PulpFest 2019 will begin on Thursday, August 15, at 3 PM, as our dealers begin to set up their displays for summertime’s pulp con! From 3 PM to 10 PM on Thursday, the dealers’ room will be open for exhibitors to set up their displays. It will also be open for set-up on Friday, August 16, from 9 – 10 AM.
At this point, we urge all of our dealers to take full advantage of our generous load-in and set-up period on Thursday. Access to the dealers’ room for unloading will be through the ballroom back entrance and the nearby banquet dock. Click here for a map showing the loading area of the hotel and here for a map of the Grand Ballroom at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Pittsburgh – Cranberry.
If you need additional help getting to the hotel and/or the loading area, please call or text Jack Cullers at 937.671.1574.
Although the focus of PulpFest is pulp magazines and related materials, digests, vintage paperbacks, contemporary genre fiction and pulp reprints, men’s adventure and true crime magazines, first-edition hardcovers, series books, dime novels, original art, Big Little Books, B-movies, serials and related paper collectibles, old-time-radio shows, and Golden and Silver Age as well as pulp-related comic books and games are also allowed.
Advance registrations to PulpFest 2019 are no longer available. Our Paypal page was shut down at 10 PM on Monday, April 12.
For those who have preregistered, you will be able to pick up your membership material at our registration desk outside the entrance to our dealers’ room at the DoubleTree. To find our registration desk, please look for our “Welcome” banner, sponsored by Meteor House.
For those of you who have not yet registered for PulpFest 2019, you will be able to do so at the door. All members — including dealers — will be able to register for the convention from 4 to 8 PM on Thursday, August 15. Registration will take place at the entrance to our dealers’ room at the DoubleTree.
For the remainder of the convention, you will be able to register at the entrance as you are approaching the dealers’ room. Just stop at the registration desk during our dealers’ room hours. You’ll find our hours by clicking the Programming button on our home page. Or click here to link to our 2019 mobile schedule.
You will be able to pay for your registration at the door using cash, check, or credit card.
To help our registration proceed smoothly, please bring along a completed registration form. You can download a copy by clicking here or through the link found on our registration page.
A full weekend membership to PulpFest 2019 will cost $40 at the door. Daily memberships for Friday or Saturday will also be available for $20 per day. A Sunday single day membership will cost $10 to pay for our program book. There will be no single-day memberships available for Thursday. Children who are fifteen and younger and accompanied by a parent, will be admitted free of charge. However, they still must be registered for the convention.
There will also be early-bird shopping in the dealers’ room from 4 to 8 PM on Thursday, August 15. It’s free for loyal attendees who help to defray the convention’s costs by staying at the DoubleTree. The cost is $70 for those who stay elsewhere. This includes a full weekend membership to PulpFest 2019.
PulpFest 2019 will focus on the many ways pulp fiction and pulp art have inspired and continue to inspire creators. We’re calling this year’s theme “Children of the Pulps and Other Stories,” an examination of the pervasive influence of pulp magazines on contemporary pop culture.
There will be programming during the evening hours on Thursday, August 15, beginning at 8:15 PM and running until after midnight. There will also be programming during the evening hours on Friday and Saturday beginning at 7 PM and running until after midnight. An auction will also be held on Saturday evening.
The convention will host talks on Sherlock Holmes, Zorro, detective and science fiction, sword & sorcery, Rod Serling’s THE TWILIGHT ZONE, and much more. PulpFest 2019 will also host FarmerCon XIV, celebrating the life and legacy of science fiction’s Philip José Farmer.
PulpFest 2019 will also offer daytime programming, including author readings and signings, writer panels, an art show sponsored by The Burroughs Bibliophiles, and more. Over thirty writers will be at PulpFest.
Our daytime programming will run from 11 AM until 4:40 PM on Friday, August 16. It will run from 10 AM until 4:45 PM on Saturday, August 17. There will be no programming on Sunday.
You can find additional details about all of our programming by clicking the button found at the top of our home page. Or click here to link to our 2019 mobile schedule. Each event on the schedule is linked to a post that provides further information on that event. Just click on the event’s title. Copies of the schedule will also be printed on the back of all membership badges and on signs placed around the PulpFest 2019 dealers’ room.
Watch for our various PulpFest banners. They will mark the location of our programming events.
Saturday evening’s events will include the PulpFest 2019 business meeting, starting at 7 PM. Please try to attend as we will be discussing the future of PulpFest. It will be followed by the 2019 Munsey Award presentation.
PulpFest 2019 is currently planning to hold one live auction on Saturday evening, August 17. It will begin at 9:45 PM, following our scheduled programming. Currently, the auction will consist of items submitted by the members of PulpFest 2019, plus a number of estate items.
