In terms of storytelling sensibilities, it can easily be argued that pulps still exist today—but in the more-familiar forms of the mass-market paperback book and the digest magazine, including Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and Analog—both of which had their origins in the pulps. Indeed, the term “pulp fiction”—in addition to serving as the title of Quentin Tarantino’s memorable movie—is often applied to mass market paperbacks. This format has served as home not only to long-running original series such as The Destroyer and Don Pendelton’s The Executioner [both of whom would have been very much at home in the pulps], but to occasional revivals of pulp heroes such as The Shadow and Doc Savage [the latter of whom is currently starring in a series of original novels written by Will Murray and published by Altus Press.] And many publishers have made a tidy profit by mining the pulp magazines for content to reprint and thereby introduce to a new generation of readers.

The Internet is proving to be a tremendous boon for those who wanting to read stories that originally appeared in the pulps. A handful of websites are posting electronic versions of full issues of pulp magazines, even while a variety of publishers are making available e-book versions [albeit of variable quality] of the contents of numerous pulp magazines—many of which had never before been comprehensive or systematically reprinted. So, while the “Golden Age” of pulp magazines may be long gone, it is very close to being a “New Golden Age” for those who want to (re)-read the stories that made the pulp magazines so memorable.