Comics and Hard-Boiled - Pulp! Noir - Extra Sci Fi
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- Опубликовано: 1 окт 2024
- Many sci fi writers, especially in the United States, had backgrounds in reading and writing detective stories. They introduced to the sci-fi genre the action hero--no longer just scientific or philosophical protagonists.
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The pulps didn’t just usher in the mass appeal of science fiction. They also changed detective stories forever… and in turn, detective stories changed science fiction.
i cant do a patron but i hope one day you will do the battle of the Alamo :c
hey this maybe a stretch but could you do a synopsis over science fiction comics like batman or dick tracy?
Should the title of this episode read "Comics and Hard-Boiled Noir - Pulp! - Extra Sci-Fi"?
Hey guys, I'm a new subscriber and I wanted to ask you if in your "Extra History" section you have something about ancient Egypt, or if you plan to do something about this topic.
Revealing the next big project on this SciFi Discovery. Campbell.
My mind just went out on a fieldtrip, wondering what might await me! ;3
It was a dark night when she came into my office, Martian skin, red lips and a funny walk because of her cyborg leg. During those precious seconds the smog from the giant corporation near my neighborhood that was killing me was just a bad memory, the "now" belonged to her and before I could talk she saw my eyes and I saw hers. Eyes that saw countless silly space battles. And just like that, I was hooked.
Vicente Ortega Rubilar you win the internet for today
The most cliche noir story ever
Her legs went all the way up. All twelve of them.
A klingonne fatale
Arthur Hill heptopods?
No wonder Cowboy Bebop mixes Noir with Sci fi so perfectly! Also, how do I get started with all these videos?
With the series of videos about Frankenstein.
When you talk about John Campbell, please remember that he was also exceedingly, um, "absentminded" when it came to actually PAYING writers for their work. H.Beam Piper died from suicide when he wasn't paid by Campbell, who actually had envelopes of checks for Piper, buried on his desk.
Thank you for posting this. I knew John Campbell was corrupt, but I didn't know that one of the reasons H. Beam Piper killed himself was because Campbell wasn't paying him. That's horrible.
FLASH! AAAAWH
SAVIOR OF THE UNIVERSE
DUN DUN DUN DUN FLASH ! AHHHHHHWH
HE SAVE EVERYONE OF US !
Hell, Holmes was pretty much a pulp hero, only with his sex drive replaced with an incurable addiction to mental stimulation (and a curable addiction to opium when the former wasn't available).
He might be a bit genteel, but he was also extremely abrasive, almost completely insensitive to others' dignity when it got in the way of his solving a case. He also wasn't above Batmanning it up, in the sense that he was a master of disguise, martial arts, boxing, with borderline superhuman strength, who traveled with an extremely competent - albeit distinctly inferior to himself in most ways - sidekick.
lnsflare1 did u just call dr.watson inferior u fiend......no small pox vaccine for u
It is funny how often people get annoyed whenever a depiction of Sherlock Holmes remembers to include, and utilise, his martial art skills.
Cocaine, actually. Though Watson does find him in an Opium den in "The Man with the Twisted Lip," but Holmes somewhat denies that he has a habit
So happy we got this little detour into noir, it's always been one of my favorite genres. Also, it's funny thinking how Flash Gordon could have been a start point for how sci-fi looks now considering most look at him today as goofy.
Thank you for not going into that hack, L. Ron Hubbard.
Maybe if Hollywood knew any of this history they would be making amazing Sci Fi films instead of the cloning popular precedence like Flash Gordon is to Buck Rogers.
I'm surprised you still haven't made a Pulp Fiction gag.
I have to disagree that Asimov showed worlds where human nature changed. The Foundation trilogy is based on the premise that with enough data, you can predict the way people will act thousands of years into the future. And some of the characters are motivated by a sense of honor or greater purpose and some by greed or lust for power. Very much like today.
And the treatment of robots by humans. See R. Daneel Olivaw.
And why you shouldn't blindly go around trusting scientists based on popularity (or the sun will explode)
Although it gets kind of meta when you realize that Asimov himself changed over time, and that later works in the Foundation reflect those changes. Especially those that come after his various robot stories.
