While we get it all, Brubaker and Phillips remind us at every turn that they don’t do straight pulp fiction. Set against the backdrop of a pre-war America welcoming to Nazis, enough to hold a march through Times Square and a rally at Madison Square Garden (not depicted but probably referencing this event,) and you have all the elements necessary for a good old tale of robbery, desperation, and punching Nazis. An aging pulp writer, who bases his adventures on his life, looks for one last score after the legit world does what it tends to do and screws him over.

The story of “Pulp” is deceptively simple. Uch, I just said oeuvre, didn’t I? Let’s talk Nazi punching instead, because it’s always good to punch Nazis. Having a set of characters that look and feel distinct helps set “Pulp” apart from the rest of the team’s oeuvre. That said, it’s been a while since I’ve seen Sean break from his usual repertoire of faces. To try to praise the two separately in “Pulp” would be to do a disservice to the two of them and to the work itself, as well as to Jacob Phillips’ colors, which, while not quite as lush as previous colorists on his father’s art, perfectly evoke the two worlds of the comic: that of 1939 NYC and of the romanticized, color-bled, pulped past. Every new project takes a classic genre or smattering of sub-genres – Crime, Noir, Horror, Thriller, Coming of Age – and asks what makes it tick, where the humans are, and realigns the genre’s tropes and cliches to serve that element. This celebration of pulp fiction set in a world on the brink is another must-have hardcover from one of comics’ most acclaimed teams.Įd Brubaker and Sean Phillips have never turned out a bad book together. One part thriller, one part meditation on a life of violence, PULP is unlike anything award-winning BRUBAKER & PHILLIPS have ever done before. But will Max be able to do the same when pursued by bank robbers, Nazi spies, and enemies from his past? Max Winters, a pulp writer in 1930s New York, finds himself drawn into a story not unlike the tales he churns out at five cents a word-tales of a Wild West outlaw dispensing justice with a six-gun.

Pulp ed brubaker review