Kitchen Sink Books/Dark Horse Comics announces the publication of Popular Skullture: The Skull Motif in Pulps, Paperbacks and Comics by Monte Beauchamp. Handsomely designed, this compact art book pays tribute to skull imagery on the covers of comic books, pulp magazines and paperbacks from the 1930s,’40s and ‘50s. For example, on a 1943 cover of the legendary pulp Amazing Stories, a menacing skull hovers in front of a beautiful woman in a peach-colored gown whose hands are outstretched. The title “Priestess of the Floating Skull” radiates from the glowing enchantress and skull, creating an immediate mystery. This cover and more than 150 others make this collection an irresistible page-turner.

Popular Skullture also includes condensed histories of comic-book, pulp magazine and paperback industries by award-winning art director and graphic designer Beauchamp. Former New York Times Book Review art director Steven Heller wrote the book’s foreword that contextualizes the skull as a symbol throughout history.

Beauchamp's previous book, Masterful Marks: Cartoonists Who Changed the World by Simon & Schuster, was honored by The Boston Globe as one of the best books of 2014.

Praise for Popular Skullture

"No bones about it, Popular Skullture provides precisely what it says it will: page after glorious, full-color page reproducing the covers of mystery magazines, paperback novels and comic books of the 1930s through the ’50s, each one prominently sporting an image of a skull." —Eugene Weekly

“In the vibrant 20-year period the book covers, the skull enjoyed a flashier role in paperbacks, pulps, magazines, film posters, and comics. To avoid being inconsequential, artists and designers repurposed the cliché in novel ways, creating visual puns (such as making skulls into coconuts) or dressing them up in human dress, which added levity to and transformed darkness into illuminated kitsch.” —The Atlantic

About the book

Popular Skullture: The Skull Motif in Pulps, Paperbacks, and Comics by Monte Beauchamp Publisher: Kitchen Sink Books/Dark Horse Comics Publication Date: November 18, 2014 Format: Hardcover Price: $19.99 Page Count: 176 ISBN-13: 978-1616555610