PulpFest 2019 will begin this afternoon at 3 PM, as our dealers begin to erect their displays for summertime’s pulp con! The dealers’ room will be open for exhibitors to set up until 10 PM. At this point, we urge all of our dealers to take full advantage of our generous load-in and set-up period.
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 DoubleTree’s Grand Ballroom.
All members — dealers included — will be able to register for the convention from 4 to 8 PM, at the entrance to our dealers’ room at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Pittsburgh – Cranberry. Everyone can pick up their registration packets at this time. To help things move 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.
There is ample free parking surrounding our host hotel, the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Pittsburgh – Cranberry. The hotel is very conveniently located at the intersection of three major roadways in Cranberry Township. It’s just off the Pennsylvania Turnpike and Interstate-79. The address is 910 Sheraton Drive, Mars, Pennsylvania. We have a map on our home page or click here for a link to a large map of the area.
There will be free early-bird shopping in the dealers’ room from 4 to 8 PM for loyal attendees who help to defray the convention’s costs by staying at our host hotel. The cost is $70 for those who stay elsewhere. This price includes a full weekend membership to PulpFest 2019.
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.
Our full evening programming slate will begin at 8:15 PM with a presentation by Gene Christie on THE ALL-STORY editor Bob Davis. We hope you can join us for “Bob Davis — Grandfather of Science Fiction.”
August 2019 marks the centennial of Johnston McCulley’s “The Curse of Capistrano,” the story that introduced Zorro to the world. On Friday evening, we’ll have a presentation on McCulley’s “Fox,” plus a look at Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, the sword & sorcery duo introduced in John Campbell’s UNKNOWN. Sandwiched between these two presentations will be a talk by pulp and film expert, Ed Hulse. He’ll be looking at pulp stories that were turned into motion pictures.
William Patrick Maynard — the licensed continuation author of the Fu Manchu thrillers — will close out the night with a “Fu Manchu Film Festival.” Bill will be sharing a 1952 pilot film shot for NBC for a FU MANCHU television series starring John Carradine as the Devil Doctor. It is a surprisingly faithful adaptation of the 1912 Sax Rohmer story that began the Fu Manchu series — “The Zayat Kiss.”
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. Watch for the “panels” banner to find our programming area at the convention.
When our programming is over, PulpFest members are also welcome to socialize together in our hospitality suite at the DoubleTree. You’ll be able to enjoy drinks and snacks with your comrades in collecting and talk about the things that you love and collect. Perhaps you’ll even clear up some of the great mysteries of the pulps with your pals — both old and new — at PulpFest 2019. You sure can’t do that on your smart phone!
If you are not from the Pittsburgh area and have yet to book your room for this year’s PulpFest, you can try calling 1-800-222-8733 to reach our host hotel. Perhaps there is an opening. Please be sure to mention PulpFest in order to receive any special convention deals that may still be available.
(THE MYSTERIOUS DR. FU MANCHU — directed by Rowland V. Lee and starring Warner Oland in the title role — was released by Paramount Pictures in 1929. The first talking Fu Manchu movie, it was based on Sax Rohmer’s novel, THE MYSTERY OF DR. FU MANCHU. Set during the Boxer Rebellion in China, Dr. Fu Manchu’s wife and child are killed by foreigners. Enraged, he vows to take his revenge on the British army officers he holds responsible for the killings. The poster advertising the film — one of several — was created by an unknown artist.
Our complete schedule for Thursday, August 15, is below. If you’d like to access our schedule via your mobile phone or tablet, go to http://pulpcon.org/schedule/.)
PULPFEST 2019 SCHEDULE
Thursday, August 15
Dealers’ Room
3:00 PM – 10:00 PM — Dealers’ Room Set-Up
4:00 PM – 8:00 PM — Member Registration and Early-Bird Shopping
Evening Programming
8:15 – 9:00 PM — Bob Davis — Grandfather of Science Fiction (Gene Christie)
9:05 – 9:50 PM — A Century of Zorro — (Rich Harvey)
9:55 – 10:40 PM — Hollywood Pulp — From Pulp Page to the Silver Screen (Ed Hulse)
10:45 – 11:30 PM — Two Sought Adventure — Eighty Years of Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd & the Gray Mouser (Jason Aiken & Morgan Holmes)
11:40 – 1:00 AM — Fu Manchu Film Festival (William Patrick Maynard)
