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The Rocketeer shows us how he uses his two fists.
Once upon a time, there was pulp. Pulp was a style of writing that emerged onto the scene in the 1920s, featuring a variety of stories printed on cheap paper (hence "pulp"). Back in the day, pulp content ranged from the Cosmic Horror Stories of HP Lovecraft to noir pieces to the over-the-top action of Doc Savage to the sword-and-sandals fantasy of Conan the Barbarian. The pulp era died down by the late '50s, when the leading distributor of pulp, the American News Company, went bankrupt.
Then, people started looking back on the pulp era nostalgically, and when they did, they usually locked onto the over-the-top stories of heroes like The Shadow, Doc Savage, and The Phantom. Many point to Raiders of the Lost Ark and the sequel Indiana Jones movies, which took 1930s pulp adventures as an inspiration (along with a Real Life zoologist/paleontologist, Roy Chapman Andrews, who basically did what Indy did but in the Gobi Desert), as the keystone of the pulp resurgence, but whatever kicked it off, pulp has recaptured the heart of many a geek.
Two Fisted Tales refers to stories told in a style that reflects fondly on the old pulps. This usually means the story will be set in the '20s or '30s, and focus on square-jawed, clever men (and women) of action. Other elements thrown in for flavor include:
As stated above, Two Fisted Tales don't often attempt to recapture the varied feel of all the old pulps; it's very rare you'll see someone trying to overlay the Doc Savage feel onto a Cthulhu story ( not that it's impossible). Usually, it attempts to focus on the thrilling heroics, not that that's a bad thing.
Related to Diesel Punk and Jungle Opera. Often the subject of a Genre Throwback. See also Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot, Twice Told Tale which requires a specific tale.
Examples
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Anime
Board Games
- Fortune and Glory by Fighting Frog Games
Comic Books
Film
Literature
- Philip Jose Farmer's long writing career is marked by his great love of the pulps and he devoted great energy to his many Two Fisted Tales. Even his works which aren't in the genre are often informed by it. Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life provides a biography of the pulp era hero and links him to other period heroes.
- The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril has the authors of Doc Savage and The Shadow looking into the murder of HP Lovecraft and uncovering a global conspiracy.
- The Takers is an Indiana Jones-style homage novel by Jerry Ahern, about an action-adventure novelist and his Love Interest — an Intrepid Reporter who investigates wacky UFO and occult stories — who team up to investigate the murder of a CIA agent, and the log of a 19th Century expedition searching for Atlantis. It manages to work in Pirates, Ancient Astronauts, Mysterious Antarctica, Flying Saucers, Those Wacky Nazis, a Magnificent Bastard and his Knife Nut daughter, and a nuclear submarine! Great reading, but unfortunately the sequel wasn't up to scratch.
- Kim Newman's Dr Shade ... sometimes. Some of the stories featuring him are celebrations of the pulps and others (most especially "The Original Dr Shade") are Deconstructions. Also by Newman but not featuring Dr Shade: the Diogenes Club story "Clubland Heroes" (definitely a Deconstruction).
- Zach Parsons specifically called his book My Tank is Fight! "two fisted pulp history." And describes the development and potential use of various WW 2 super/strange weapons.
- The Gabriel Hunt books, although set in modern times.
- In a more lighthearted variant, the Doc Wilde series. Doc even brings his kids along on his adventures.
- Doc Sidhe
- The novel Gods of Manhattan, in the Pax Britannica series of Steampunk novels, features two-fisted adventurer Doc Thunder (Savage), and killer vigilante Blood Spider (the Spider, with elements of the Shadow), amongst others.
- Lagadins Legacy belongs to the genre in that it features elements of the Indiana Jones-style adventure story, but also tries to subvert it by including elements of thriller, mystery, and satire.
Live Action TV
Newspaper Comics
Tabletop RPG
- Two-Fisted Tales from Precis Intermedia Games
- White Wolf's Adventure!.
- Spirit Of The Century
- Pulp Hero for the HERO System.
- And its earlier incarnation Justice, Inc.
- GURPS Cliffhangers
- The new GURPS Age of Gold as well.
- The Eberron campaign setting for Dungeons & Dragons combines this with Dungeon Punk.
- Crimson Skies, later adapted into a series of PC and Xbox games, focuses heavily on the Zeppelins and Sky Pirates aspect of pulp.
- Many adventures had by the Sons of Ether in Mage The Ascension, whose Tradition is chock-full of people with names like "Doc Eon" and "the Crimson Claw." Taking an appropriately two-fisted nickname seems to be standard even if you don't use it often.
- Genius The Transgression gives detailed instructions on how to create a pulp tale in the sourcebook.
- Hollow Earth Expedition is made of this.
- If Savage Worlds can be said to have a "default setting," it's this. One of the first supplements was a Pulp Toolkit, and the whole system's emphasis on "Fast Furious Fun!" leads to a very pulpy game experience.
- Gear Krieg is very much this at heart, even with the Diesel Punk trappings.
Video Games
- The Uncharted series, easily. Set in modern times, but all the elements are there: Indiana Jones-esque hero, lots of bad guys to fight in the middle of a war, exotic locations to visit, women to rescue (and be rescued by), betrayal, and the overall theme. It's essentially the playable form of a pulp hero story.
- The Wolfenstein series also seems to have elements of this. You're a one-man army during WWII, stopping the Nazis from taking over the world with either hi-tech weaponry or taking the supernatural to their advantage. The third game even has a final level on a zeppelin.
- The Ultima Worlds of Adventure spin-offs, Savage Empire and Martian Dreams.
- Bulletstorm embraces this demeanor, down to the unlikable but heroic lead.
- Parodied in Team Fortress 2 with Saxton Hale, a pulp protagonist who owns the company that makes all of the characters' weapons.
Webcomics
- Athena Voltaire, a rare example of a female lead pulp story.
- Girl Genius is based strongly off pulpy stories of juvenile adventurers like Tom Swift and Jonny Quest.
- The currently comatose "Modern Pulp" webcomic site, especially Sprecken, about a 1930s crimefighter (who used to go by "Mr Midnight") relocated to the 2020s.
Web Original
Western Animation
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