Named after Frank A. Munsey, the man who published the first all-fiction pulp magazine, the Munsey is presented annually to a deserving person who has given of himself or herself for the betterment of the pulp community, be it through disseminating knowledge about the pulps, publishing, or through other efforts to preserve and to foster interest in the pulp magazines we all love and enjoy. All members of the pulp community, excepting past winners of the Munsey or Lamont awards, are eligible for this prestigious prize.   

David Saunders, the son of the legendary pulp artist Norman Saunders, has created a sensational, limited-edition print to serve as the Munsey. David’s work, pictured above, is a refreshing homage to classic pulp art that honors the entire pulp community and their common love of the purple prose of the bloody pulps.

If you have someone in mind that you feel worthy to receive this year’s Munsey Award, please let us know. Send the person’s name and a brief paragraph describing why you feel that person should be honored to Mike Chomko, 2217 W. Fairview Street, Allentown, PA 18104-6542 or to mike@pulpfest.com. The deadline for nominations is April 30, 2010. The recipient of the Munsey Award will be selected by a panel of judges consisting of recognized experts in the field of pulp literature. The award will be presented on Saturday evening, July 31 during the convention’s evening programming.

An informal breakfast to honor the winner of the 2010 Munsey will be held in the Ramada Plaza Hotel and Conference Center’s spacious restaurant on Sunday, August 1 from 9 AM to 10 AM.

Art Hackathorn

A specialist in detective and Western pulps, Art will also have some collectible hardcovers and paperbacks as well as movie and Western magazines. He’ll also be carrying some digests from the mystery and Western genres.

Barry Traylor

Although he won’t have a table at the convention, Barry is the "go-to" guy when it comes to the PulpFest auctions. If you have any questions concerning our auctions, please write to barry@pulpfest.com or visit the "Auctions" page under "Programming."

Doug Ellis and Deb Fulton

Two of the founders of the Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention, Doug and Deb will be offering a wide selection of general fiction, science-fiction and other pulps as well as original art and other collectibles. This year, Windy City will be celebrating its 10th anniversary.

Ed Hulse

In addition to his award-winning fanzine Blood ‘n’ Thunder, Ed will be displaying the indispensable Blood ‘n’ Thunder Guide to Collecting Pulps, The Best of Blood ‘n’ Thunder, and a selection of highly collectible pulps, paperbacks, hardcovers, and fanzines.

Haffner Press

Stephen Haffner will be offering his handsomely illustrated hardbound volumes featuring the work of Leigh Brackett, Edmond Hamilton, Henry Kuttner, C. L. Moore, and Jack Williamson. Visit haffnerpress.com to vote for the topic of Stephen’s annual PulpFest presentation.

Jack Cullers

If you’re looking for pulps and out-of-print paperbacks, pulp reprints or hardbound fiction and non-fiction, find your way to Jack’s table. He always has a wide variety of such material. You just may come across something you’ve been questing after for years.

Jim and Walter Albert

These collector brothers from Arkansas and Pennsylvania will have pulps, paperbacks, hardcovers, and fanzines that will be pleasing to just about everyone who will be attending PulpFest 2010.

Mark Hickman

This Ohio dealer will have pulps, including a variety of science fiction magazines and hero pulps, as well as comics and original artwork from pulps, comics, digests, and paperbacks–a little bit of everything. 

Mike Chomko, Books

Mike is known as the "one-stop seller for your pulp reprint and reference needs." At PulpFest 2010, he’ll have his usual wide selection of such material. Please visit the Mike Chomko Books website to download a copy of his latest catalog of pulp-related books.

Richard Clear

Winner of the Lamont Award and the author of Old Magazines: Identification and Value Guide and other texts, Richard will be offering a wide variety of pulps, slick magazines, hardcovers, paperbacks, and original artwork. He has been a book dealer for nearly forty years.

