A Daily History of Holes, Dots, Lines, Science, History, Math, Physics, Art, the Unintentional Absurd, Architecture, Maps, Data Visualization, Blank and Missing Things, and so on. |1.6 million words, 7500 images, 4.9 million hits| Press & appearances in The Times, Le Figaro, Mensa, The Economist, The Guardian, Discovery News, Slate, Le Monde, Sci American Blogs, Le Pont, and many other places… 5000+ total posts since 2008.

The Savage Distress of Women in Science (Fiction); Pulp Covers, 1930-1960

JF Ptak Science Books   Post 1566

According to most of these big, spongy pulp magazines, women were made to be rescued, and rescued not only from Enormous Situations, but also from unnameable, unknowable Enormous Things.  I guess they were slightly soft-porny, or at least the cover art was, attracting young readers by promises of  an “easily read” with excitement and voluptuous women in need of saving.  It was yet another turn on the fateful screwing of the tale of the damsel in distress, seen and heard countless times in art and story.  Only in these sci fi mags the damsel showed a lot more skin–it is extraordinary how cleavage attracted so much alien danger/romps.

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