Butcher Billy illustrated the episodes from season 4 of Black Mirror as pulp comic book covers in a series called “Tales of the Unexpected Black Mirrors”. What you see below is something that might seem like a twisted nightmare but is actually quite special. Pulp comics were so named because of the cheap, low-quality paper they were printed on. Some thought the stories that were printed on the paper were of lesser quality as well, but in many cases of some these stories were highly engaging and could capture a person’s interest easier than a slick, or a high-grade paper comic.
“There is a fourth season beyond that which is known to man. It is a season as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. You’ve just crossed over into the Tales of the Unexpected Black Mirrors.”
Anyone that’s watched this series thus far has already seen just how messed up and crazy it can get and should know that as a pulp comic it would probably be no less disturbing. In this format though it would likely be thought of as something cheap and tawdry rather than deep and possibly terrifying.
The whole point of the stories would change and thanks to the format it would take a serious fan to even consider picking one up. I can recall being that kind of fan back in the day that would pick up an off-the-wall comic that just seemed to grab me either for the tale it told on the cover or the tale I believed I could find inside. Sometimes the best stories are the ones you don’t see on the cover.
Of course if you take a look at this artwork and then think of the time period in which it first existed, the price alone would be enough to make certain that very few were ever sold. $4 for a magazine even now might be considered normal but it’s still spendy for a comic book. It would likely be a birthday or Christmas gift back in the days when pulp comics were still very popular.
I remember even in my day the only thing warranted more than $2-$3 was a graphic novel, and those suckers could go for ten bucks if not more depending on the story, the artists, and the type of paper used. Pulp comics that were this big didn’t go for that much, which makes the 60 cents sign at the top make more sense. Nyuk nyuk.
One thing about pulp comics is that they essentially gave life to pop culture in the comic book industry, or at last contributed to it in a big way. Does anyone remember the old comics? They weren’t these glossy things we have now, they were the actual rough, textured paper that gave rise to this type of entertaining magazine.
Boy, a comic series of Black Mirror would be undeniably creepy, don’t you think?
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