PulpFest is not only lauded for its fine programming but also for its very substantial dealers’ room.
Beginning on Thursday, August 1, the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Pittsburgh – Cranberry will be home to thousands of collectible pulp magazines and digests, vintage paperbacks, first-edition hardcovers and series books, original art, genre fiction, B-movies and serials, collectible comic books, and much more.
What dealers are we expecting at PulpFest 2024? In our posts this week, we’ll be profiling our 77 dealers, telling you a little bit about each of them.
John and Maureen Gunnison of Adventure House will be offering their usual extensive stock of pulp magazines as well as High Adventure, G-8 and His Battle Aces, and the many pulp replicas and collections they have published under the Adventure House banner. John will also be one of our auctioneers during this year’s PulpFest auction on Saturday, August 3. To learn more about Adventure House, please visit www.adventurehouse.com/.
Since 2007, Age of Aces Books has published high-quality, affordably-priced reprints of classic pulp aviation stories. Chris and David Kalb have scoured hundreds of issues of titles like Dare-Devil Aces, Battle Birds, Flying Aces, and other air pulps to present to a modern audience the most thrilling air stories featuring the most unforgettable forgotten heroes — The Black Falcon, Captain Philip Strange, The Three Mosquitoes, and others! You can learn more by visiting their website at ageofaces.net. Chris Kalb is one of our nominees for the 2024 Munsey Award.
Jim & Walter Albert are brothers from Arkansas and Pennsylvania respectively. They’ve been collecting for years and selling at Pulpcon and PulpFest for a long time. Visit their table for an excellent selection of pulps, paperbacks, hardcovers, fanzines, and more. You’re likely to find great values on some terrific items from Jim and Walter. You probably won’t leave empty-handed.
Chicago’s Mark Alvarado, a longtime collector of books and pulp magazines, will once again be exhibiting at PulpFest. Although we don’t know yet what he’ll have at this year’s convention, he usually brings something that’s very exciting. He’ll be sharing a table with Steven Spilger. Please welcome Mark back to yet another summertime pulp con!
A familiar face at PulpFest, Jim Beard is co-publisher (with John Bruening) of Flinch! Books. He’s also the publisher of Becky Books, a small press that he founded in 2022. Becky Books publishes a mix of fiction and nonfiction books, including essay collections on Star Trek and DC Comics’ The Brave and the Bold, and Knocks and Howls, an anthology of Bigfoot stories. Visit the Becky Books Facebook page to learn more.
Please welcome dealer Brian Bohnett to this year’s PulpFest. Author of Them Was the Days: Edgar Rice Burroughs and the History of the Michigan Military Academy, Tarzan Big Little Books, and The Remarkable Enid Markey: First Lady of the Tarzan Films, Brian has researched and collected memorabilia from the old Michigan Military Academy (MMA) for over a decade. An active member of the Greater West Bloomfield Historical Society and The Burroughs Bibliophiles, he is currently writing a bibliography of Charles King (a former staff member of the MMA); a written and illustrated history of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ formative years (including the Brown School, Harvard School for Boys, Phillips Academy, and the MMA); and a biography of silent film actresses, Evelyn Greeley and Vivian Reed. Visit Mad Kings Publishing to learn more.
Steve Ericson and Books from the Crypt have been very supportive of PulpFest over the years. A family-owned business that has been selling collectible science fiction, fantasy, horror, and mystery magazines, paperbacks, and first editions for over 25 years, Books from the Crypt will have many items at PulpFest 2024 that are not available through their website.
PulpFest 2024 is glad to have Michael Brenner of Brenner’s Collectable Books back at our convention. Michael specializes in science fiction and mystery books, signed first editions, vintage paperbacks, books into film, and more. He has been buying, selling, and passionately collecting books for over thirty years and is a member of the ABAA, ILAB, and IOBA.
The Burroughs Bibliophiles is a nonprofit literary society devoted to studying and promoting interest in the works, creations, and life of Edgar Rice Burroughs. The members of the organization will be represented at this year’s PulpFest by John Hood of the Carolina Calots chapter of the organization, Jim Goodwin, the Chairman of the Board of Directors for the organization, and other members of the organization. To learn more about The Burroughs Bibliophiles, visit burroughsbibliophiles.com/ or email the organization at BurroughsBibliophiles@gmail.
As a special offer to members of PulpFest 2024, if you join The Burroughs Bibliophiles as a new member, a free back issue of The Burroughs Bulletin will be given to you at the convention. Please visit the organization’s table at PulpFest to join.
A dealer since 1976, Nick Certo always manages to unearth lots of rare and desirable items. A resident of Newburgh, New York, he brings choice selections of pulps and related items — including original artwork — to the conventions where he exhibits. Be sure to stop by his table. In the meantime, please visit the Nicholas J. Certo website at AbeBooks.com.
Ron Chandler is an indie author from Frederick, Maryland who writes adventure and nature fiction. This will be his third year selling at PulpFest. His short stories have been featured in literary magazines across the country. His books include D is for Dudley & Other Nature Tales, Ghost Riders of Cumberland Gap, Incredible Beaver-Chewed Walking Sticks & Other Nature Tales, Neptune’s Garden and Other Adventures, and his latest, Madcap Dogs: Revealing Their True Glory. Inspired by the world of Frederick Faust — who wrote as Max Brand — it’s a collection of stories that explores the relationship that dogs have with their families and shows how their behavior can change lives.
