PulpFest 50 and FarmerCon XVII will begin today at 11 AM, as our dealers begin to erect their displays for this year’s pulp con! The dealers’ room will be open for exhibitors to set up until 4:45 PM. We urge all of our dealers to take advantage of our generous load-in and set-up time.
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.
If you need additional help getting to the hotel and/or the loading area, please call or text Jack Cullers at 937.671.1574.
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 website or click here for a link to a large map of the area.
All members — dealers included — will be able to register for the convention from 12 to 4:45 PM. Registration will take place 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. Paper forms will also be available at the door.
A full weekend membership to PulpFest 50 will cost $40 at the door for those who have not registered in advance. Daily memberships for Friday or Saturday will also be available for $20 per day. Although there is no daily membership available for Thursday, August 4, daily memberships for Friday or Saturday will be available for $20 per day.
There will be free early-bird shopping today in the dealers’ room from 12 to 4:45 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 50.
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 comic books, as well as pulp-related comic books and games, are also allowed.
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 on Saturday, August 6, beginning at 8:15 PM. The general public is welcome to attend and bid.
Following our early-bird shopping, pizza will be served in the Ember & Vine lounge of the DoubleTree. Thanks to the generosity of our dealers, PulpFest will celebrate our 50th anniversary with pizza at 5 PM today. All PulpFest attendees are invited to have a slice or two.
Our full evening programming slate will begin at 7 PM. We hope you can join us for Fifty Years of PulpFest, a salute to the convention’s Golden Anniversary. It will be followed by a discussion of the life and work of Nick Eggenhoffer — Dean of Western Illustrators.
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.
We’ll also be celebrating the ninetieth anniversary of Popular Publications’ “Dime” line of pulp magazines at PulpFest 50. Award-winning pop culture historians Ed Hulse and Garyn Roberts will discuss Popular’s Chameleon — Dime Mystery. Afterward, Morgan Holmes will start our observance of the centennial of Fiction House, the pulp magazine and comic book publisher that gave us Action Stories, Fight Comics, Jumbo Comics, Jungle Stories, Lariat Story Magazine, North-West Romances, Planet Stories, Rangers Comics, Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, Wings, and many other classic titles.
At 10:30 PM, our live programming ends with a FarmerCon XVII panel. Win Scott Eckert, Rick Lai, and Frank Schildiner will present a panel discussion on Lord Grandrith, Doc Caliban, and Lovecraft.
There is no extra charge to attend FarmerCon XVII as it is part of PulpFest 50.
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 1 – 4 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.
Debuting with its December 1932 issue, Dime Mystery Magazine turns 90 years old in 2022. Our featured image is excerpted from Pittsburgh artist Gloria Stoll Karn’s cover painting for the September 1946 number.
Dime Western Magazine likewise debuted with its December 1932 issue. Leading our post is our PulpFest 50 advertisement. It was adapted by William Lampkin from Walter M. Baumhofer’s cover painting for the April 1934 number.
PulpFest 50 will also be celebrating the 125th anniversary of the birth of pulp artist Nicholas Eggenhofer. Pictured above is his cover for the August 1925 Action Stories.
FarmerCon XVII will take place jointly with PulpFest 50. Tonight’s FarmerCon panel will examine The Monster on Hold, by Philip José Farmer and Win Scott Eckert, and other work by the author and his collaborators. The dust jacket art is by award-winning artist Mark Wheatley.
You’ll find our complete schedule for Thursday, August 4, below. You can also access our schedule via your mobile phone or tablet, by visiting http://pulpcon.org/schedule/.
PulpFest 50 Schedule
Thursday, August 4, 2022
Dealers’ Room
11:00 AM – 4:45 PM — Dealers’ Room Set-Up
12:00 PM – 4:45 PM — Member Registration & Early-Bird Shopping
Auction Preview
3:30 PM – 4:30 PM — Estate Auction Preview (in auction set-up rooms)
Hotel Lounge
5:00 PM – 6:45 PM — Pizza at PulpFest (Sponsored by Our Generous PulpFest Dealers)
Evening Programming
7:00 PM – 7:05 PM — Welcome to PulpFest (Chairman Jack Cullers)
7:10 PM – 7:55 PM — Fifty Years of PulpFest (Jack Cullers, Tony Davis, Don Hutchison, Sara Light-Waller, and Walker Martin, with William Lampkin moderating)
8:00 PM – 8:45 PM — Nick Eggenhoffer — Dean of Western Illustrators (David Saunders)
8:50 PM – 9:35 PM — Popular’s Chameleon — Dime Mystery (Ed Hulse & Garyn Roberts)
9:40 PM – 10:25 PM — Robert E. Howard and Fiction House (Morgan Holmes)
10:30 PM – 11:15 PM — FarmerCon XVII Panel — Lord Grandrith, Doc Caliban, and Lovecraft (Win Scott Eckert and Frank Schildiner, with Rick Lai moderating)
11:30 PM – 1:00 AM — North-West Stories — King of the Royal Mounted, Chapters 1 – 4, and Dudley Do-Right of the Mounties
Please note that the schedule above is subject to change. To learn more about each presentation, click on the link that is embedded in each title.