Ron Hanna and Wild Cat Books

The publisher of cutting-edge fiction in the tradition of the bloody pulps, Ron offers everything from science fiction and fantasy to hero pulp and jungle adventure under the Wild Cat Books imprint. He’ll also have pulps, paperbacks, comics, monster magazines, and more.

Among his other accomplishments, Mr. Nolan is a leading authority on pulp fictioneers Max Brand and Dashiell Hammett as well as the other Black Mask contributors who flourished under the regime of editor Joseph T. Shaw. His many books on these writers include Hammett: A Life at the Edge (1983), The Black Mask Boys (1985), and Max Brand: Western Giant (1986). This year marks the 90th anniversary of both Black Mask’s first issue and Max Brand’s first appearance in Western Story Magazine, and the PulpFest committee felt that Mr. Nolan was the ideal person to help recognize these milestones in pulp history. He will headline PulpFest panels on Western and hard-boiled detective fiction.    

Nolan is an accomplished fictioneer in his own right, having written numerous works in the fantasy, horror, and science-fiction genres. He is perhaps best known as the co-author of Logan’s Run and author of its sequels. He is a two-time winner of the Mystery Writers of America’s prestigious Edgar Award, was named Author Emeritus by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, acclaimed a Living Legend by the International Horror Guild, and recently received the Lifetime Achievement Stoker Award from the Horror Writers Association.

PulpFest 2010 will be held at last year’s venue, the Ramada Plaza Hotel and Convention Center in Columbus, Ohio. The convention will begin on Friday, July 30th, and run through Sunday, August 1st. For more about William F. Nolan, please visit the Guest of Honor page under Programming.

And for those of you who enjoy pulp fiction written in the here and now, there will be many exciting offerings available from publishers both small and large. Airship 27, in association with Cornerstone Books, will have new stories featuring Sherlock Holmes, Dan Fowler, the Green Lama, Captain Hazzard and other exciting heroes from the world of pulps and fiction magazines. You’ll also be able to thrill to new stories of Ki-Gor the Jungle Lord, the Moon Man, Doctor Satan and others, thanks to Ron Hanna’s Wildcat Books. New tales of Johnston McCulley’s Zorro, Norvell Page’s The Spider, the Domino Lady, and other great heroes will be forthcoming from Moonstone Books. And the folks at Leisure Books will be offering three more of the thrilling adventures of Gabriel Hunt in the months ahead.

But let’s not forget about the exciting pulp convention schedule for 2010. Starting things off will be the Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention, not only celebrating its tenth year, but also the 100th anniversary of the birth of Adventure magazine. The Spring edition of Classicon is next, marking its 37th appearance in the city of Lansing, Michigan. On Saturday, May 8th, the 14th edition of Canada’s premier pulp event takes place at the Lillian H. Smith branch of the Toronto Public Library. Join our pulp-loving friends north of the border for the Fantastic Pulps Show & Sale (you can download a color flyer for the Toronto show by clicking on the image above). Of course, all these events will all be leading up to PulpFest, summertime’s great pulp con. Why not register today?

You’ll find many changes to the PulpFest website, starting right on the home page. Our posts have been organized to better reflect our new focus–PulpFest 2010! Practically all of our pages have seen changes, from minor cosmetic revisions to hefty redesigns. The convention hours for 2010 can be found under "The Details." Our new Thursday night film showing and "Welcome Back Bash" are listed on the "Programming" page. Details to follow. You’ll also find the nominating guidelines for the Munsey Award to be slightly revised: you can now vote for some of the fools running this convention!

Tony Davis is always on the hunt for good articles to run in The Pulpster. Find out how to submit your scribblings to the ever vigilant Mr. Davis by visiting the fanzine’s page on our website. And PulpFest’s talented designer, Chris Kalb, has produced another dynamite flyer for distribution at conventions, book shows, college campuses or wherever else pulp fans may be lurking. You can download a copy from our "Promotion" page.

