Over the last month we’ve turned our website over to author, anthologist, and popular culture historian Mike Ashley, running his multi-part history AMAZING STORIES, originally offered in the January through July 1992 issues of TSR’s AMAZING® STORIES. Once again, we’d like to thank Curt Phillips, the moderator of the Yahoo newsgroup PulpMags, for drawing our attention to and providing us with copies of Mike’s exceptional series about the world’s first science fiction magazine.
You’re more than welcome to post your comments about Mike Ashley’s “The AMAZING Story” to our Facebook site at https://www.facebook.com/PulpFest.
Mr. Ashley’s article was a perfect tie-in to one of the major themes of PulpFest 2016, namely, the 90th anniversary of the first continuing science fiction magazine, Hugo Gernsback’s AMAZING STORIES. In addition to the appearance of our Guest of Honor, Ted White — the author and editor who ushered in the Golden Age of AMAZING STORIES and FANTASTIC during the 1970s and wrote the Captain America novel THE GREAT GOLD STEAL and many other books — we’ll be offering a presentation on the magazine itself, put together by Joseph Coluccio, president of the Pittsburgh Area Fantasy and Science Fiction Club. Mr. Coluccio will discuss the pulp era of AMAZING, the years when Hugo Gernsback, T. O’Conor Sloane, Ray Palmer, William Hamling, and Howard Browne helmed the world’s first science fiction magazine. He’ll also be exploring the digest years of the magazine, when editors such as Cele Goldsmith and Ted White published countless amazing stories and brought the magazine into its golden age.
The 150th anniversary of H. G. Wells‘ birth — another theme of our convention — will likewise tie into our AMAZING story. Herbert George Wells, who came into prominence during the late nineteenth century, was educated in the sciences and was a literary genius. It would be difficult to deny the importance of Wells to the development of both science fiction and AMAZING STORIES. During his three years as editor and publisher of the first science fiction magazine, Gernsback turned to Wells’ fictional output for nearly thirty stories, reprinting such tales as “The Country of the Blind,” “The Crystal Egg,” “The Empire of the Ants,” “The First Men in the Moon,” “The Invisible Man,” “The Island of Dr. Moreau,” “The Man Who Could Work Miracles,” “A Story of the Days to Come,” “The Time Machine,” “The Valley of the Spiders,” “The War of the Worlds,” and “When the Sleeper Wakes” in his flagship title and its companions.
Our presentation, “Traveling through Time with H. G. Wells,” will feature Garyn G. Roberts, winner of the 2013 Munsey Award. Professor Roberts has written extensively about the pulps, both professionally and as a fan. His work, THE PRENTICE HALL ANTHOLOGY OF SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY, one of the leading college level textbooks on the subject, is notable for the attention paid to the pulp magazines.
These are just some of the ways that PulpFest 2016 will be celebrating ninety years of AMAZING STORIES. We certainly hope that you’re planning to join us from Thursday evening, July 21st, through Sunday afternoon, July 24th, in the Columbus, Ohio Arena district at the Hyatt Regency hotel and the city’s spacious convention center for “Summer’s AMAZING Pulp Con.” In addition to our presentations on AMAZING — scheduled for July 21st through the 23rd — PulpFest 2016 will also be paying tribute to the history of the pulps by saluting the 120th anniversary of the debut of the first pulp magazine, THE ARGOSY; the 100th anniversary of the genre pulps such as DETECTIVE STORY and LOVE STORY; the 80th anniversaries of the premieres of two exciting hero pulps, THE SKIPPER and THE WHISPERER; and the tenth anniversary of Sanctum Books, well known for their reprints of DOC SAVAGE, THE SHADOW, and other hero pulps. You’ll find our planned programming schedule at http://pulpcon.org/2016/01/coming-soon-to-columbus-pulpfest-2016/.
In addition to a line-up of great programming, PulpFest 2016 will also have a dealers’ room featuring tens of thousands of pulp magazines, vintage paperbacks, digests, men’s adventure and true crime magazines, original art, first edition hardcovers, series books, reference books, dime novels and story papers, Big Little Books, B-Movies, serials and related paper collectibles, old-time radio shows, and Golden and Silver Age comic books, as well as newspaper adventure strips. So what are you waiting for? Start making your plans to join us at the “pop culture center of the universe” for PulpFest 2016.
(Frank R. Paul, the “grandfather of science-fiction art,” painted the cover for the August 1927 issue of AMAZING STORIES, illustrating the first half of the classic H. G. Wells novel, “The War of the Worlds,” serialized by the magazine in two parts. PulpFest 2016 is using Paul’s classic illustration in its promotional efforts for this summer’s convention which promises to be an AMAZING Pulp Con!)
