There’s still some time to get in on the action at PulpFest 50. Our dealers’ room in the Grand Ballroom of the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Pittsburgh – Cranberry will be open today from 10 AM until 4:45 PM. It will feature exhibitors selling and trading 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. That’s why PulpFest is known as the “pop culture center of the universe!”
There is ample free parking surrounding the convention’s host hotel. It is very conveniently located at the intersection of three major roadways in Cranberry Township. The DoubleTree is just off the Pennsylvania Turnpike and Interstate-79. The address is 910 Sheraton Drive, Mars, Pennsylvania. We have a map on our website or click here for a link to a large map of the area.
Single-day memberships will be available for $20 on Saturday and $10 on Sunday. Children who are fifteen and younger and accompanied by a parent will be admitted free of charge. The general public is welcome to attend.
You will be able to register for the convention at any time during regular dealers’ room hours. 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. Paper forms will also be available at the door.
There is no extra charge to attend FarmerCon XVII as it is part of PulpFest 50.
Our daytime programming will start at 1:30 PM. We’ll start things off with a debate: Influence or Coincidence? Hemingway’s Fiction and Hammett’s Hardboiled Pulp. We’ll also have a couple of panels: Bringing the Pulps to the 21st Century — The Artists, featuring artists Sara Light-Waller and Mark Wheatley at 2:30, and The Universe According to Edgar Rice Burroughs at 3:30.
All of our afternoon programming will begin on the half hour.
Our daily estate auction preview will run from 3:30 – 4:40 PM. We’ll be selling over 200 lots of material from the estate of the late Carl Joecks. The auction will take place this evening, beginning at 8:15 PM. The general public is welcome to attend and bid.
Tonight’s evening programming begins at 7 PM with a drawing for a copy of Tarzan of the Apes – The Artist Edition. It’s sponsored by ERB Books.
In celebration of the 50th anniversary of PulpFest, ERB Books will also be offering a 25% discount on the standard first edition of Robert B. Zeuchner’s Edgar Rice Burroughs: The Bibliography. To receive the discount, simply place your order online from August 1 – 7 and use the promo code PF25. PulpFest 50 will also be raffling off a copy of the book at 7 PM.
Following the annual PulpFest business meeting at 7 PM, the 2022 Munsey Award will be presented to an individual or organization that has bettered the pulp community. PulpFest Assistant Marketing Director & Afternoon Programming Director William Patrick Maynard, standing in for Rich Harvey — winner of our 2021 Munsey Award — will reveal the name of this year’s recipient. Unfortunately, Rich is not able to attend PulpFest 50.
The Munsey Award is a fine art print created by David Saunders and published by Dan Zimmer of The Illustrated Press.
At 8:15 PM, PulpFest 50 will be offering over 200 auction lots of pulps, digests, vintage paperbacks, men’s adventure magazines, and more from the collection of the late Carl Joecks. A retired television cameraman, electronic equipment repairman, and carpenter from Vermont, Carl became enamored of science fiction, comic books, radio, and astronomy as a boy. He was soon collecting the things that he loved.
If you click on the auction tab at the top of the PulpFest homepage, you’ll open a page that features photographs of select items from the auction. All attendees of PulpFest 50 will be able to bid on the available material. People who desire to attend the PulpFest auction — but not the convention itself — will also be welcome to the Joecks Estate Auction. Additional details about bidding on the Carl Joecks’ collection can be found by clicking the auction tab at the top of the PulpFest homepage.
In addition to our estate auction, PulpFest 50 members will also be able to submit lots to our August 6 auction. These will be mixed into our estate auction as time allows. Please click the FAQ button found on our homepage for additional details under “Can members of PulpFest submit items to sell at auction?” Our guidelines for auction submissions will also be part of each member’s registration packet.
All auction lots from PulpFest members must be submitted no later than 1:30 PM on Saturday, August 6. If you have questions concerning the PulpFest auctions, please talk to programming and marketing director Mike Chomko at his dealer tables.
