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.
Steven Spilger from South Bend, Indiana has been collecting and selling both Silver and Golden Age comics, pulps, books, fanzines, and more for over thirty years. More recently, he’s added illustrative art to the mix. He calls his business, Mr. Polyester Books & Comics. The name came from his college friends, who watched him wear the same polyester leisure suit for all of his college yearbook photos. Steven has been a regular PulpFest dealer and supporter for many years. He’ll be sharing a table with Mark Alvarado.
Matt Moring of Steeger Books will be sharing a table with Walker Martin. Winner of the Munsey Award in 2012, Matt will be selling brand-new copies of recent titles published by Steeger Books.
Please welcome Jim Steranko to his second PulpFest as a dealer. A regular attendee of PulpFest and other conventions, Jim is a man of many hats, known for his work as a graphic artist, comic book writer and artist, comics historian, magician, publisher, and film production illustrator. Best known in pulp circles for his great paperback covers for The Shadow series — published by Pyramid and Jove — Steranko will be offering a variety of pulp magazines at his table, garnered from his own pulp collection. There will also be a selection of Steranko collectibles at his booth, and he will be autographing throughout the event.
Please welcome Canadian artist Ronn Sutton to his first PulpFest. He has drawn hundreds of comics since the 1970s, as well as magazine illustrations, newspaper strips, and animation. He is best known for nearly 50 issues of Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, graphic novel Lucifers Sword MC — concerning outlaw biker clubs and written by Hells Angel Phil Cross — Moonstone’s Honey West, and others. Since 2017, Ronn has drawn weekly online comic strips for Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc, including Carson of Venus, The Man-Eater, and recently, Korak the Killer. In 2022, Ronn was inducted into the Joe Shuster Canadian Comic Book Creator Hall of Fame for his contributions to comics. He will be bringing original art pages with him to this year’s PulpFest. To learn more, please visit his website at www.ronnsutton.com.
Tall Stories Books and Art Gallery is a brick-and-mortar independent bookseller based in Rock Hill, South Carolina. They specialize in science fiction, fantasy, mystery, and adventure and offer a diverse selection of first-edition, signed, used and out-of-print books, manuscripts, paper memorabilia, and art. In addition to their physical store, they also sell through AbeBooks.com, Amazon, and eBay. Check out their website and their Facebook page to learn more about this first-time PulpFest dealer.
A regular dealer at the Windy City Pulp & Paper Convention, please welcome Terry O’Neill of Terry’s Old School Comics to his third PulpFest. A comic book dealer, as well as a comic book collector, Terry’s specialty is vintage comic books, including Gold, Silver, and Bronze Age comics. He also sells original art, pulps, vintage hardcover books, paperbacks, and fanzines. Terry exhibits at many shows and is always in the market to buy collections. You can check out Terry’s extensive catalog at terryscomics.com.
Bill Thade will be one of the dealers joining Todd McDevitt of New Dimensions Comics and other local dealers at this year’s PulpFest. Please welcome Bill back to the convention.
Tim Paxton of Grand Rapids, Michigan specializes in paperbacks and small-press, first-edition hardcovers, dealing mainly in high-grade science fiction, fantasy, and horror as well as mysteries and pulp-related material. Tim has been selling at PulpFest for many years. You’ll find the Tim’s Books website at AbeBooks.com.
Please extend a hearty welcome to Virginia’s Bill Trible, selling at his first PulpFest since our fiftieth anniversary event. Bill will be bringing a selection of adventure, detective, and western pulps, paperbacks, true crime books, and mystery novels. He’s also very strong in American history books, particularly from the 1930s, the era of the pulp heroes.
Sheila Vanderbeek has been a pulp collector for over fifty years. Hailing from Kalamazoo, Michigan, she’ll have pulp magazines from all genres for sale or trade. Of course, the more she sells, the more she’ll be able to buy from the many fine dealers who will be attending PulpFest 2024. Sheila is one of our nominees for the 2024 Munsey Award.
Todd Warren is a pulp, book, and art collector from Fort Washington, PA. He’ll be offering vintage pulps — especially Weird Tales — Arkham House books and other hardcovers, paperbacks, and original pulp and comic-related art. He’ll be joined by his brother, Ross Warren.
