "pulp fiction" mean?

Question

Pulp fiction=bad story?
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LOS ANGELES, California

-- A jury acquitted tough-guy actor Robert Blake of murder Wednesday in the shooting death of his wife four years ago, a stunning verdict in a case that played out like pulp fiction.

Guest · Accepted Answer

'Pulp Fiction' was a movie starring John Trevolta.

However, the definition you are looking for is a different one. "Pulp Fiction" is literature (comics, books, scriptures, etc.) printed on poor paper. It is a derogatory phrase which is used to describe a piece of literature which has been written on cheap, rubbish paper, which might be called Toilet Roll (though it isn't really toilet roll!).

Cheers,
Dave S.

Florazheng1015 · Answer

Hi Dave S.:
Thanks for throwing daylight on my question again.
Cheers!

Julielai · Answer

The term originally came from those paper magazines in the 19th century that published commerical fiction. Is that right?

Lain · Answer

Hi thanks for the question and replies, I've been confused by this word for a while... but I'm still not quite sure about the definition: so you can get them in a cheap price or something?

Thanks
Lain

Mister Micawber · Answer

Pulp magazine
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Pulp magazines, often called simply "the pulps", were inexpensive text fiction magazines widely published in the 1920s through the 1950s. The first "pulp" is considered to be Frank Munsey's revamped Argosy Magazine of 1896. Most of the few pulps still thriving today are science fiction (SF) or mystery magazines.

The name comes from the cheap woodpulp paper on which they were printed. Magazines printed on better paper and usually offering content more oriented towards family reading were often called "slicks." Pulps were the successor to the "penny dreadfuls" and "dime novels" of the nineteenth century.

Though many respected writers wrote for pulps, the magazines are perhaps best remembered for the fast-paced, lurid, sensationalistic and exploitive stories often featured in their pages. As well, the emphasis on series characters solidified that trend in popular culture; magazines featuring novel-length stories of heroic characters, like The Shadow, Doc Savage, The Phantom Detective, paved the way for comic books. Pulp covers were famous for their half-dressed damsels in distress, usually awaiting a rescuing hero.

Lain · Answer

After a whole read on Wikipedia, I think I got the idea. Thanks Micawber.

What does "pulp fiction" mean?

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