I didn't read a lot of comic books. But I was into 'Dandy and The Beano,' which were like a weekly pulp fiction that featured characters like Desperate Dan, Dennis the Menace, and Billy Whizz - pretty simplistic stuff but very entertaining.

The once inviolate frame within which programs or commercials were displayed on television - always separately - has been violated to a pulp. Program content is seen increasingly as a mere backdrop on which ads are posted like billboards on a fence.

I have a corn creamer that I love. It extracts pulp and juice from kernels, and I simmer that down into a creamed corn that has an almost mashed potato-like consistency. I add butter and hit it with chopped fresh chives at the end for an accent of color.

I was known as an activist, described by CBC's 'The Fifth Estate' as 'the 23-year-old waitress who stopped the pulp company dead in its tracks.' Without knowing it was even possible, my activism helped me gain admission to Dalhousie University law school.

Every Friday, my dad would rent three videos. Me and my brother would ask for something with guns or fighting, but my dad would say, 'Come on, think about it.' He'd choose more involving films like 'Pulp Fiction,' and at the end of the night, we'd agree that they were great.

The whole idea of juicing is good if you are trying to diet and use it in limited basis. I use juice drinks only once a week. I use emulsified drinks because in emulsification you are keeping everything. You are keeping the pulp, you are keeping the skin with all of the phytonutrients.

You get Don King's point of view in what is almost a Shakespearean, classical technique. He comes across almost like a lovable rogue, like Iago in 'Othello' or Richard III. He's doing all these bad things, but I kind of like him. It's like 'Pulp Fiction': Everybody's a bad guy, yet you like them.

There was an enormous revival of pulp fiction that started in the '60s and continued into the '70s, which in large part gave rise to things like 'Star Wars' and 'Indiana Jones,' among others. But I developed an appetite for the original stuff at the time, and that appetite has never really abated.

'Codename Baboushka' is an action-packed modern pulp spy thriller, in the sort of British tradition of 'Modesty Blaise', New Avengers and of course James Bond. It's a book about Contessa Annika Malikova, the last of a noble Russian line and an enigmatic, mysterious figure in New York high society.

'Pulp Fiction' was probably one of the first films I ever saw that really kind of took effect on me. I was about four years old - obviously wasn't supposed to be seeing that film; my sister kind of sneaked it out and we got to see it. She's older than me. That was something I always used to watch.

Hawkwind are one of those bands that people introduce you to because you don't see them on the covers of magazines. I'd heard 'Silver Machine' but Russell Senior, who was in Pulp, got me into them. They had a song called 'Master Of The Universe' and we nicked the title in 1985 for one of our songs.

My mom did this really cool thing: when 'Pulp Fiction' came out on video, she made, like, a 'mommy edit.' She took two VCRs and dubbed 'Pulp Fiction' from one tape to the next and edited out all the parts she thought were unsuitable for a kid. It was basically, like, the opening and ending credits.

People come to L.A. and they expect to see a ghetto like the projects, but that's not the way it's set up. Inglewood, in particular, is the furthest thing from a ghetto. It's a middle-class community, but it's gotten a bad rap over the years... because of 'Grand Canyon' and 'Pulp Fiction' and other films.

I've got one of those over-stuffed leather chairs from the Pottery Barn. It faces north. I live in San Francisco, so there's the Golden Gate Bridge off to the left, and there's Alcatraz off to the right, and I've got a pile of pulp fiction next to me, and there's usually a decent bottle of red wine next to the fireplace.

Indeed, the hype around 'Watchmen' is its curse. If you want to enjoy the comic for what it is, ignore the attributions of literariness and the novelistic pretensions with which some critics have imbued it. This isn't high culture, and it doesn't pretend to be. It's good, juicy pulp fiction with a little nuclear apocalypse thrown in.

Contessa, a.k.a. Baboushka, was a leader in the Russian mafia. Hardnosed, ruthless... very much her own woman. She's a martial artist, marksman, and good with guns and gadgets as any good pulp spy should be. She's supported by her constant companion Gyorgy Gyorgyov, an old friend of her family who was, in fact, her KGB handler and inventor.

Share This Page