Christopher Maffei of Well-Stacked Books comes to PulpFest 2024 out of Parkville, Maryland. A member of the Ephemera Society of America and Independent Online Booksellers Association, Chris is an avid reader, book dealer, and rectangle enthusiast. He will be bringing vintage paperbacks, magazines, first editions, art, graphic novels, pinups, and photos to this year’s PulpFest.
Inducted into The Overstreet Hall of Fame in July 2017, Mark Wheatley is a longtime Edgar Rice Burroughs fan and admirer of the work of Philip José Farmer. He’s painted covers for Norvell W. Page’s The Spider: Satan’s Murder Machines and Amazon Nights by Arthur O. Friel. In collaboration with G. D. Falksen, Mark created the book Doctor Cthulittle. He also illustrated Songs of Giants: Poetry of Pulp, a collection of the very best horror, dark fantasy, and heroic sword and sorcery poetry written by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert E. Howard, and H. P. Lovecraft. More recently, he’s contributed cover art to Meteor House, the Robert E. Howard Foundation, and First Fandom Experience. Mark and his wife Carol will have several new art prints for sale at PulpFest 2024 and will also have Mark’s new book, Nucleus X. The book features several portfolios of Mark’s art, including his Robert E. Howard and Edgar Rice Burroughs portfolios.
MarQuese Liddle, author and editor at Wild Isle Literature, makes his debut appearance at PulpFest in 2024. He’ll be offering copies of his Wand Smoke series of weird fantasy novels and novellas. Raised on a small island in the middle of the Ohio River, MarQuese invites you to check out his pulp-inspired stories and discuss the themes and inspirations of your favorite works. Get an early glimpse of his content at his website, wildislelit.com and please welcome him to PulpFest.
In between presenting at PulpFest 2024, you’ll find author, screen-writer, comic scripter, radio personality, podcaster, and television producer John Wooley sharing a dealer’s table with his buddy John McMahan. The winner of the 2006 Lamont Award will have copies of Hard-Boiled Christmas Stories, the anthology he edited with McMahan, and other books at this year’s PulpFest. Check out our profile of John by reading “PulpFest Profile: Seven Senses of John Wooley” on our website. He’ll be closing out our PulpFest 2024 programming in conversation with Dr. Peter Wolson, the son of hardboiled detective writer, Morton Wolson (who wrote at Peter Paige).
We’re pleased to welcome back Chicago’s Larry Hallock of Ygor’s Books to PulpFest yet again. Specializing in out-of-print science fiction, fantasy, and horror fiction, Larry will be selling original art, paperbacks, hardcovers, digests, pulps, and other collectibles, including many signed items.
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.
Join us on Monday, July 15, for an overview of this year’s ERBFest, taking place in Mars, Pennsylvania at PulpFest 2024. We’ll have this and more at pulpfest.com in the week ahead.
In addition to our packed dealers’ room, PulpFest is known for its terrific programming. Our featured image is excerpted from J. Allen St. John’s cover for the July 1942 number of Amazing Stories, illustrating David Wright O’Brien’s novella, “Blitzkrieg in the Past.” Our lead image was adapted by William Lampkin from Rafael DeSoto’s cover for the February 1942 issue of Black Mask, which featured the Peter Paige short story, “The Night You Shot Hitler.”
We’ll be saluting both dinosaurs and the hardboiled fiction found in the pulps at PulpFest 2024. We hope you’ll join us from August 1 – 4 in Mars, Pennsylvania for “Spice, Spies, Shaw, and More!”
James Steranko painted the cover art for The Silent Death, published by Pyramid Books in 1978. The image pictured above is from a portfolio by the artist, published in 1978 by Supergraphics.
Our final image is the March 4, 2017 issue of the National Capital Panthans Journal, depicting Tarzan and Sheena, the black leopard. It’s number 245 of the National Capital Panthans Journal, with cover art by Mark Wheatley.
Leslie Silberberg is a writer and popular culture enthusiast who began posting on our website in 2022. She enjoys the science fiction pulps, particularly the work of such leading female writers as Leigh Brackett, Claire Winger Harris, Zenna Henderson, Judith Merril, C. L. Moore, Margaret St. Clair, Wilmar H. Shiras, Francis Stevens, and Leslie F. Stone. Many thanks to Ms. Silberberg for her contributions to pulpfest.com.
Although The Shadow, Tarzan, and other pulp heroes such as The Skipper will not be saluted as part of this year’s programming, please visit our YouTube Channel for Craig McDonald’s newest video, a look at Cap’ Fury!
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