thepulp.net

l70va TIL that lightsabers came from the pulp magazines! George Lucas cribbed the concept of "laser swords" from stories in 1930s pulps such as "Magic Carpet," "Weird Tales," and "Amazing Stories."
NXQbe TIL that Batman was created almost at the same time as the Black Bat, a pulp fiction hero so similar that the publishers considered suing each other. They eventually found an agreement: the Black Bat wouldn't appear in comics, and in exchange, Batman wouldn't appear in pulp magazines.