Growing up the daughter of Norman Saunders
has given me a close-up perspective on pulp art. Add to that the fact that
I am an illustrator in today's commercial art market, and I guess you could
say that pulp art played a very important role in my life.
By the time I was born, pulp magazines had
pretty much drawn their last gasp, and my father was searching for new
markets. Dad always figured that television had killed the pulps, providing
the leisure time entertainment that pulps once had, but at no cost and
no effort.
I remember pouring over my Dad's pulp cover
paintings, which he had stashed in the basement of our Manhattan brownstone,
imagining the fabulous stories they told. What secret was the beautiful
girl about to tell on the phone, before the hulking shadow entered the
picture? Why did the sophisticated, evening-gowned woman look so smug over
the wisps of smoke coming from the barrel of her stylish revolver? Why
was the debutante in the long white dress about to be thrown off the roof?
I spent countless hours in my childhood making
up stories in my head to go with the paintings, staring at the colors and
brushstrokes, trying to create my own pulp covers. My father had told me
that he painted the covers having never read the stories they were illustrating;
instead he came up with ingenious, arresting scenarios to lure the reader
into buying the ten- or fifteen-cent magazine. Many years later I found
myself doing precisely the same thing, painting covers for video boxes
having never seen the movies.
The goal in pulp illustration, to paint a
picture that was eye-catching with dynamic composition and dramatic color
scheme, was not so different from the goal of modern-day illustration.
Pulp illustration was simply more fun.
| Zina Saunders is the daughter of the great pulp
artist Norman Saunders, and has followed in her father's footsteps to become
an illustrator. |
|