Any member of PulpFest 2019 can submit items to the auction. Your PulpFest badge number will be used as your auction bidder and/or seller number. We will begin taking consignments for the auction when our dealers’ room opens at 10 AM on both Friday and Saturday. Our auction coordinator, Mike Chomko, will be accepting material for the auction at his dealer’s tables. Watch for the auction banner and the Mike Chomko Books sign. All auction lots must be submitted by 2 PM on Saturday, August 17.
All lots submitted must have a minimum value of $20. All lots that do not receive a bid of $20 or more will be passed. If you plan to offer an auction lot with a reserve price, your reserve must be $50 or more. No lots with a reserve price of less than $50 will be accepted. PulpFest reserves the right to reject any auction material that is unlikely to meet our minimum bid or reserve price standards, as well as our content standards. The convention charges sellers 10% of the selling price for anything sold in the auction. Our auction rules are included with your registration packet.
On Sunday, August 18, the dealers’ room will be open to all members from 9 AM to 2 PM as our dealers pack up. If you are coming just for the day, please be aware that buying and selling opportunities may be limited. Admission to the convention for Sunday only will be $10, the cost of our annual program book, THE PULPSTER.
For those attendees who would like to ship purchases made at PulpFest to their homes, there is a FedEx Office Print & Ship Center about a half-mile away from the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Pittsburgh – Cranberry. Located at 19095 Perry Highway in Mars, Pennsylvania, it is open from 8 AM to 8 PM on Saturdays and from 10 AM to 8 PM on Sundays.
If you would like to lend a hand with the convention, please contact our chairman, Jack Cullers. You can reach him via email by writing to jack@pulpfest.com or by mail at 1272 Cheatham Way, Bellbrook, OH 45305. You can submit your programming items to our programming director, Mike Chomko, at mike@pulpfest.com or via regular mail at 2217 W. Fairview Street, Allentown, PA 18104.
We are hoping that this year’s con will be our biggest and best yet. We have over sixty registered dealers and have been receiving member registrations every day, many from people who have never previously attended PulpFest. If you’ve been thinking about attending, but have yet to pull the trigger, please book a room without delay. You can try calling 1-800-222-8733 to reach our host hotel. Perhaps there is an opening. Be sure to mention PulpFest in order to receive any special convention deals that may still be available. By staying at the DoubleTree, you help to ensure the convention’s continued success.
The DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Pittsburgh – Cranberry is located at 910 Sheraton Drive in Mars, Pennsylvania, just outside the city of Pittsburgh. It is easy to find at the intersection of three major roadways: Interstate 79, the Pennsylvania Turnpike, and State Route 19. Please click here for a map of the hotel’s location or click the map along the right side of our home page. There is ample free parking surrounding the hotel.
If you have other questions, please refer to our FAQ page. Hopefully, we’ll have it covered for you there. If not, there is contact information on the page listing who to ask.
The entire PulpFest 2019 organizing committee – Mike Chomko, Jack and Sally Cullers, Bill Lampkin, William Patrick Maynard, and Barry Traylor – is looking forward to seeing all of you. Have a safe trip to Mars for summertime’s pulp con.
(Nearly sixty years ago, Stan Lee — along with Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, and others — introduced the world to The Amazing Spider-Man, The Avengers, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, The X-Men, and other superheroes. Marvel’s greatest success of the period was Peter Parker, The Amazing Spider-Man. Debuting in the August 1962 AMAZING FANTASY — with cover art by Jack Kirby — Spider-Man blended a mixture of “unconventional humor and emotional agony.” In short, Spider-Man mirrored the rather unconventional pulp hero that Lee claimed as inspiration: Richard Wentworth, The Spider.
Following the one-two punch of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ “Under the Moons of Mars” and “Tarzan of the Apes,” ALL-STORY editor Robert H. Davis cultivated a school of writers to create “pseudoscientific” or “different” stories for the Munsey chain of magazines. At the same time, he continued to ask Burroughs for similar works, including “Thuvia, Maid of Mars.” It was serialized in three parts, beginning with the April 8, 1916 issue of ALL-STORY WEEKLY, featuring cover art by P. J. Monahan.
With war raging in Europe, Hannes Bok contributed a telling cover concerning man’s inhumanity to man to the November 1941 issue of WEIRD TALES. Not long thereafter, the United States entered The Second World War. Bill Lampkin used Bok’s cover art for our New Fictioneers banner. It will be outside our programming area where many of the writers attending this year’s PulpFest will appear.
The cover art for THE PULPSTER #28 was originally painted by Rudolph Belarski for the September 1939 issue of BLACK BOOK DETECTIVE. It was published by Ned Pines’ Standard Magazines. The pulp featured The Black Bat, a character that debuted about the same time as Batman. Every member of PulpFest — including supporting members — will receive a complimentary copy of THE PULPSTER.)