Didn't one of the later Foundation stories have an event that psychohistorians had not been able to predict.
Asimov wrote way more than the Foundation sagas...
Its kinda wierd just how much pulp grew and changed in Japan with their whole light novel thing while in the US its moved to the fringes
Ah yes the irony
Your name is SPADES SLICK. You are the leader of a notoriously vicious gang of mobsters called the MIDNIGHT CREW. A rival gang known as THE FELT recently knocked over one of your favorite casinos. Your long quest of revenge has finally taken you through the front door of the mansion belonging to their loathsome boss, LORD ENGLISH.
Your subordinates, CLUBS DEUCE, DIAMONDS DROOG, and HEARTS BOXCARS have been dispatched to various locations throughout the mansion to begin carrying out your mission. Your objective is to locate and crack English's SECRET VAULT, and plunder its mysteries.
That's the business end of it. The pleasure will be painting this ugly house red with the blood of those miserable green motherfuckers.
Droog means friend
@@NecAngelus a girl's best, in this case
Oh
Raymond chandler Is by far the best Noir writer I've ever read(out of hundreds). Its a shame he only wrote around 8 books.
"You are one of the top Problem Sleuths in the city. Solicitations for your service are numerous in quantity. Compensation, adequate. It is a balmy summer evening. You are feeling particularly hard boiled tonight."
Suddenly Kirk's approach to diplomacy makes much more sense.
I wonder how conventionally western genres could change if presented to and interpreted by non western artists? Much in the same way the detective changed when transitioning from Britain to America.
Well, we're seeing the Japanese take on superheroes with anime like My Hero Academia and Tiger & Bunny, but one could argue this goes even further back with shows like Ultraman and Super Sentai.
Connor Walters We already have a answer, the Spaghetti Western
Well the book series Rememberance of Earth's Past by Cixin Liu has similar concept to Authur C. Clarke's novel Childhood's End (at least in tone) which seems to me to be like that.
King Alfred Fair point.
Also, you know you have hit peak nerd status when you know every one of those instantly without needing to look them up.
But one of the things that sparked my curiosity with China, and the apparent lack of change. Even if a movie is focused on a Chinese audience, as many western films are, I don't notice many thematic or stylistic changes that the new audience would bring. Most of them just pay lip service at best.
Given the topic of aesthetics totally divorced from practicality, I'm wondering what you think regarding a juxtaposition with more realistic Sci Fi, like The Expanse. I mean, obviously we all love the retro futuristic art style of the pulp era, and art deco in general. It's bombastic, avant garde, and doesn't really care whether you approve of it or not, it's what it is with no shame whatsoever. I am curious to see how we got from the "look of sci fi" as you put it to more realistic representations. And, of course, all the ones in between (your Star Treks (of any generation), your Star Wars, your...I'm running out of examples here...). Basically, the mid tier between realism and the fantastic.
I suppose this could be a video series in and of itself, but I'd love to see the evolution of that art style over time. How did we get to the modern aesthetic? Obviously, computer graphics have a lot to do with it, but...that still leaves a lot of the story out.
Anyway, I'm glad to see anything you put out on Extra Sci Fi and where you're gonna go with this. I just had to share my thoughts.
That is something I´m really interested in art-wise and I haven´t delve on it much but yeah I see your idea and we might do some episodes about it in the future. I shall look into this thanks for bring it to us is a great idea!.
If you don't mention Heavy Metal Magazine, I'll be miffed.
“Keep it up Ethan proud of you”
-Nick Valentine
I'll be honest, while watching this, I couldn't help but think of the Dresden Files series- seriously, go read that series if you haven't. It's a cross between hard boiled detective fiction and urban fantasy.
Hell yeah, same here. And it's on audible too.
Raymond Chandler was an interesting critic of the mystery genre. He was born in America but he was raised and educated in England and later served in a Canadian regiment during WWI. In one essay used in the book "The Simple Art of Murder" he utterly criticizes they basic English mystery, particular the one written by the creator of Winnie the Pooh, Milne, namely how unrealistic the story happened to be. It is interesting that Chandler came from the British style and might have read the style growing up in England, but ultimately picked the style of Dashiell Hammett as the style he would follow.
