Pyramid Review
Pulp Zombies
Published by Eden Studios, Inc.
Written by Jeff Tidball
Illustrated by Steve Bryant, C. Brent Ferguson, Jon Hodgsen, Jason Millet, Gregory Price, Chris Stevens, and George Vasilakos
152-page b&w softcover; $20.00
The "pulp" and horror genres are no strangers to each other, so it is no surprise that they are also a natural combination when it comes to creating RPG backgrounds. It is a combination best typified by the weird or cosmic pulp horror of the classic Call of Cthulhu game, while at the other end, there comes an "undead," but no less entertaining take upon the meld of pulp and horror. Pulp Zombies is the second genre book for the zombie-themed RPG All Flesh Must Be Eaten, following last year's martial arts/Hong Kong cinema action combo Enter the Zombie. Written by Jeff Tidball, the author of the boardgame Cults Across America and numerous supplements for Ars Magica, it presents an exploration of how to handle the shuffling corpse cortege in the pulp setting, along with advice upon the era, and several more "Deadworlds," each a campaign setting in which said cortege plays a big or small roll -- mostly big.
What Pulp Zombies is not is a historical sourcebook for the pulp decade of the 1930s. Instead it is set within the pulp "period," which lies roughly between the Wall Street Crash and the outbreak of World War II. Zombie Masters and players alike need not strictly adhere to the true events of history, but rather use and refer to such events as necessary . . .
This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.
Article publication date: March 14, 2003
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