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/lit/ - Literature

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22922446 No.22922446 [Reply] [Original]

What was the target audience of Weird Tales, Astounding Stories, and other pulp and horror magazines like that. I know they’re what HP Lovecraft and other famous short story writers published in but who were they directed at? Was it mostly seen how comics are for teenagers, or would you see businessmen in the 1920s pick up a copy to read on the bus?

>> No.22922785

bump, answer pls I’m really curious

>> No.22922909

>>22922446
I would like to know as well. I'm pretty sure most people liked stories like these until relatively recently. just look at the success of The Twilight Zone. sci-fi used to be as massive as crime dramas today if Twilight Zone and the success of Jules Verne and the like are any indication

>> No.22922925

>>22922446
I dont think they had any particular target audience desu anon, it was a different time. Iirc the founder of WT only created the publication in order to subsidize another magazine of detective stories that he produced, & bc he hoped there might exist a market for macabre, spooky Edgar Allen Poe-esque horror stories

>> No.22923179

>>22922446
People had already read Gothic novels and ghost stories for centuries before and scary folktales are older than cuneiform. Weird Tales continued that fascination with myth and wonder, terror and horror, mystery and suspense. People love it today, they loved it back then, and they will love it tomorrow.

>> No.22923186

>>22922446
Weird Tales was more geared towards adults. Had quite a bit of nudity in it.
Astounding was 'all ages', though for much of its run the editor kept trying to push it as a 'serious scientific magazine' while the publisher kept trying to push it towards lighthearted adventure stuff.

>> No.22923202

>>22923186 (Me)
Couple of the others I can think of off the top of my head.
Planet Stories was aimed more towards the young audience, but despite that trended more towards the risque than was the norm at the time. Ended up being pretty controversial.
Amazing varied /wildly/ by the era, originally it aimed towards a sort of serious, literary type of audience, but by the 60s it ended up full of absolute bottom barrel schlock.
Strange Tales was directly founded and aimed at competing with Weird Tales, and had roughly the same adult-oriented kind of content. Less actual nudity in the art, but stories aimed at the same kind of market.

>> No.22923947

>>22922925
>>22923179
>>22923186
So if you were in an office and saw a coworker reading a Weird Tales magazine during lunch you wouldn’t look down on him the way you would if it was a Wonder Woman comic?

>> No.22923960

>>22923947
Pulps and penny dreadfuls have always been pretty lowbrow, a few steps below what an office worker would read. A trade worker could probably get away with it, or anyone under 25.

>> No.22925218

>>22923947
To put it into a slightly more modern context, Weird Tales would be okay in the same kind of workplace where Playboy would've been okay in the 70s.