Pulse Pounding Adventures - Pulp and Film Serial Discussion

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Batgirl III
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Re: Pulse Pounding Adventures - Pulp and Film Serial Discussion

Post by Batgirl III »

MacynSnow wrote: Fri Mar 05, 2021 2:39 am What, no love for The Adventures of Brisco County jr.?
Nothing but love!

I guess I just never really thought of it as “pulp.” Although I have to admit that it isn’t exactly an objective metric... So, yeah, let’s add The Adventures of Brisco County jr. and the original Wild Wild West to the list!

Ooh! The Avengers and Adam Adamant Lives! are probably worth mentioning too. Perhaps a bit too “Swinging Sixties” to be truly considered “pulp,” but still fun.
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Re: Pulse Pounding Adventures - Pulp and Film Serial Discussion

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On the animation front, the Filmation Flash Gordon series was surprisingly fun, especially the animated movie.

The Defenders of the Earth are Pulp Characters, but the show didn't really capture the Pulp vibe outside of being a fun adventure series. It tended to focus more on typical Saturday 80s action cartoon stuff.
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Re: Pulse Pounding Adventures - Pulp and Film Serial Discussion

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Oh, well, if we're going to bring animation into the mix...

Batman: The Animated Series is a must mention. I mean, I'll own up to my bias regarding anything involving the Batman... But I think I'm not being biased here. The first couple of seasons stick very closely to the Batman's early roots with a focus on playing up his noir detective roots. It's got gangsters, zeppelins, shadowy alleyways, corrupt cops, weird science, and a killer soundtrack. After the mid-series retool (and the subsequent spinoffs into the rest of the DCAU) things start to get more "superhero" and less "pulp." But it's still a must watch.

TaleSpin basically takes the characters from Disney's The Jungle Book and plops them into the aforementioned Tales of the Gold Monkey. Like... They don't even try to hide it. They throw in a little bit of "Dieselpunk" on top of everything, but, yeah... It's Tales of the Gold Monkey with funny animals. Speaking of which...

Darkwing Duck basically uses the characters and themes of Disney's various Donald Duck cartoons and asks what would happed if The Shadow existed in that setting. This show is primarily a kid-friendly comedy, but it's loaded with "pulp" trappings. Of course, prior to Darkwing Duck we had DuckTales which was very obviously inspired by the "two-fisted adventurer" tales from the old pulps. Scrooge McDuck and family solved mysteries, explored lost tombs, and matched wits with baddies every episode... Again, it is primarily a kid-friendly comedy, but it's a pretty "pulp-y" one. (And I've had the @#$% theme song stuck in my head since 1987!)

Archer sets it's eighth season in a film noir pastiche that actually tones down some of the show's comedy and edges a little more darker and edgier. If you like your "pulp" served to you in a glass of cheap whiskey, it might be worth watching. Archer's ninth season is an extended homage to Tales of the Gold Monkey.

(Tales of the Gold Monkey seems to be one of those shows that is beloved by entertainment industry writers and directors, but remains incredibly obscure to the general public. Every couple of years there's always a show, movie, or video game that does a homage to it... and it just never seems to catch on.)
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Re: Pulse Pounding Adventures - Pulp and Film Serial Discussion

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I've tried getting my game group into Pulp & Noir, but it never sticks for long. Dragon Age is too xp stingy for them, Blades in the Dark is too Rules restricting for Murderhoboing, Deadlands Reloaded is too "Western", Deadlands Noir is too many rules,
Savage Worlds won't "let 'em cheat Dice", etc.
Basically the group i played with before Covid had a couple unrepentant Murderhobo/Campaign Destroyers in it and Pulp/Noir RPG's won't let you do it.
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Re: Pulse Pounding Adventures - Pulp and Film Serial Discussion

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Just poking my head in here to say the story idea I shared here isn't dead, just on the back burner for the moment.

That said, I am keeping my love of pulp fiction alive with some reading and viewing. Most recently I started reading a book called The Sun King by Matthew Baugh. It stars the Avenger and has the titular hero go up against Sun Koh. The novel also references Indiana Jones and Doc Savage's Johnny Littlejohn as people contacted to give their two cents on Sun Koh. It's great fun.
greycrusader wrote: Sun Feb 17, 2019 5:20 am
The Golden Amazon: A genetically engineered "human of the future", intended by her scientist-father to be a gift to the world, but instead grew to view other people as inferiors who should be ruled, instead. A fairly obvious foe for Wonder Woman (since otherwise, its mostly Paula Von Gunther or the Golden Age Cheetah), especially as Diana would likely see her as demeaning the "amazon" name. Technically she didn't show up until 1944, but she was already a full-grown adult in her mid-twenties, so a slightly younger version would be around for your scenario. A less mature Golden Amazon would be more interested in proving her mettle against the lies of Wonder Woman, rather than using her genius to launch far-ranging criminal plans
A YouTube channel I'm subscribed to recently did a reading of The Golden Amazon returns, and I'm definitely including her as an enemy agent now. Might even have some fun with the idea of her going to Venus, given the presence of Mr. Mind, Dr. Sivana and Carson Napier in the story.
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Re: Pulse Pounding Adventures - Pulp and Film Serial Discussion

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If you are a fan of Robert Howard's stuff, he does have a number of "modern" - ie 1930s - characters: El Borak (a Texan gunfighter now living as an adventurer in Afghanistan), Sailor Steve Costigan (a merchant marine and boxer), and Prof. John Kirowan (who battles the Cthulhu Mythos). Also his reoccurring Western hero Breckinridge Elkins. (Elkins and Costigan's stories are mostly in the style of classic "tall tales", usually in the form of the hero doing something fairly incredible and somewhat ridiculous, usually as the result of them being too thick headed to know better.)