The biggest change to our site is the brand new "PulpFest 2009" page. Following a brief introduction, you’ll find a convention report from Randy Cox, editor and publisher of Dime Novel Round-Up. You’ll also find downloads of the flyers that helped to sell our 2009 convention. Finally, you’ll be able to read a running narration of the days and weeks that led up to last year’s dynamite summer pulp con, PulpFest 2009, based on the many posts that appeared on our website and elsewhere across the Internet.

Remember to stop back here often for the latest news on "The Summer’s Great Pulp Convention," PulpFest 2010. Or sign up for our regular email updates. Look for the gray box along the right side of our home page to subscribe.

Convention Report: PulpFest 2009

All hail the new beginning! PulpFest 2009 replaced the traditional Pulpcon this year and by all accounts was a great success. There were more than 350 in attendance (many of them walk-ins for the day) and the word that flashed around the dealer’s room to describe the atmosphere was "energy." At any time during the three days there were dozens of collectors at the tables examining the wares of the dealers.

PulpFest 2009 was held from July 31 to August 2 at the Ramada Plaza Hotel and Conference Center in Columbus, Ohio, a ten-minute drive from downtown (although arriving in the midst of the late afternoon rush hour traffic as your editor did, it seemed to take longer than that all the while hoping that he was in the correct lane of traffic for making the proper exit).

From there it was a quick trip to the Ramada parking lot and registration at the front desk. Once settled in the room, the next step was looking for the usual gang of comrades in pulp adventure with whom your editor has become accustomed to hang out at this annual event. From there it was only a car ride away to a nearby restaurant for dinner and then back to pick up our registration packets. (Over the next few days there were many similar visits to restaurants and a few to nearby bookstores as well).

One of the reasons this convention may have been so well attended was the proliferation and variety of material for sale in the dealers’ room. Not only pulp magazines, the original raw material for the pulp generation of readers, but the books in which some of the stories were preserved and the related material that reflected an interest in high adventure. There was more than one dealer who sold DVDs of rare movies and movie serials and TV shows. Something for everyone.

The busy and energetic dealers’ room on Saturday

As has been noted in past columns, this is a golden age of reprints, from volumes collecting the orignal magazine stories (arranged by author or by series character or genre) to facsimiles of magazine issues themselves. Only a handful of publishers of these reprints had tables themselves, but their publications could be obtained from many different dealers.

The pulp conventions have never had a rigid program with an emphasis on panel discussions or presentations by authors or collectors, preferring to allow collectors more time to browse in the dealers’ room. PulpFest gave everyone a choice by making some events (generally readings from recently published fiction in the pulp tradition) available even while the dealers’ room was open. These ranged from G. Warlock Vance and Mike Glagola reading from The Missing Narrative of Neptune, described in the program as "a hardboiled novella from the weird-detective genre of mystery fiction" and from a forthcoming novel, The Bad Man, to Ron Fortier reading a chapter from his latest Captain Hazzard novel, Cavemen of New York, and S. Clayton Rhodes reading his novelette, "To Bite the Worm," from the revived Startling Stories. Your editor was able to attend William Patrick Maynard’s reading from The Terror of Fu Manchu, his newly published novel. Maynard is the second writer since 1959 (the first was Cay Van Ash) to be authorized by the Sax Rohmer estate to continue the famous thrillers.

On Friday, the official welcome from those responsible for PulpFest was followed by a panel discussion of "Pulp Collecting 2009: State of the Hobby," the celebration of the 75th anniversary of the Operator #5 stories by Frederick C. Davis, and the early work of science fiction writer Edmond Hamilton. Late that first evening, Anthony Tollin and Will Murray discussed the new series from Sanctum Books reprinting The Avenger novels. An hour devoted to H. P. Lovecraft was appropriately scheduled for 11:00 p. m. in which Ian Lohr of Howling Wolf Lost Pulp Classics ably explored the life and legacy of Lovecraft and his influence on weird fiction and the way his stories have been interpreted (and misinterpreted) in the media.

