Reviews for True Crime, True North: The Golden Age of Canadian Pulp Magazines

The average rating for True Crime, True North: The Golden Age of Canadian Pulp Magazines based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-01-31 00:00:00 Jaquan Carthen In 1940, the Canadian government passed the War Exchange Conservation Act. This Act, among other things, prohibited the importation of American periodicals such as comic books and pulp magazines to Canada, thus opening up the market to Canadian publishers. This resulted in a brief flourishing of publishing of this type of material in Canada until the Act was repealed at the end of the War. Strange and Loo's book takes a look at the brief and somewhat mysterious history of the Canadian pulp magazine industry of the 1940s -- mysterious because so few of the magazines have survived, and so little is known about the people who created them. The introduction outlines the circumstances that led to the creation of Canadian pulps and introduces some of the principal figures in the industry, such as publisher Al Valentine, but the body of the book focuses mostly on the content of the magazines, specifically the ones in the "true crime" genre. These magazines took a sensational approach to recounting Canadian crimes to a Canadian audience. While American pulps had a more "noir" tone with distrust of authority as a major theme, the Canadian magazines interestingly tended to be much more pro-law enforcement. The first chapter of the book deals with the portrayal of the Mounties in these tales: they are strong, handsome, rugged, honest, determined, smart, and basically the apex of Canadian masculinity in all respects. The book also looks at how crimes of passion and violent sex crimes were handled (generally, in the former they blamed the woman and in the latter the woman was always a pure and innocent victim). Other themes examined include the prevalence of rural northern settings and ethnic stereotyping. All in all this is a fine survey of a topic that hasn't been widely explored. It is also an attractive and well-designed book liberally illustrated with images of pulp magazine covers and ads from within the magazines, as well as stills from what appear to be 1940s b-movies. The one flaw in the design is that the illustrations quite often do not relate to the text, which makes them seem a bit random; however, they are still entertaining. Strange and Loo clearly enjoy their topic and write in an engaging tone that is respectful of the source material, but at the same time perfectly willing to poke fun at some of its more melodramatic aspects.

Review # 2 was written on 2020-03-15 00:00:00 David Rayolson A fine history of a subject rarely covered.