Following dealer set-up on Thursday evening, PulpFest 2010 officially got underway at 8 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 began at 2 PM when Mike Nevins discussed his forthcoming book, Cornucopia of Crime. Dave Walker follwed with a reading from his new Captain Midnight story, The Dawn of Midnight. There will be a lot more programming during the evening hours including Bill Nolan’s guest of honor presentation and Don Hutchison’s panel on the pulp Western. Rounding out this evening’s programming will be publisher Steven Haffner’s multi-media look at science fiction author Leigh Brackett and Anthony Tollin’s discussion of the 80th anniversary of the Shadow’s radio debut.

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 9 AM to 5 PM on Saturday. Sunday will be a bit shorter, from 10 am to 3 PM. The evening programming schedules for Friday and Saturday nights will run from 7 PM until 12 AM. Tomorrow’s programming will include afternoon presentations by Doc Savage author Will Murray and another by popular culture expert Martin Grams. The evening programming will include an auction, a panel on the classic detective pulp, Black Mask Magazine, and presentation of the 2010 Munsey Award.

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.

Almost a full year before his first appearance in the pulps, The Shadow debuted as the narrator of The Detective Story Hour, a CBS radio program sponsored by Street & Smith. A mysterious storyteller with a sinister voice, the character soon had listeners visiting their neighborhood newsstand to ask for "that Shadow detective magazine." Bowing to demand, Street & Smith created The Shadow Magazine and the hero pulp genre was born.

On July 31, join Sanctum Books publisher and pulp historian Anthony Tollin as he commemorates the 80th anniversary of The Shadow’s radio debut with a multi-media presentation featuring interview material with Walter Gibson and other important figures from the history of the Knight of Darkness.

2010 is already shaping up to be a great year for pulp fiction. We’ll have another full year of not only Doc Savage and The Shadow from Sanctum Books, but also quarterly issues of The Avenger and The Whisperer. From Girasol Collectables, there will be twelve new Spider pulp replicas as well as eight adventures of The Master of Men in the popular doubles format. Girasol will also be publishing two facsimile editions collecting all of H. P. Lovecraft’s output for Weird Tales magazine. John Gunnison’s Adventure House will have six more issues of High Adventure–fast approaching its 20th anniversary–four issues of G-8 and His Battle Aces, about three dozen pulp replicas, and more. And of course, there will be plenty of other books to choose from with the offerings from Age of Aces Books, the award-winning Altus Press, Black Dog Books, Pulpville Press, and other small publishers.     (more…)