Also, if you've not seen it, Bill WIllingham (of Fables fame) wrote a graphic novel, The Greatest Adventure, which involves all of Edgar Rice Burroughs's heroes. Yes, every single one. Tarzan and John Carter are at the forefront, but it has a huge cast. It's probably only about 90% successful at trying to juggle them all, but if you enjoy Burroughs's work and enjoy crossovers, its definitely worth a look.

Then there's the first and (IIRC) fifth issues of Warren Ellis's Planetary, which had pastiches of Doc Savage, Tarzan, The Shadow, G8, Operator 5, Tom Swift, and Fu Manchu as a team.

Then there was Dynamite's very very weird Legenderry crossover, set in this strange steampunk fantasy world, and involving versions of The Six Million Dollar Man, Vampirella, The Green Hornet, Red Sonja, Zorro, Flash Gordon, and The Phantom. It wasn't a bad story, but just really odd.
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Re: Pulse Pounding Adventures - Pulp and Film Serial Discussion

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MacynSnow wrote: Fri Mar 05, 2021 7:00 am Savage Worlds won't "let 'em cheat Dice", etc.
Basically the group i played with before Covid had a couple unrepentant Murderhobo/Campaign Destroyers in it and Pulp/Noir RPG's won't let you do it.
If any of them are Gen X, try to get them interested in the Savage Worlds system game
Freedom Squadron
. It’s basically the closest thing to a G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero roleplaying game that could ever exist without an official Hasbro license. Characters are much more “powerful” than the standard Savage Worlds PC and the nature of the genre — an elite special missions force fighting evil terrorists determined to rule the world — gives the murderhobos and combat monkeys something to focus on. But the in-universe existence of a clear chain of command and NPC senior officers gives the GM a leash to yank on if the campaign destroyers start to get antsy.
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Re: Pulse Pounding Adventures - Pulp and Film Serial Discussion

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Lots of great stuff in this thread!

The four issue NOW Comics Sting of the Green Hornet series (with art by Jeff Butler, who did a fair amount of RPG art) was set as WWII was starting and dealt with espionage and foreign sabotage instead of gangland crime. At one point, a Not-The-Shadow gives the Hornet some information about where the next phase of the Nazi plot is going down, telling him "I'm heading to Europe to deal with something else urgent, you deal with this." And it was Nazis going after a US Super Soldier project, the result of which was not Captain America, but was along those lines.

The Shadow was used like that in the later issues of the Rocketeer, and in the comic, the rocket pack was invented by Doc Savage, not Howard Hughes.

I don't think anyone has touched on the aviator heroes... G-8 and his Battle Aces were mentioned a bit, a pulp set in WWI with the Germans deploying mad science projects being deployed against the allied forces on a regular basis. Like an early version of the Blackhawks, come to think of it. Also, Airboy, the teenage ace pilot with an advanced aircraft. The first story in George RR Martin's Wild Cards anthology, "Thirty Minutes over Broadway" stars and encapsulates the life of Jetboy, an Airboy tribute.

The late, great Aaron Allston did two novels that were a love letter to pulp and Doc Savage in particular, Doc Sidhe and Sidhe Devil, with the idea that the realm of the fae runs some decades behind the Earth in trends and development, so it's still the 1930s there, and there's a multi-gifted hero who rights wrongs because it's the right thing to do, one Doc Sidhe. The first book is available to read free here at the Baen Library. http://www.baen.com/Chapters/0671876627/0671876627.htm
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Re: Pulse Pounding Adventures - Pulp and Film Serial Discussion

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greycrusader wrote: Sat Dec 22, 2018 4:37 am There HAVE been modern-day Sun Koh books, written with him as the main character but clearly as a villain protagonist. Surprised no one's done a crossover yet.

All my best.
Touching on this, something you might get a kick out of is a book where pulp hero The Avenger battles Sun Koh as the latter attempt to access a lost Atlantean library.

https://www.amazon.com/Avenger-Sun-King ... 1936814919
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Re: Pulse Pounding Adventures - Pulp and Film Serial Discussion

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Hey, thanks for the link!
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Re: Pulse Pounding Adventures - Pulp and Film Serial Discussion

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greycrusader wrote: Sat Jun 25, 2022 3:55 am Hey, thanks for the link!
My pleasure! Also just wanted to say I haven't forgotten about this thread, just had to put it on the back burner while I focus on other, more potentially lucrative projects. I'll be getting back to this at some point.
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