PULP
I came across my first issue of PULP about 18 months ago. I was in my local comic shop and the proprietor told me he recently acquired a collection of magazines I might be interested in seeing parts of. The collection had a total of around 60,000 magazines. Several boxes were brought for me to look at, all containing manga. There were 2 or 3 issues of Raijin and Animerica Extra, and about 45 issues of PULP. I had them all put on hold for me and snatched them up over the next 2 months. Prior to Getting these magazines I would purchase lots of manga but never in magazine format. Since then, I get a few issues of different magazine titles with the goal of completing a collection of all the English language magazines that published manga.
Pulp was published monthly by Viz Communications Inc. There are 57 total Issues. It had a cover price of $5.95 USA and $8 CAN (Vol 1.1-2.10), $8.95 CAN (Vol 2.11-4.6) -$9 CAN (Vol 4.7+). There were 3 different tag lines used by the publication - MANGA for GROWNUPS (Vol 1.1- 4.6), the world from a manga point of view (Vol 4.7-4.10), and THE MANGA MAGAZINE (Vol 4.11 +). All the volumes read from left to right fashion or “flipped”. There were two different spines used during the magazines run - rounded (Vol 1.1-5.5) and flat (Vol 5.6+). The premier issue is dated December of 1997 with the final issue dated August of 2002. According to Editor-in-Chief Satoru Fuji in a letter to readers in the premier issue. “The manga of PULP are drawn so boldly, so explicitly, that you won’t be able to tear your eyes off them. They’re steamy, sophisticated, alternative, rated “R” -in sum, the kind of manga that appeal to grownups, the kind of storis that are just too hot to handle in any of our regular monthly titles, the kind of manga few publishers dare to translate.”