Fred Davis/Operator #5 Panel (from left)–Garyn Roberts, Nick Carr, moderator Don Hutchison, Karen Cunningham (Davis’ granddaughter) and Rick Davis (Davis’ son)

Saturday evening began with a lively and informative business meeting where the founders of PulpFest took praise as well as suggestions for improving future conventions. Eric Johnson, Associate Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts at Ohio State University, presented an overview of OSU’s pulp and popular culture materials (including the Cartoon Research Library). The guest of honor was Otto Penzler who answered questions about his long career as publisher, editor, bookseller and collector. The evening was concluded by an auction of magazines, books and original art. The bidding was lively and thousands of dollars changed hands.

PulpFest concluded on Sunday with the Munsey Award Breakfast at which Bill Thom received the first Munsey Award for his work in keeping us all alert to new publications and activity in the pulp world at his Coming Attractions website.

PulpFest 2010 has already been scheduled for July 30 to August 1, in Columbus, Ohio.

PulpFest 2009 a Huge Success!

Thanks to all of our dealers and attendees who made PulpFest 2009 a great success. Please visit YouTube for a short video of this year’s PulpFest. Registrations totaled 351 and the future looks very bright for "The Summer’s Leading Pulp Convention."

Planning is already underway for PulpFest 2010. It will again be held at the Ramada Plaza Hotel and Convention Center, just off of Interstate 71, about ten minutes north of downtown Columbus. We’ll have an expanded dealers’ room, one or more lively auctions and a variety of the wonderful programming that entertained this year’s attendees.

So start making your plans for the weekend of July 30 - August 1, 2010 and join the convention that everyone is talking about–PulpFest!

Bill Thom Wins the 2009 Munsey Award

Bill Thom, the designer of the Coming Attractions website, was named the recipient of the 2009 Munsey Award at this year’s PulpFest. Nominated by members of the general pulp community, Bill was selected by a panel of judges consisting of the 25 living Lamont Award winners.

Bill’s website is where just about every pulp fan with computer access goes to learn about the latest news and book releases in the world of pulps and pulp reprints. He also maintains the Pulp Series Character Reprint Index that can be accessed through the Altus Press website as well as the Robert E. Howard bibliography available through the Howard Works website. He has also been a tremendous help for researchers over the years through his knowledge and collection.

Congratulations to Bill for winning the first Munsey Award. The honor is very well-deserved.

Nominations are now being accepted for the 2010 Munsey Award. If you have someone in mind that you feel worthy to receive the Munsey Award, please let us know. Send the person’s name and a brief paragraph describing why you feel that person should be honored to Mike Chomko, 2217 W. Fairview Street, Allentown, PA 18104-6542 or to mike@pulpfest.com. Previous winners of the Lamont Award or the Munsey Award are not eligible for the award. The deadline for nominations is April 30, 2010.

PulpFest 2009 Gets Underway!

Following dealer set-up on Thursday evening and early Friday morning, PulpFest 2009 officially got underway at 11 AM this morning. As always, the show began with the typical feeding frenzy as book and pulp collectors scoured the room searching for this or that long elusive volume. The convention’s programming schedule will get underway at 3:30 this afternoon when G. Warlock Vance and Michael Glagola get things rolling with the first of four "New Fictioneers" sessions. There will be a lot more programming during the evening hours including presentations on pulp collecting, Operator #5, Edmond Hamilton, The Avenger, and H. P. Lovecraft.

There’s still plenty of time to join in on the fun. The dealers’ room will be open until 5 PM on Friday and from 10 AM until 5 PM on Saturday and Sunday. The evening programming schedules for Friday and Saturday nights will run from 7 PM until 12 AM. Admission to the show is $15 per day or $35 for all three days, allowing entry to all convention activities. The general public is very much welcome to attend.

To whet your appetite for the summer’s one and only national pulp convention, below is a sneak peek at the Munsey Award that will be presented at a special breakfast to be held at the Ramada Plaza in Columbus, Ohio from 8 AM to 10 AM, Sunday, August 2…. 

PulpFest 2009 Begins this Friday!

