Promotion Archive

With April approaching, the pulp con season begins. First up will be the Los Angeles Vintage Paperback Show, followed by the Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention beginning April 12th. PulpFest committee members Jack Cullers, Mike Chomko, and Ed Hulse (who will be releasing a new issue of Blood ‘n’ Thunder) will all be there with information about PulpFest 2013.

A couple of weeks after Windy City, the South’s leading “pulp culture” convention, Pulp Ark will take place in Springdale, Arkansas while Canada’s premier pulp event, the Fantastic Pulps Show & Sale, will be held May 11th in Toronto. About a week later, Morris, Illinois will host the 2013 Edgar Rice Burroughs Chain of Friendship Gathering while Columbus, Ohio will be home to Cinevent 45 over Memorial Day weekend.

June 7th and 8th are the dates for Robert E. Howard Days in the author’s home town of Cross Plains, Texas. Still to be announced is the date for the spring edition of Classicon, but the Derby City Comic Con will go off on June 29th in Louisville, Kentucky.

Of course, all of these events are a prelude for the best pulp event of all, the summertime destination for fans and collectors of vintage popular fiction and related materials, PulpFest 2013. This year, we’ll be celebrating Doc Savage and the pulp heroes of 1933 and the centennial of the villainous Dr. Fu Manchu. Our guests will include Will Murray, author of twelve Doc Savage novels, including the just-released King Kong crossover, Skull Island; Lamont Award winner Don Hutchison, leading pulp anthologist and author of The Great Pulp Heroes and numerous articles about the pulps; Nathan Madison, author of Anti-Foreign Imagery in American Pulps and Comics, 1920-1960; William Patrick Maynard, the writer authorized to continue the Fu Manchu series; and pulp art expert David Saunders. There will also be a showing of the complete movie serial, The Spider’s Web, produced by Columbia Pictures in 1938.

PulpFest is now accepting registrations for this year’s convention, running July 25th-28th. From our registration page, you’ll be able to download our member and dealer registration forms. You can pay for memberships and dealer tables through our Paypal order page. You’ll also be able to book a room at the Hyatt Regency Columbus at the convention rate of $112 plus tax via our special link to the hotel.

We are also happy to once again supply a third table free of charge to dealers who stay at the Hyatt and rent two tables in our hucksters’ room. That’s three tables for the price of two, or six for the price of four. The massive size of the Regency Ballroom enables us to provide this extra exhibit space to loyal PulpFest dealers. Remember, this special offer is good only to dealers staying at the host hotel.

With about a quarter of the vast collection of pulp researcher Al Tonik tucked away in storage, PulpFest is delighted to report that the remainder of Albert’s superlative library of hardcovers, paperbacks, pulps, dime novels, comic books, fanzines, art books, and reference books will be sold during our Saturday night auction on July 27th. For additional details, including a link to the catalog, please visit the Tonik Auction page under our Auctions button.

All this and more can be found by clicking the buttons along the left side of our home page. And don’t forget, you can make your nominations for the 2013 Munsey and Rusty Hevelin Service Awards through the end of April. Please send the name of the person that you’d like to nominate and a short paragraph describing your reasons for your nomination to Mike Chomko, 2217 W. Fairview St., Allentown, PA  18104-6542 or to mike@pulpfest.com.

In the coming weeks, PulpFest will start previewing its highly respected programming on this site. So please visit often. We look forward to seeing you July 25th through July 28th.

This year’s Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention will be saluting ninety years of science fiction and fantasy magazines including the August 1923 issue of Hugo Gernsback’s Science and Invention magazine, its “Scientific Fiction Number” which sported front cover art by Howard V. Brown. The scan is from the January 31, 2012 Tellers of Weird Tales.

With spring comes baseball, pulp cons, and paperback shows. Leading off is the 34th annual Los Angeles Vintage Paperback Show. This one-day show will feature appearances by over forty writers including James Blaylock, Dennis Etchison, William F. Nolan, and Harry Turtledove, all of them very happy to sign your books. It will take place on Sunday, April 7th, at the Valley Inn and Conference Center in Mission Hills, California.

The Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention is in the number two hole. Now in its 13th year, this Chicago-area event will be celebrating ninety years of science-fiction and fantasy magazines with salutes to Weird Tales and the “Scientific Fiction Number” of Hugo Gernsback’s Science and Invention. There will also be an auction featuring pulps from the Jerry Weist estate. The Windy will be held at the Westin Lombard Yorktown Center from April 12th – 14th.

The three spot features the South’s leading “pulp culture” convention, Pulp Ark. A writers’ conference and pulp convention, it focuses on the methodology of pulp fiction, storytelling involving “action, adventure, larger-than-life heroes and villains, and a strong focus on both plot and characterization.” Featuring guest appearances by Joe Devito, Martin Powell, and Paul Bishop, Pulp Ark will take place April 26th – 28th at the Holiday Inn Springdale Hotel and Convention Center in Springdale, Arkansas.

Batting clean-up on May 11th is Canada’s premier pulp event, the 17th annual Fantastic Pulps Show & Sale at the Lillian H. Smith branch of the Toronto Public Library in Toronto, Ontario. You can learn more about this small, pulp-specific show by writing to Girasol Collectables, 3501 Glen Erin Drive, Suite 1409, Mississauga, ON, Canada L5L 2E9 or via email at info@girasolcollectables.com.  (more…)

Here’s wishing everyone the happiest of holiday seasons. As we near 2013 and the eightieth anniversary of the “hero pulp explosion,” when characters such as Doc Savage, G-8, The Spider, and The Phantom Detective were introduced to the reading public, let’s hope there’s a copy of your favorite pulp magazine tucked into Santa’s sack to help tide you over until April 12th, when the Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention will begin in the Chicago area.

After you’ve finished celebrating the winter holidays, please stop back at the PulpFest website as we gear up for next Summer’s Great Pulp Con. Better still, sign up for our email updates by filling in the little gray box titled “E-Mail List” right here on our home page. And while you’re at it, why not “like” our facebook page as more than 500 others have done. You can also follow PulpFest on Twitter.

Many thanks to Keith “Kez” Wilson for allowing us to use his Rescuing Rudolph fantasy Doc Savage cover, based on James Bama’s painting for the Bantam edition of Quest of Qui. You can see more of Kez’s great cover spoofs at his Doc Savage Fantasy Cover Gallery.