At the beginning of the XXth century, the word Pulp identified the cheap popular fiction magazines. The name comes from the wood pulp from which the cheap paper they were printed on came from. It’s precisely on these publications that the main genres of the nineteenth century’s imaginary were able to develop: detective, romance, horror and, of course, science fiction. The first pulp is usually considered “The Argosy”, published from 1882 by editor Munsey, but the golden age for this kind of publication definitely came in the years between the two World Wars. In the aftermath of WW2, with the emergence of paperback and of magazines in digest size, the refinement of the readers’ taste and the development of new entertainment formats such as TV series and comic books, pulp magazines suffered a rapid decline.
The exhibition presents part of the rich collection which belonged to Riccardo Valla (1942-2013), among the greatest scholars and publishing operators in the field of science fiction in Italy, friend and close collaborator of the Muƒant.
SALA EX-AIAT – PIAZZA UNITÀ
tuesday 1 / sunday 6 november
16.00 — 19.00