We were greedy, we still are, we will probably be in the future for a long long time.
PaleoFisher Captain of the The Fishers fleet War. War never changes.
And Nick Valentine would support both this statements, yours and mine.
Now we have stories where a hard-boiled detective/rogue/assassin/anti hero/bounty hunter has to fight against a corrupt and powerful enemy in a cyberpunk society. Also, there's Problem Sleuth, a webcomic by the creator of Homestuck where a hard-boiled detective has to solve a case and escape his office.
Problem Sleuth was certainly a ride. All that just to leave an office.
So does the copier and computer turn into robots that try to eat him? Or do all the security cameras start shooting at him?
Hello James, Scott, Dan and Dan and Dan and the other crew members I don't remember
All this talk of noir and scifi immediately makes me think of Detective Miller in the Expanse series.
Gotta love The Expanse man.
Deckard from blade runner
RIP _The Expanse._ In case you hadn't heard, it's been cancelled. Time to start the social media blitz to get it back.
AlbertaGeek Well, SciFi isn't renewing it. But someone else might pick it up. Hopefully Netflix so I can FINALLY watch season one, which I missed.
For me, it's Kowacz from Altered Carbon.
noir influenced cyberpunk
My bf introduced me to your videos and I can easily say that you're my newest favorite channel! Keep up the amazing work!
I love meshing the genres. My Karl Vincent character is a noir/horror mash-up, great stuff!
The altered carbon series seems to be obsessed with how badly humanity doesn’t change
This series is excellent
A gentleman simply does not fight, that is why we have doctors like Dr.Watson.😉
When you said Flash all I heard "was AAAAAHHHHHH he saved every on of us!"
All this talk about gritty detective stories and sci-fi "men of action" reminds me of Tracer Bullet and Space-Man Spiff.
God bless you Bill Watterson.
Billy Deerhead I have six shots in me, one is bullet, rest - bourbon. ;)
Another Cordwainer Smith mention I am pleased
I never thought I’d be this interested in science fiction. Thanks again for expanding my horizons!
Comics, Detective stories, Extra Credits, where is Robo SciFi Batman Walpole?
He'll appear...
You know you wanna do a cyberpunk episode. C’mon! Do it! Whats the harm?
The Pulps and Space operas were enshrined in Sci-Fi history by the end of golden age, RAH wraps it all up in "The Number of the Beast". Later Editors at Analog built on J.D.C., with Ben and Spider being my call outs. Analog Dominates the field from this point on, Omni deserves a episode for trying to unseat it but Analog is the source up to current time for current Sci-Fi IMHO.
I inherited my dads collection and subscription in the 1970's and as a older fan am going to call it out as my feed in "The Old Days " When Pulp = Paper = all media in Sci-fi.
4:36 Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern; the Flash. Comic book superheroes have been directly inspired, somewhat, by sci-fi, while critics have dismissed them as little more than kid’s stuff. Yet if you go behind the mask and beneath the cape, you’ll see the truth behind them...
In all earnest, Doyle's Sherlock Holmes wasn't necessarily the romantic victorian upper-class detective as the media loved to potray for some reason. Similar to how "Elementary Watson" never really existed in the original text, in the original text Holme's wasn't very likeable or romantic in any way, in fact, he too was a down-trodden drug addict that somehow managed to keep afloat with his financial situation. He also preferred to associate more with the under-world of London than with common Victorian society which he "loathed with his whole Bohemian soul".
I am missing the influence of society and technological progression on sci-fi. The fear of the machine and the dark that came with industrisation. One very big example of that is Metropolis!!!
I've always thought of the heart of science fiction as the willingness to stare long, deeply and boldly into the question, "what makes us human?".It's nice to see my private thoughts so eloquently echoed. ^^,
So it were pulp magazines that gave birth to the dumb downed Hollywood action flicks
Will you guys go over the Sci fi of super heros? Like Stan Lee and the writers who brought to life Superman
Hard boiled? I love that John Wu flick!