Our 2010 Munsey Award winner, Mike Chomko, will be representing Stark House Press and Steeger Books at PulpFest 2024. He’ll have various titles from the Stark House catalog, plus the latest offerings from Steeger Books, including new volumes in their Black Mask Library and the omnibus edition of Don Hutchison’s It’s Always Raining Corpses in Chinatown. He’ll also have a selection of other books and periodicals — including back issues of The Pulpster — and a large selection of science fiction hardcovers and paperbacks at clearance prices. To learn more about the many books that he carries, please visit the Mike Chomko Books website and download a copy of his latest catalog. Mike is also the marketing and programming director for PulpFest.
In addition to selling, Mike will also be accepting PulpFest 2024 members’ auction consignments at his dealer tables. You can submit your consignments during regular dealers’ room hours. The deadline to submit auction lots is 1 pm on Saturday, August 3, 2024. Look for the PulpFest auction banner at Mike Chomko’s dealer tables. If you have any questions, you can reach Mike via email at mike@pulpfest.com.
Please welcome Edgar Rice Burroughs fan and collector Mike Conran back to PulpFest as a dealer. A resident of Michigan, Mike has been collecting since the early 1960s. A charter member of the ERB-APA, Mike received the prestigious Edgar Rice Burroughs Lifetime Achievement Award in 1991. To learn more about Mike, please read his biography on Bill and Sue-On Hillman’s ERBzine.
PulpFest Chairman Jack Cullers is the person to see if you’re looking for pulps, digests, and out-of-print paperbacks, collectible fanzines, pulp reprints, and hardbound fiction and non-fiction. Find your way to Jack’s table and you’ll be treated to a wide variety of materials at very reasonable prices. You may just come across something you’ve been questing after for years. Jack and his wife Sally were the winners of our Rusty Award in 2012.
Ray Walsh of the Curious Book Shop has been selling a broad array of paper collectibles – pulps, paperbacks, original artwork, collectible hardcovers, vintage comic books, and more — for over fifty years. Out of East Lansing, Michigan, Ray has been selling at PulpFest — and Pulpcon before it — for decades. We appreciate his long support. Ray is one of the founders and organizers of the Michigan Antiquarian Book & Paper Show, the Midwest’s largest book and paper show.
Dearly Departed Books of Alliance, Ohio is a brick & mortar shop open by chance or appointment. It primarily sells via the Internet. Established in 1978 by Scott and Linda Edwards, this loyal PulpFest dealer offers a large stock of mystery, science fiction, horror, fantasy, vintage paperbacks, first editions, pulp magazines, and related ephemera. This year, they’ll be selling pulps, paperbacks, hardbound first editions, and more.
If you would like to register as a dealer at this year’s PulpFest, we’ve run out of tables. Please contact Jack Cullers to be added to our waiting list. You can reach him at jack@pulpfest.com.
To wander through our dealers’ room, click the registration button at the top of this page to join PulpFest.
If you’re from outside the area, don’t forget to book a room. Unfortunately, all the rooms in the PulpFest block at the DoubleTree by Hilton Pittsburgh — Cranberry in Mars, Pennsylvania have been taken. So the special convention rate is no longer available. Click here for a look at other hotels in the area.
We’ll be profiling more of our PulpFest 2024 dealers through Friday, July 12. Please visit our site on Tuesday, July 9, for our next segment.
In addition to our packed dealers’ room, PulpFest is known for its terrific programming. Our featured image is excerpted from Norman Saunders’ original cover art for the June 1938 number of Secret Agent X, while our lead image was adapted by PulpFest advertising director William Lampkin from Jerome Rozen’s cover for Operator #5, dated April 1934, and published by Popular Publications.. We’ll have presentations on both pulps during our opening day, August 1. We hope you’ll join us at PulpFest 2024 for “Spice, Spies, Shaw, and More!”
We’ll also have a presentation on dinosaurs in the pulps, featuring award-winning artist Mark Schultz and our 201o Munsey Award winner, Mike Chomko. So visit our PulpFest dealers to find books such as Thrilling Wonder Stories for April 1940, with cover art by Howard Brown, illustrating the story, “Beauty and the Beast,” by Henry Kuttner. It’s part of ERBFest 2024, our third salute to the Master of Adventure, Edgar Rice Burroughs.
The PulpFest auction banner was adapted by William Lampkin from Rafael DeSoto’s cover art for the January 1934 issue of Standard’s The Phantom Detective.
Derek Starr is a writer and popular culture enthusiast who began contributing to our website in 2022. He particularly enjoys the Fiction House pulps. One of his favorites is Planet Stories, the publisher’s legendary science fiction pulp. His most recent contribution to our website discussed Flinch! Fest, one of our afternoon programming presentations at this year’s PulpFest.
While The Skipper is not part of this year’s programming, please visit our YouTube Channel for Craig McDonald’s newest video, a look at Cap’ Fury, one of The Great Pulp Heroes!
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