So what’s your taste? Heroic warriors and omnipotent wizards? Mysteries that leave you breathless? Awe-inspiring adventures inside the earth or beyond the far horizon? Finding true love when you least expect it? They all have their roots in the pulps.
For more than fifty years, PulpFest has celebrated mystery, adventure, science fiction, and much more. The pulp magazines of the early twentieth century — cheaply-priced all-fiction magazines printed on pulpwood paper — were the vessel where the hardboiled detective, science fiction, and sword and sorcery genres developed and flourished. The pulps gave us Buck Rogers, Conan the Barbarian, Cthulhu, Doc Savage, Hopalong Cassidy, John Carter of Mars, Sam Spade, The Shadow, Solomon Kane, Tarzan, Zorro, and many other pop culture icons.
We hope you’ll join us at PulpFest 2023 for a celebration of “Chilling Sports,” “Pulp Heroes,” and a great deal more. We’ll be saluting the centennials of Weird Tales, Sport Story Magazine, and Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc., as well as the 90th anniversaries of The Spider, Robert E. Howard’s Conan, and Doc Savage. And don’t forget about the other terrific conventions that will be held in conjunction with this year’s PulpFest — ERBFest 2023 and FarmerCon XVIII. That’s three conventions for the price of one!
As part of our second celebration of that Master of Adventure, Edgar Rice Burroughs, we’ll be saluting the centennial of the author’s “Moon Trilogy” and the 150th anniversary of artist J. Allen St. John’s birth. ERBFest 2023 will also be sponsoring an art show, hosted by Henry G. Franke III, editor of The Burroughs Bulletin.
In addition to all of our expert presenters, PulpFest 2023 will be hosting appearances by award-winning artists Mark Schultz and Mark Wheatley, as well as authors and editors John Betancourt, Win Scott Eckert, Craig McDonald, Will Murray, Gary Phillips, and Darrell Schweitzer.
You’ll find our planned programming schedule below. Please note that the schedule is subject to changes.
PulpFest 2023 will take place from August 3 – 6 at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Pittsburgh – Cranberry in Mars, Pennsylvania. You can become a member of the convention by clicking the Registration button on the PulpFest website. And don’t forget to book a room.
PulpFest 2023 Schedule
To learn more, click the links in the titles
Access our PulpFest 2023 Mobile Schedule at pulpfest.com/schedule/
Wednesday, August 2, 2023
Dealers’ Room
7:00 pm – 9:30 pm — Dealers’ Room Set-Up (dealers & helpers are only allowed entry for set-up when the room is available to us)
Thursday, August 3, 2023
Dealers’ Room
10:00 am – 4:45 pm — Dealers’ Room Set-Up
11:00 am – 4:45 pm — Member Registration & Early-Bird Shopping
Auction Preview
3:30 pm – 4:40 pm — Auction Preview (in auction set-up rooms)
Hotel Lounge
5:00 pm – 6:45 pm — Pizza at PulpFest (Sponsored by Select Dealers of PulpFest 2023)
Evening Programming
7:00 pm – 7:10 pm — Welcome to PulpFest — Remarks from Chairman Jack Cullers
7:15 pm – 8:00 pm — ERBFest — 100 Years of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. (Christopher Paul Carey & Cathy Mann Wilbanks with Chris Adams, Win Scott Eckert, and Will Murray)
8:05 pm – 8:50 pm — 100 Years of Weird Tales — Sword and Sorcery in “The Unique Magazine” (Morgan Holmes)
8:55 pm – 9:40 pm — 90 Years of Pulp Heroes — The Spider, Master of Men! (Chris Kalb, Will Murray, & Gary Phillips)
9:45 pm – 10:30 pm — 90 Years of Pulp Heroes — Conan the Multimedia Barbarian (Jim Beard)
10:35 pm – 11:20 pm — 100 Years of Weird Tales — Weird Tales on Radio (Karl Schadow)
Friday, August 4, 2023
Dealers’ Room
9:00 am – 9:30 am — Early Registration and Dealers’ Room Set-Up
9:30 am – 4:45 pm — Dealers’ Room Open to All PulpFest Members