This might be why _Cowboy Bebop_ is considered one of the best series of all time. It’s sci-fi _with_ the noir.
Can anyone recommend best noir comics? Thank you.
Everyone influencing everyone else, tis the world we live in.
Does anyone know Kojima's Sci-fi Noir Policenauts? It's definitely worth the time!
How is it that you continue to ignore Edgar Rice Burroughs and his gigantic contributions to the genre? Without John Carter, there would not be Buck Rogers or Flash Gordon. Without John Carter, we would not have Superman. Without John Carter, we would not have Star Wars. I hope you intend to do a special episode on Burroughs, the Master of Adventure himself.
"What can change the nature of a man?"
--Ravel, 1999
God I'd love to see someone break down Planescape: Torment on a philosophical level.
I just finished replaying it a week or two ago, and it's still among the best game stories I've ever played. Especially since it lets you RP so much more than most CRPGs. Sure you've got a couple of outright optimal ways to play the game - it's a computer game, that's inevitable - and opportunities to blitz through things (again, computer game), but it's got enough thought put into it that the only way you can actually make the game say "no, stop, see, you're dead now" is by going murder hobo and slaughtering a town that's protected by a notoriously fearsome power (not deity; the Lady of Pain doesn't like being worshiped).
Just popping on to say that the EC episode from a few years ago about hard boiled detectives and the Witcher III is one of my favourite EC episodes yet, and y'all should watch it if you liked this video.
ruclips.net/video/XkIKbTiuJ9A/видео.html
Behold the Campbell.....coveted so much as to launch controversy EIGHT. DECADES. LATER. DADADUHHHHHH!
Edgar Rice Burroughs! And you can't fail to mention Doc Savage a melding of Sci-fi and detective genre
PLEASE DO AN EPISODE ON DUNE
how about you now profile some of the good existing magazines - like Asimov's, Dreams & Nightmares, Strange Horizons, and so on. And the authors and poets, people that are part of the SFPA and other organizations who are hard at work creating right now.
I think "Sword and Cape" drama from (mostly) the Spanish Renaissance also influence, or at least tap into, the same idea that a lot of the pulp heroes like Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers come from.
I´m Spanish any books that I should know about ?
The big playwrights for these are Lope de Vega and Pedro Calderon de la Barca.
when talking about sci-fi genre the action hero you have failed to mention John Carter from A Princess of Mars (1912) by Edgar Rice Burroughs. John Carter IS your starting point for the sci-fi the action hero, how could you miss that? and miss Edgar Rice Burroughs? you need to do a Edgar Rice Burroughs video
Dick Tracy!!!!! x')))
To be fair, Sherlock Holmes had a drug habit and did detective work in seedy places as well as country houses (see the opium den in The Man With The Twisted Lip), and The Big Sleep begins with Phillip Marlowe dressing nicely to go to a rich man's mansion, so the dividing line isn't always clear- but on the whole, Lord Peter Wimsey would probably not move in the same circles as the Continental Op, that's very true.
John W. Campbell! I'm expecting some good, "The Thing" art next episode!
Just read The Shadow.
*Squee!* Thank you for mentioning one of my favorites.
You should also mention the SF-pulp series Perry Rhodan, because Perry Rhodan is simply the longest SF-Sereie in the world! (If you do not believe it, just check out wiki;)). Perry Rhodan started in 1961 and is continued weekly. Currently the series counts 2959 pulps. What makes Perry Rhodan so great is that the series tells an alternative human history. From the first contact with the Arkonides, the unification of the people from the eath and later with the Arkonieden too, the creation of a human empire and much more. Anyone who wants to know more about this series should visit Wikipedia or read the Perry Rhodan novels ;)
Thanks for doing something on Jules Verne, that was phantastik, and I loved this one , I´ve learned something about the origins of my beloved Klassiks. Please do something about Perry Rhodan. Dig a little deeper than the militarism Kritiks it gets for there first Cycles. Then you will find the inspiration of Roddenbery and the modern Spaceoperas with gigantik Konstruktions and Ships, beginning in the early Sixties...
