One of the last of the dinosaurs who attended the first Pulpcon — Robert Weinberg — passed away on September 25. A lover of pulps and science fiction to the very end, Bob was seventy years old.
An editor, publisher, bookseller and creator of fanzines — including PULP — Bob was one of the first publishers to concentrate on magazine stories from the pulps. In today’s print-on-demand world, we’ve seen an explosion of small presses releasing pulp reprints like never before. Back in the 1970s — years before digitalized text — Weinberg published several series that reprinted pulp fiction: INCREDIBLE ADVENTURES, LOST FANTASIES, PULP CLASSICS, and WEIRD MENACE.
In addition to his work in reprint fiction, Bob was an extremely active indexer. Beginning with AN INDEX TO ANALOG in 1965, Weinberg compiled bibliographies of the work of Robert E. Howard, the Cthulhu Mythos, the hero pulps, and more. His A BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY ARTISTS — published by Greenwood in 1988 — is one of the leading works on the art of the fantastic.
The winner of the 1983 Lamont Award, Robert Weinberg joined Martin H. Greenberg as editor of LOVECRAFT’S LEGACY and with Greenberg, Stefan R. Dziemianowicz, and others edited WEIRD TALES: 32 UNEARTHED TERRORS, FAMOUS FANTASTIC MYSTERIES: 30 GREAT TALES OF FANTASY AND HORROR, HARD-BOILED DETECTIVES: 23 GREAT STORIES FROM DIME DETECTIVE MAGAZINE, and many other anthologies.
Beginning with “Destroyer,” a short story featured in the May 1969 issue of WORLDS OF IF, Weinberg began publishing genre fiction. Although his contributions to the world of fiction were rather infrequent during the seventies and most of the eighties, he increasingly turned to fiction writing with works such as THE DEVIL’S AUCTION, THE ARMAGEDDON BOX, and THE BLACK LODGE.
We bid adieu to this longtime science fiction and fantasy fan, author, editor, publisher, bookseller, fanzine creator, and pulp fan — known to his wife and son as “Our favorite Martian.”
(The late Jon Arfstrom‘s portrait of Robert Weinberg. Mr. Arfstrom was a guest at PulpFest 2015. The last of the WEIRD TALES artists, Mr. Arfstrom passed away on December 2, 2015.)