9:30 am – 4:30 pm — Submit Your Auction Items (open to all PulpFest members)
Afternoon Programming
2:00 pm – 2:55 pm — FarmerCon XVIII — Doc Savage — The Man — and Myth — of Bronze (Christopher Paul Carey and Win Scott Eckert)
3:00 pm – 3:55 pm — ERBFest — It’s a Jungle Out There (Henry G. Franke III and Ed Hulse)
Art Show
12:00 pm – 2:00 pm – ERBFest — Inspired by Edgar Rice Burroughs (hosted by Henry G. Franke III)
Auction Preview
3:30 pm – 4:40 pm — Auction Preview (in auction set-up rooms)
Evening Programming
7:00 pm – 7:10 pm — What About Next Year? (Jack Cullers and Mike Chomko)
7:15 pm — 8:00 pm — 100 Years of Weird Tales — Those Weird Men’s Adventure Magazines (Bob Deis and Wyatt Doyle)
8:05 pm – 8:50 pm — 90 Years of Pulp Heroes — Illustrating Conan for the Commercial Market (Mark Schultz and Mark Wheatley, with Don Simpson)
8:55 pm – 9:40 pm — ERBFest — J. Allen St. John — Master of Fantasy Art (David Saunders)
9:45 pm – 10:30 pm — 100 Years of Weird Tales — Weird Editors (John Betancourt and Darrell Schweitzer, with Tony Davis)
10:35 pm – 11:20 pm — The Centennial of the Sports Pulp — The Sports Stories of Rod Serling (Nicholas Parisi)
11:30 pm – ?? — ERBFest — Barsoomian Bull Session — Socialize at Ember & Vine
Saturday, August 5, 2023
Dealers’ Room
9:30 am – 4:45 pm — Dealers’ Room Open to All PulpFest Members
9:30 am – 1:30 pm — Submit Your Auction Items (open to all PulpFest members)
Afternoon Programming
2:00 pm – 2:55 pm — ERBFest — 100 Years of The Moon Maid (Christopher Paul Carey, Henry G. Franke III, and Garyn Roberts)
3:00 pm – 3:55 pm — 90 Years of Pulp Heroes — Doc Savage and His Offspring (Win Scott Eckert, Craig McDonald, Will Murray, and Gary Phillips, with Jennifer DiGiacomo)
Art Show
12:00 pm – 2:00 pm – ERBFest — Inspired by Edgar Rice Burroughs (hosted by Henry G. Franke III)
Auction Preview
3:30 pm – 4:40 pm — Auction Preview (in auction set-up rooms)
Evening Programming
7:00 pm – 7:45 pm — The Centennial of the Sports Pulp — Sport Story Magazine and Its Pulp Offspring (Michelle Nolan)
7:50 pm – 8:00 pm — 2023 Munsey Award Presentation — Presented by Walker Martin
8:05 pm – 8:45 pm — Auction Preview (in auction set-up rooms)
8:50 pm – 8:55 pm— Raffle Drawing — ERB Books’ At the Earth’s Core
9:00 pm – 11:30 pm — PulpFest 2023 Auction (John Gunnison & Joe Saine, auctioneers)
11:30 pm – ?? — Fraternize at FarmerCon — Socialize at Ember & Vine
Sunday, August 6, 2023
Dealers’ Room
9:00 am – 1:30 pm — Dealers’ Room Open to All PulpFest Members (packing up)
Please note that the schedule above is subject to change.
Access our PulpFest 2023 Mobile Schedule at pulpfest.com/schedule/
A freelance artist, Walter M. Baumhofer painted over forty covers for Doc Savage Magazine, the Street & Smith hero pulp, including the June 1934 number. The “King of the Pulp Artists” also contributed twenty covers to Street & Smith’s Pete Rice Magazine — a western hero pulp that debuted with its November 1933 issue — the cover art for the first issue of Popular Publications’ The Spider, and covers and interior illustrations for many other pulp magazines. In addition to his pulp work, Baumhofer was a leading contributor to the slick magazines as well as the men’s adventure magazines of the 1950s.
The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian is the first of a three-volume set collecting Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories. Originally published in the United Kingdom in 2002 by Wandering Star Books as Conan of Cimmeria: Volume One (1932–1933), it came out in the United States in 2003 under the new title. Published by Ballantine/Del Rey, the book featured cover art by Mark Schultz as well as numerous interior illustrations by the artist. Our image is the painting used for the cover to the US edition of the book.