With deep thanks for a wonderful Journey from Germany
ErnstEllert
When I play games like Call of Cthulhu I play the hard boiled character. My favorite character is Jack Reid, WWI Vet turned private detective. While his investigation skill were top notch and he could rub elbows with the rich and famous, he didn't have any trouble pistol whipping a goon or shooting an evil cultist to stop the ceremony. The rest of the group I player with were all trying to be the Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, or other European style investigators. PFFFT! Real men don't have time for those European shenanigans.
Poor Brad Bird wrote a failiure of a sci fi movie just because the public were too negative to believe human nature could change.
Counterpoint: Sherlock Holmes was also a drug addict and a "man of action," who frequently visited the seedy underbelly of London. That said, he was quite the "puzzle solving delitante."
Jesus I wish I had time to read all these, every since my MA I just haven't had time to read SF so I'm dependant on audiobooks, a lot of which, especially for older works, are terribly dry. Although the audio book of Dune is amazing.
I personally don't consider Flash Gordon to be Sci-Fi. The only thing that makes it even remotely sci-fi is it's set in space and has aliens. Doesn't talk about the technology or physiology of the aliens, doesn't really make commentary on humanity, hardly makes a point about other cultures, it was mostly "swashbuckling action heroism fighting an explicit/uncomplicated bad guy".
On the flip-side, something that by many people isn't considered Sci-Fi that I do regard as Sci-Fi is Godzilla. In his original 1954 film, he's an allegory for Nuclear war, he was defeated by a fictional weapon (the basic mechanics of which were explained) the inventing scientist was extremely reluctant to use because he was afraid humanity would abuse it for war and bring about catastrophic damage as soon as its existence was made public (which it absolutely would have). Even later in the series, there were kaiju that could be just about anything: a giant creature that has always lived beneath our feet in the Hollow Earth or otherwise Cryptids undiscovered until it decided to surface, giant aliens, mortal beast gods, products of deliberate genetic engineering or cybernetic enhancement, mutated dinosaurs awoken from an eons-long stasis, etc.
And it did pose questions about the human condition, things like: how much we can trust first extraterrestrial contact, your inconvenience in one context may be your salvation in another and the repercussions of being short-sited in addressing either one, the err of thinking humans are at the top of the food chain, the simultaneity that sometimes humans are the bigger monsters than the giants that step on and torch buildings- but aren't beyond forgiveness or redemption (at least not all of them), the fact that the giant monsters aren't just mindless beasts but have their own thoughts and desires and non-destructive activities to an extent also, sometimes there can be a funny side of larger than life forces of destruction, etc.
The Robots-Empire-Foundation series seems to come down quite hard on the no change side to me. Over the tens of thousands of years of the series chronology we see humanity's technology, resources and population expand enormously, but war, prejudice, and amoral power grabbing remain constant themes throughout (and of course ramp up considerably in the Foundation period), and the average quality of life probably peaks in the Spacer period and rarely if ever gets much above the level of a normal 21st century developed country afterwards. The only really alien looking societies in the series are Gaia and Solaria which both exist well outside the mainstream of human history and don't even appear in the original Foundation trilogy.
I came to this video because im writing a hardboiled detective character in a sci fi setting. Love that it talked about both.
idk, Asimov's humanity is very similar to today's humanity. Only one "evolutionary" mule spawned in the presence of billions of regular humans that stayed, well, normal.
Yeah, the American pulp sci-fi writers brought in self-destructive detectives, because Arthur Conan Doyle totally hadn't already written at length about a detective so strung out on depression, bohemian eccentricity, hoarding, booze, nicotine, cocaine, opiates, and single-mindedness that he sometimes fainted from lack of food in the middle of a case.
You know one of the best sci-fi stories where humanity and doesn't change far into the future is 17776 by Jon Bois of SB Nation it truly is an exploration of humanity as it is now if it never changes despite amazing advances in technology, being Immortal, and being thousands of years into the future humanity is exactly as it is now and it is both hilarious and thought provoking
I wouldn't say the classic detective is vice free. The Original Sherlock Holmes did a TON of drugs. He was the Hunter S Thompson of detectives.
