ALL PULP FOCUS-SECOND REVIEW TO ANSWER THE QUESTION...KIDS' PULP...YAY OR NAY?

TIPPIN' HANCOCK'S HAT-Reviews by Tommy Hancock
"THE TALL TALE OF PAUL BUNYAN"
Writer-Martin Powell
Artist-Aaron Blecha

Second of Four Reviews of ALL PULP FOCUS-KIDS’ PULP, YAY OR NAY?

Pulp fiction requires a few things.  A hero, able to do amazing feats of some sort somehow; a villain and/or villains that are as or more over the top than the hero and defeated in the end; bright, engaging supporting characters who might be able to carry a tale or two on their own; and imagination gone wild as seen in the art, the turn of phrase, the crazy innovations and creations scattered throughout the story.

“THE TALL TALE OF PAUL BUNYAN” has all of that in spades.

Powell takes the classic tall tale of the giant baby born to hard working parents that grows up to be the oversized hero that shaped most of what we know as geographic America today and makes it enjoyable and as pulpy as can be.  Blecha’s art, although cartoony and humorous in nature, adds an outlandish quality to a truly over the top story.  The dialogue and narration ring true with the art and make the story almost a song more than a narrative.  The villains are there and Paul’s superhuman reaction to them as well.  All in all, Powell and Blecha use the comic art form in a phenomenal way to tell a story we all think we know and turn it just enough that it could have been a prose tale once upon a time in a good ol’ pulp magazine.

Five out of Five Tips of Hancock’s Hat-Yes, yes indeed.