Following our auction, we’ll close out the night with the first segment of our film festival celebrating Fiction House’s North-West Stories. We’ll be showing chapters 9 – 12 of the Republic movie serial, King of the Royal Mounted, along with a selection of Dudley Do-Right cartoons.
You can find additional details about all of our programming by clicking the button found at the top of our website. Or click here to link to our PulpFest 50 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. The general public is welcome to attend our programming, free of charge.
If you are not from the Pittsburgh area and have yet to book your room for PulpFest 50, you can try calling 1-800-222-8733 to reach our host hotel. Perhaps there is a vacancy.
Currently, the DoubleTree does not have any COVID policies for guests. The Pennsylvania Department of Health has lifted all COVID mitigation orders. Businesses and individuals are encouraged to follow the latest CDC safety guidance. People may choose to mask at any time. To keep up to date with Pennsylvania’s coronavirus numbers, click here.
If you are exhibiting any symptoms associated with COVID-19, please stay at home. You should not attend PulpFest. Isolate and avoid contact with others, rest, and drink fluids. Call your health care provider if your symptoms worsen.
Although we can’t force anyone, we hope that everyone who plans to attend PulpFest 50 will be vaccinated against COVID-19. We have many older members who attend PulpFest. Please keep them in mind. Remember, we’re all in this together.
PulpFest 50 will continue through tomorrow afternoon. Our dealers’ room will be open to all members from 9 AM to 2 PM as our exhibitors 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, August 7, will be $10, the cost of our annual program book, The Pulpster.
George Gross painted countless covers for T. T. Scott’s line of magazines, particularly the Fiction House sports pulps and Jungle Stories. He also painted many covers for the publisher’s detective pulps. Leading our post is William Lampkin’s adaptation of Gross’ cover art for the Winter 1949-50 Jungle Stories.
The Munsey Award — pictured above — is a fine art print created by award-winning artist David Saunders and published by Dan Zimmer of The Illustrated Press. It will be presented on Saturday evening, August 6.
Stanley Albert Drake began freelancing for pulp magazines in 1937, contributing interior art as well as cover paintings for a range of publishers. His first known cover for Popular Publications appeared on the October 1938 Dime Mystery Magazine. About a decade later, Drake contributed several more covers for Dime Mystery, including the May 1947 (our featured image) and October 1949 numbers. We’ll be celebrating the 90th anniversary of Popular Publications’ Dime Mystery at PulpFest 50.
You’ll find our complete schedule for Saturday, August 6, below. You can also access our schedule via your mobile phone or tablet, by visiting http://pulpcon.org/schedule/.
PulpFest 50 Schedule
Saturday, August 6, 2022
Dealers’ Room
10:00 AM – 4:45 PM — Dealers’ Room Open to All PulpFest Members
Afternoon Programming
1:30 PM – 2:20 PM — Influence or Coincidence? Hemingway’s Fiction and Hammett’s Hardboiled Pulp (Craig McDonald with William Patrick Maynard)
2:30 PM – 3:20 PM — Bringing the Pulps to the 21st Century — The Artists (Sara Light Waller & Mark Wheatley)
3:30 PM – 4:20 PM — The Universe According to Edgar Rice Burroughs (Christopher Paul Carey & Cathy Mann Wilbanks of ERB, Inc. with author Win Scott Eckert)
Auction Preview
3:30 PM – 4:30 PM — Estate Auction Preview (in auction set-up rooms)
Evening Programming
7:00 PM — Tarzan of the Apes – The Artist Edition Raffle Drawing (Mike Chomko)
7:00 PM – 7:30 PM — PulpFest Annual Business Meeting (meet the convention organizers)
7:40 PM – 8:00 PM — 2022 Munsey Award Presentation (presented by William Patrick Maynard)
8:15 PM – 11:15 PM — Carl Joecks Estate Auction & PulpFest 50 Member Auction
11:30 PM – 1:00 AM — North-West Stories — King of the Royal Mounted, Chapters 9 – 12, and Dudley Do-Right of the Mounties
Sunday, August 7, 2022
Dealers’ Room
9:00 AM – 2:00 PM — Dealers’ Room Open to All PulpFest Members
