Fifty years ago, there were no organized gatherings specifically geared toward pulp fiction and the magazines in which it appeared. That all changed when Ed Kessell, Earl Kussman, and Nils Hardin founded Pulpcon in 1972. This year we salute the fiftieth anniversary of that first pulp con — the convention now called PulpFest.
Truthfully, my love for pulp fiction began before I even knew what the term meant.
As a diagnosable fanatic of all things pulp, I’ve spent many years trying to figure out why that was true. Sure, all the early symptoms were there: an incommunicable love for the Indiana Jones series; an insatiable adoration for dinosaurs; endless stacks of Ray Bradbury; pretending to be Jane Goodall; and knowing The Mummy (1999) script by heart. Even as a kid, I felt the impressions of a mysterious literary world in the modern media I was witnessing. But I simply didn’t know what to call it.
I first learned the term pulp fiction during my sophomore year as a student at Duke University. Joining a spur-of-the-moment dinner with two other classmates, I was introduced to the term when a friend read aloud the Wikipedia plot summaries of the original Tarzan novels. In a matter of days (perhaps, even hours) the three of us became absolutely obsessed. Later that week, we would decide to try and write a comedy script based on Tarzan of the Apes, which would eventually become the first draft for episode one of Freshly Squeezed Pulp’s and Edgar Rice Burroughs, Incorporated’s The Adventures of Tarzan®.
In a whirlwind, I began to devour the Burroughs books at an unspeakably fast past (yes, perhaps to the detriment of my coursework, but that’s neither here nor there). Each plotline seemed to hit on the same story beats I loved in books and movies as a child. Yet, more than this, these were the books that had inspired so many of the fictional behemoths I had grown up with. Perhaps this was the lost literary world that I’d been searching for. And it became an expedition in and of itself!
Soon, the Burroughs books weren’t enough. I simply had to have Heinlein and Farmer and McCulley and Bannon. Next, it was on to the classic magazines — Amazing Stories, Adventure, Ranch Romances, and Black Mask. Soon, Pulp was all I wanted to read. It was all I wanted to study. It was all my wallet was begging me to stop buying on eBay. Friends would find cheap paperback copies with pulp covers for dollars and cents, thinking that they’d finally get me to stop talking over movie trailers saying, “You know, that idea was inspired by this pulp fiction piece…” (plot twist: their tactics didn’t work). It wasn’t until stumbling across several Facebook pages that I realized there was a whole community of people who ate, slept, and breathed pulp as well.
And that’s where PulpFest 2019 comes in. A few members of our Tarzan crew decided to pack our bags and Megabus up to gloriously named Mars, Pennsylvania with whatever spare cash we could scrounge up (of course, saving whatever was left for books — one cannot own too many illustrations of La of Opar, after all). We enjoyed spying on the writers and leaders of the communities who had become our household names. “There’s Christopher Paul Carey and Matt Betts (he’s doing Carson of Venus!) and Win Scott Eckert and Jess Terrell!”
Our lives changed that day, as we had the unique opportunity to sit down with the ERB team and tell them about the Tarzan project that had swallowed us whole. It was the beginning of the licensing agreement that would bring forth The Adventures of Tarzan®. And it made me wonder if I could be a part of the pulp community, too.
In the years to come, my knowledge of pulp would continue to grow thanks to PulpFest and the wonderful members of the pulp fan family I’ve had the honor of getting to know. They’ve taught me more about canon and characters than any seminar in college could ever attempt. As the youngest member of the Burroughs Bibliophiles (and soon, hopefully, a contributor to the National Capital Panthans Journal as well), I want to help others of my generation find the world of pulp fiction and make it the place where everyone can find a home, just like I did.
In my journey of finding pulp, I’ve also found the reason why I and so many others were fans of pulp fiction without knowing its name. It’s because pulp is more than just a genre or a collection of stories from certain magazines or authors. I’d like to think pulp is the human spirit of adventure put to prose. It’s the thrills and chills we want from life, written anew decade after decade. It’s this same emotion that pushes pulpsters to publish, brings out the dreamers in all of us, and it’s my eternal reason for “Why PulpFest?”
Happy 50th anniversary, PulpFest! Thanks for creating a home for readers since 1972 and beyond.
A note from Mac: It is with great sadness that I will not be in attendance at this year’s 50th PulpFest anniversary. Unfortunately, my PhD qualifying examinations have been scheduled during the exact same week/weekend. It would truly take a cataclysmic event for me to not attend PulpFest. Unfortunately, the grueling week-long torture of life-altering exams is one such apocalypse. But after 2022, I promise I’ll be there so often that you’ll all get sick of me!
Madeleine “Mac” Gagné is a graduate of Duke University and a current Operations Research PhD student at the North Carolina State University’s Engineering Department. Her dissertation work is applying narrative artificial intelligence to causal inference as a means of studying how stories have an influence on the human decision-making process in what she jokingly enjoys calling “narrative causality.” In the months to come, she looks forward to drafting articles for the Burroughs Bibliophiles once her qualifying exams are over, as she owes Henry Franke a good piece on Joan Burroughs and Lee Strong some good writing on La!
Mac’s biggest aspiration as a pulp fan is to one day write a textbook that could be used to teach about pulp in academic settings, helping to bring pulp to its rightful place in the American literary canon. Mac wants to bring more members of her generation into pulp, and make sure it’s never forgotten.
To learn more about Mac Gagné visit her Adventures & Algorithms blog.
We hope you’ll join us to celebrate “A Half-Century of Pulp Cons” at PulpFest 50. It will take place from August 4 – 7 at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Pittsburgh – Cranberry in Mars, PA. You can become a member of the convention by clicking the Registration button on our website. If you need lodging, you can also book a room on our site.
Our postcard image has been adapted by PulpFest advertising director William Lampkin from George Gross’s cover for the Winter 1949-50 issue of Jungle Stories. The Fiction House magazine was the second pulp with that particular title, following the short-lived Clayton pulp of late 1931. The Clayton magazine ran for just three issues.
Jungle Stories was basically a single character pulp, featuring the adventures of Ki-Gor, the longest-lived of all the Tarzan imitations. The son of a missionary slain by warriors of the Wunguba tribe, the boy grows to manhood in the jungle. In the first story — published in the Winter 1938 number of the magazine — Ki-Gor rescues Helene Vaughn, whose plane has crashed in the African jungle. Like Jane Porter of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan series, Helene becomes the beloved and powerful mate of “Ki-Gor, King of the Jungle.”
Inspired by the popularity of the Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O’Sullivan Tarzan film series of the 1930s and 40s, Ki-Gor and Helene would go on to tackle one jungle menace after another for 59 issues. The final number of Jungle Stories was dated Spring 1954.
About a year following the debut of Jungle Stories, Fiction House released a comic book version of the pulp. Called Jungle Comics, it debuted in January 1940 — with cover art by Lou Fine — and ran for a total of 163 issues. The lead story featured Kaänga and his mate, Ann Mason. Sound familiar?
Join pulpfest.com on May 25 when Craig McDonald, the author of the Edgar-nominated Hector Lassiter historical crime series, answers the question, “Why PulpFest?” Craig is an award-winning novelist, journalist, and editor who contributes regularly to pulpfest.com.
