Well, it's my contention that in many ways, manga is the closest thing we currently have to the great pulps of the past.  What are the pulps? For those unfamiliar with the term, I'll let that last bastion of dependably verifiable factual information, Wikipedia, fill us in...

"Pulp magazines (or pulp fiction; often referred to as "the pulps") were inexpensive fiction magazines. They were widely published from the 1920s through the 1950s. The term pulp fiction can also refer to mass market paperbacks since the 1950s."

Like manga (and in this instance I'm referring mainly to Japanese manga), during their heyday, the Pulps were read by just about everyone--male and female, young and old, high-powered business man and hard-scrabble brick layer. And also like manga, the Pulps, while dealing largely with dashing heroes and daring adventure (the precursor to the capes-n-tights crowd), also covered a wide array of genres--Westerns, Mysteries, Horror tales, Fantasies and yes, even the "R-Word"...Romance.

Accessable, reasonably priced tales catering to just about every demographic. This is why I think manga more closely resembles the Pulps of yore. Because while the superheroes may be the offspring of a specific, popular type of Pulp Hero--The Shadow, Doc Savage, The Spider--the Pulps as a whole covered a much broader spectrum of storytelling.

So what about the Indies--Maus, Blankets, American Splendor and the like? That's a good question, smart guy. What I'd say, is that while there is manga out there that covers very real-world, personal and internalized narrative terrain, it is more the exception than the rule. Most manga deals in the realm of fantasy. Whether it be Giant Robots, Sword Wielding Samurai, Blood-Thirsty Vampires, Invading Alien Frogs, 14-year-old Ace Detectives, or some poor slob in charge of running his aunt's all-girl dormitory (see: "Harem Manga")...at the end of the day, it's all fantasy to a degree, ain't it?

And all of this is what I think we here at TOKYOPOP are attempting to do with our original material, what we call "Global Manga." Tell great stories that appeal not only to you, Potential Reader, but to your kid sister/brother as well as your crotchety old Uncle Ted (you know, the one with the wooden leg, who always smelled like stale coffee). In Japan manga is ubiquitous. There's manga for everybody and everybody knows it. It's accepted. Part of what I hope TOKYOPOP can achieve is getting past the U.S. perception that manga is all Big-Eyed Magical School Girls and Impossibly Beautiful Young Men who are equal parts Impossibly Sensitive and Non-Threatening. Don't get me wrong, we've got that too. But we've also got Gothic Horror, Sci-Fi Adventure, Raucous Comedy, Amazing Fantasy and Dark Mystery.

And that last one is where I think I'll leave off for now...Dark Mystery. Next time, I'll blather on about two of my favorite Pulp staples. The Darkness and The Mystery.

Don't worry, this is all going somewhere.

I think...