A Different Class

Something's happening - I seem to be losing the ability to dislike things, mostly. Well, at least in regard to this kind of thing. Back in February of last year, I highlighted some Beano parodies from a comic called Pulp, a publication I summed up thusly:

...of all the Viz-style "alternative" comics I've seen, Pulp's definitely one of the worst in terms of "Getting it completely wrong". No cleverness or satire or anything here, just bad drawings and rude words.

Humble pie from the oven of shame and all that, but I must've either had a short memory or, as feared, I've lost the ability to criticise. Reading over the two issues of Pulp I have for the purposes of this article, it's suddenly one of my favourites. At least top ten. Whoops. So here we go, a re-assessment of sorts of Pulp.

Launched in 1991 by Big Mags Ltd, and edited by the same Stuart Blair, as the sister title to Ziggy, which if you remember, was a fairly outrageous title (as an understatement) that thrived on speculative libel. Suggesting Simon Bates has an incestuous relationship with his mother, stating that Roy Hattersley threw up on live TV and there was a baby's arm in the sick, that sort of thing. It was mostly those kind of articles and strange doctored photographs on most of its pages, with a few comics here and there. Pulp, on the other hand, flipped that ratio to be more of a comic-based publication, with a smattering of the articles too. So now we know what kind of thing we're in for here, shall we begin?

I'll be clear once again that I've only been able to find two issues of Pulp - the second one and the fourteenth one - but they're both far enough apart to get a good idea of the whole "scope" of things here. Just so you know. We'll start with a focus on who appear to be the "main" contributors, as always - It's a working formula! Andy Dodd's first - any cartoonist who employs the use of background jokes is a hero in my book, so he's off to a good start with Pulp's resident superhero, Captain Shitehawk:

And, as the complete opposite to a superhero, we have what seems to be Pulp's longest-running character (in that he's the only one who's in both of the issues I have) - it's Boy Hitler:

One last bit of Andy Dodd, and it's the inevitable Jeremy Beadle piss-take. If anyone can tell me why Mr. Beadle's such a consistent target in these kind of comics, please inform me, as my memories of him are nothing but amusing ones (okay, apart from Win Beadle's Money, which was just absurd). Anyway, here's Pulp's take on the tiny-handed one:

Next up is Rob Filth (or Rob Yuppies as he was going by in the early 1990s), who's on nearly every other page of the earlier issue, along with many of the characters that had earlier appeared in his own Filth comic, such as Terry Bullpuns (I like this one a lot):

Arthur Peases and his Facial Diseases:

Rupert Rockitt and Baby Bastard:

Rob did a bit of writing for Pulp too, and this is where thing's get a tiny bit confusing. Here's Winnet the Pooh:

Says there that it's illustrated by "The Steve". Have a look at the bottom of that Baby Bastard page again, at the small print, and there's two Steves listed as cartoonists - Steve Harrison and Steve Hindmarch. Both of them sign their work without their surname, so I'm a bit clueless as to which one did Winnet the Pooh and which one did Religious Ron:

I'm not going to lose sleep over it, but it'd still be nice to know.

Jackie Smith, who did Camille Hump for Ziggy, is the next contributor here (is that a male or female Jackie?). High quality stuff here, wouldn't look out of place in a Fleetway title and all that, save for the subject matter - it's Ivor the Incontinent:

Smith also brings us the adventures of Tony Tater, in a nice bit of satire that could still be applied today if he lost the beard (steady now):

And my favourite thing from the whole of Pulp, something that wouldn't appear out of place within the pages of Fortean Times should Hunt Emerson ever miss a deadline...

Taking a bit of a break now in order to show that obviously not EVERYTHING in Pulp is worth being preserved for future generations and whatnot. Whoever drew this one was wise not to sign it:

And here's a few things that I've already featured before, but for the sake of consistency it's the obvious pseudonym that is Billy Whizz and his many terrible wastes of ink, paper, time and oxygen:

Oh, and just like every one of these titles has several items of pure terribleness, each and every one of them has a range of T-shirts on offer as well. Here's the choice presented to the dedicated Pulp fan:

Alright, back to the good stuff. Here's current Viz and sometime Beano man Paul Palmer (who you may also remember from Gutter and Spit), here giving us a TV show parody:

Another TV show parody appears in another issue - no idea who it's by, but it's a good one. Could ALMOST pass for something by David Alexander. ALMOST. Here it is:

Another regular contributor now - it's Nigel Maughan (obviously), with more of his high quality bits, including the somewhat horrifying Leper Man:

The depressingly accurate Los Angeles Police Story:

Rita's Rubbers and Robert McAmley (He Thinks He's a Member of the Royal Family):

One last cartoonist before we start summing things up around here... It's Joe Matthews, who we'll be seeing a lot more of in future articles. For his work in Pulp, presented here is Hambo:

And something that Viz obviously did better, but it still looks nice:

So, what became of Pulp? Well, from what I've been told, two months before it was cancelled it joined up with Ziggy for the sixteenth issue - by this point both titles were selling less than a thousand copies each, so they seemingly took the route so often taken by comics over the years (see the all-consuming Buster, which ate up just about every other Fleetway title over its lifetime). Here's an example of what the combined title looked like:

Thanks to Nigel Maughan for the scan.

Bit of a bugger, eh? Still, looking over them now, Pulp's certainly one of the better examples of the genre out there, and certainly an example of the weird little adage that it's the worst titles that last longest, and vice-versa. Also, I think another look at Ziggy may be warranted for the future.

I'll leave you with some more Pulp covers that Mr. Maughan was nice enough to send me:

UPDATE:
Read the comments below for some extensive "behind-the-scenes" information from Rob Filth. Interesting stuff, certainly.