Although PulpFest 2009 officially gets under way on Friday, July 31, the convention’s organizing committee is urging dealers to arrive on Thursday to set up their displays. The dealers’ room will be open from 7 PM to 12 AM for set-up. It will also be open for set-up on Friday morning from 8 to 11.

The general membership is also welcome to arrive on Thursday. Early registration will take place beginning at 7 PM in the hospitality suite. The Ramada Plaza will post the location of the suite at the main entrance to the hotel. All members, dealers included, will be able to pick up their registration packets at this time. If desired, dealers can unload their merchandise prior to registering for the convention. For those of you who have not yet registered for PulpFest, Thursday evening will be an ideal time to do so. Three-day memberships will be available for $35. Early-bird memberships will be available for $55. You can also register for single-day memberships at the rate of $15 per day.

The PulpFest organizing committee is looking for volunteers to serve as hospitality suite hosts on Friday and Saturday evenings. If you are willing, please write to ed@pulpfest.com. We’re also looking for sponsors to purchase refreshments for the suite. If you’re a publisher, dealer, organized fan group or simply someone who would like to help, please drop us a line. 

The Ramada Plaza Hotel and Convention Center is located just off Exit 116 of I-71, about ten minutes north of downtown Columbus, Ohio. Heading north on I-71, get off at Exit 116, the Morse Road exit. Turn left onto Morse Road. Follow Morse until you get to Sinclair Road. Turn right onto Sinclair Road. The hotel is at 4900 Sinclair Road. Heading south on I-71, get off at Exit 116, the Sinclair Road exit. Turn right onto Sinclair Road and follow to the Ramada Plaza Hotel. For those who would like a map to get to the hotel, click here.

According to reports from last-minute registrants, the Ramada Plaza is still offering the special convention rate of $79 per night to those PulpFest attendees who place a reservation via telephone. To make a reservation, please call the hotel at 614-846-0300. Be sure to mention PulpFest to get the special convention rate. You can also register online at ramadaplazacolumbus.com and receive a similar deal if you pay in advance. When placing your reservation online, please note in the comments box of the reservation form that you will be attending PulpFest.

The convention will officially open on Friday, July 31 at 11 PM. Early-bird registrants will be allowed into the dealers’ room beginning at 9 AM. If you’d like to upgrade your prepaid membership to gain early access to the dealers’ room, you will be able to do so by paying an additional $25. The doors will open to everyone, beginning at 11 AM. The dealers’ room will be open until 5 PM on Friday evening. It will be open from 10 AM to 5 PM on both Saturday and Sunday.

There will be a full schedule of programming on Friday and Saturday evenings from 7 PM until midnight. There will also be a few presentations during the daytime hours. Please visit our programming page for further details.

All PulpFest attendees will be able to submit material for inclusion in the Saturday Night Auction. At this time, it is believed that each attendee will be able to submit up to five auction lots. For additional information, please visit our Saturday Night Auction page.

The first annual Munsey Award will be presented at a special breakfast on Sunday, Aug. 2, beginning at 8 AM. You will be able to sign up for the breakfast during our Thursday night registration or anytime during the afternoon hours on Friday or Saturday. The cost of the breakfast will be $15 per person. Included in this price will be a chance to win a copy of The Thrill Book Complete, Vol. One, a $70 value from Adventure House.

PulpFest 2009 will have a ton of freebies available for all attendees. There will be a variety of materials at the entrance to the dealers’ room. These will be accessible beginning Friday morning. So bring along a BIG bag!

For those attendees who would like to ship their purchases to their homes, PulpFest 2009 has arranged for a local UPS store to be open on both Saturday and Sunday afternoon. The store will be open until 3 PM on Saturday and from 1 - 3 PM on Sunday. Transportation can be arranged through the hotel’s shuttle service. A local FedEx office, located about two miles from the hotel, will also be open for shipping your purchases.

The entire PulpFest 2009 organizing committee–Mike Chomko, Jack Cullers, Ed Hulse and Barry Traylor–is looking forward to seeing you all in just a few short days. Have a safe trip to Columbus.