War never changes. Only grows more complicated and more destructive.
And war is made by people. Hence, people never change.
[to be read in Ron Pearlman's voice]
Makes me wonder how storytellers are going to take full advantage of digital media. Figuring out form and market has been a challenge for a long time, but someone has to get it right eventually. I like reading novels and comic books, but I'm waiting for the next kind of cheap, imaginative storytelling that really gets people bending their minds.
If someone doesn't do it soon, I'll do it myself.
I wonder if Perry Rhodan will be part of this series at some point. TBH to its this wierd thing that my father mentions sometimes, that he collectet like 1000 booklets of that are presumably somehere in the attic (we never checked)...
Wow why is talking about sci-fi comics “a digression” when including them in the topic of sci-fi? It’s ignorant to look down on comics if you don’t understand what they’re all about.
This settles it. THere's absolutely no reason a superhero needs to dress the way we always picture them dressing, unless we're trying to recapture that old era. No tights. No suits. And most importantly - NO CAPES.
The noir pulps, which were the literal birthplace of Batman, also greatly influenced comics of the time. That same concept of the hyper-aggressive “man of action” dominated storylines of the time and shaped tropes that comics are still trying to shed to this day.
I can't believe you talked about hard-boiled "realistic" detective stories and left out Dashielle Hammett, the inventor of the hard-boiled detective story years before Chandler, and who was an actual private eye.
What's wrong with fleshly desire??? Asimov loved to write detective SF. Naked Sun etc.
I would argue that today we are still driven by the same things that drove humanity hundreds of years ago. We've made leaps and bounds towards a better lifestyle and gotten smarter about a lot of things but you can't ignore the Ur of it all.
I see no reason for us not to be driven by the same base wants of humanity far into the future. We'd have new technologies, certainly, we'd be a lot smarter about a lot of things, the setting might be fantastical, but at the core of it Ur still comes into play.
For those of you reading this and wondering what Ur is, it means primitive, original, and earliest. Its used to describe the base instincts of humanity. What you get when you take away all context, and cut to the chase. I think it was also a sumerian city, but I could be completely wrong on that one.
I've never been convinced that the hard-boiled detective story was all *that* realistic, but it did include somewhat more realistic views, and presented a side that was little present in the Classic whodunnits. Of course, the hard-boiled story quickly got into a rut and became a trope all its own, both comforting and unrealistic in its own right.
frank herbert's works suggest that human nature doesn't change..? that's new.. : / the dune series explores how personal metamorphoses and gaining higher forms of consciousness can and do lead to long-term and radical changes in how societies operate.
FWIW Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon started out as newspaper comic strips, not comic books.
Will you be talking about the resurrection of comic characters like the Flash and Green Lantern through 50’s sci-fi?
Wasn't the Foundation series just a repeat of the Roman Empire? If human nature had changed, wouldn't something different happen the next time around?
I think Gene is wrong. As if we aren’t far enough away from our origins to escape our animalistic nature, or that there is a level further that we just haven’t hit yet. It’s like if it hasn’t happened after a dozen tries, do you think it’ll happen the umpteenth time?
I was about to be confused why I haven't seen much sci fi and mystery together before.
Then the side bar showed a commercial for the new Detective Pikachu movie.
What happened to extra gaming? does it still exist under a different name? I loved when you guys explored through games.. wish you did it more.
Very interesting. But I question will you cover hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy later?
Dick Tracy science fiction and man of action with his wrist radio later wrist TV, and now we have apple watch which is similar. Don't have any Moon Maids yet but there are some who want to send women to the moon.
I love your channel plz keep doing what your doing. Ps. Please cover alexander the great on extra history
That question reminds me of Planescape Torment :P I'm sure people out there that have played the game know :)
Lol when you said “the other thing cheap paper and cheap printing brought into the world was” i was completely prepared for you to say “porn”
Huh.
Why can't human nature grow but stay the same?
Why must humans put behind those desires to flourish?