The PulpFest organizing committee is pleased to announce that twelve individuals have been nominated by their peers for the 2024 Munsey Award.
This annual award is named after Frank A. Munsey, the man who published the first pulp magazine. It recognizes an individual or organization that has bettered the pulp community, be it through disseminating knowledge about the pulps or through publishing or other efforts to preserve and foster interest in the pulp magazines we all love and enjoy. Congratulations to all the nominees for this prestigious award presented annually at PulpFest, including our 2023 winner, Richard Bleiler.
The nominees listed below — who received multiple nominations — will be forwarded to a committee consisting of all the living Lamont, Munsey, and Rusty Award winners who will select the recipient of this year’s Munsey Award.
As the publisher of Wildside Press, John Betancourt has made available hundreds of stories from pulp magazines, digests, and early paperbacks available in print and ebook form, particularly in his Megapack format. John was an assistant editor at Amazing Stories and later helped to revive Weird Tales. The magazine went on to garner a World Fantasy Award in 1992 and a Hugo Award in 2009. In 2015, Betancourt helped the revived Weirdbook get off the ground. Originally published by W. Paul Ganley — for which he won a World Fantasy Award in 1992 — Weirdbook continues to appear on a fairly regular basis from Betancourt and Wildside Press. He also serves as the publisher of Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine and the infrequently issued Adventure Tales, which presents classic tales from the pulp magazines. In 2021, John revived Startling Stories, the classic science fiction pulp originally published by Ned Pines’ Standard Magazines. John is also a writer of science fiction, fantasy, and mystery fiction. He was a panelist at PulpFest 2023.
A researcher of fantasy, science fiction, mystery, and adventure fiction for over thirty years, Gene Christie has extensively studied and indexed the magazines of the pulp era, especially those published by the Frank A. Munsey Company. Never too busy or tired to help, Gene has volunteered his time, knowledge, and editorial abilities, contributing to projects published by Adventure House, Off-Trail Publications, Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, and others. He annually volunteers at the Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention, in addition to proofing their program book, and has been a long-time attendee at other pulp-related conventions. In conjunction with Black Dog Books, he has compiled and edited several rare and previously unreprinted works, including Cornell Woolrich’s The Good Die Young, George Allan England’s The Empire in the Air, Seabury Quinn’s Demons of the Night, Murray Leinster’s The Silver Menace, and the excellent Munsey anthologies The Space Annihilator and The People of the Pit. He also served as the editor for Black Dog Books’ Talbot Mundy Library. At PulpFest 2019, Gene offered convention attendees a wonderful presentation on Robert Hobart Davis, considered by many to be the greatest editor of the pulp magazine era.
John DeWalt has selflessly aided researchers, sharing his collection and knowledge of popular culture. He is a joy with whom to share his, and our, joy of pulps. He has quietly helped many people, sharing stories and his experience with no thought of anything in return. He is quiet about his generosity, never thinking to remark on it. His self-published Key to Other Doors: Some Lists from a Pulp Collector’s Notebook, is still an excellent source of information about pulp fanzines, pulp reprints, pulp conventions, and the single-character pulps. John has been a member of the Pulp Era Amateur Press Society since 1998.
Henry G Franke III is the editor of The Burroughs Bulletin, the journal of The Burroughs Bibliophiles, the nonprofit literary society devoted to the life and works of Edgar Rice Burroughs. He also edits The Gridley Wave newsletter for the organization and during the pandemic, began organizing a monthly Zoom meeting for the Bibliophiles. He is also a member of the Edgar Rice Burroughs Amateur Press Association. Henry has presented several times at PulpFest and has organized art shows for the convention. He has also contributed to The Pulpster. In 2021, Henry — along with Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. and the PulpFest organizing committee, organized the first ERBFest, a summertime convention for Burroughs fans. He was a contributing editor and penned the introductions for IDW Publishing’s Library of American Comics archival series reprinting Russ Manning’s Tarzan newspaper comic strips. The first volume of the series won the 2014 Eisner Award for Best Archival Collection – Strips. Henry also wrote introductions for IDW’s Library of American Comics reprint of the 1929 daily Tarzan strips by Hal Foster and Rex Maxon, and for Tarzan and the Adventurers, the fifth volume in Titan Books’ “Complete Burne Hogarth Comic Strip Library.” Additionally, he contributed the foreword to Tarzan the Untamed, the seventh volume in the “Edgar Rice Burroughs Authorized Library,” published by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc., and is currently writing the afterwords for the Authorized Library books. Specializing in art inspired by Burroughs’ stories, Franke is currently working on an illustrated biography of Russ Manning. At this year’s PulpFest, Henry will be hosting ERBFest and co-hosting the 2024 Dum-Dum Banquet.
Chris Kalb is known in pulp circles for his hero pulp websites, like The 86th Floor and The Spider Returns, ventures that have helped to attract people who are new to the pulps. There isn’t anyone out there making better use of all the new technology while still preserving the “oldness” of pulps and popular culture. He has become the person to go to for publishers who want a retro-design for their books or website, including Ed Hulse’s Murania Press. He is also the lead designer for Age of Aces Books, a pulp reprint house that specializes in air war fiction. In 2010, Age of Aces received two National Indie Excellence Awards for Chris’s work on the bestselling The Spider vs. The Empire State. Chris was the designer of PulpFest‘s original website and for many years, put together the convention’s print advertisements. Additionally, he has been one of the leading members of New York’s Gotham Pulp Collectors Club, welcoming new members into a group of humorous, knowledgable, and engaging personalities. A freelance designer and illustrator, he was formerly the Art Director of Sci Fi Magazine. Chris has been a PulpFest presenter and panelist several times, including last year’s salute to The Spider.
Steve Lewis has been a collector of pulps, digest magazines, paperbacks, and hardcovers for over 60 years. Around 1970, he started publishing Mystery*File, a fanzine that covered not only detective and mystery fiction, but all types of genre fiction such as science fiction, westerns, and adventure fiction. Similar magazines usually last only a few years, but Mystery*File has lasted over 50 years and is still published as an online blog at Mysteryfile.com. Steve writes many of the reviews of fiction and film and also encourages readers of the blog to submit reviews and comments. For instance, around 15 years ago Steve noticed Walker Martin’s series on the PulpMags discussion group titled “The Loneliness of the Pulp Collector.” He encouraged Walker to write his online series “Pulp Collecting: A Memoir.” This also led to a series titled “Adventures in Collecting” and many book and pulp reviews. Both Steve and Walker felt there was not enough discussion about Pulpcon, PulpFest, and Windy City. This started a series of annual convention reports that Steve has been publishing for many years. In addition to Mystery*File, Steve has also written reviews and articles for Echoes, Paperback Parade, and Science Fiction Review.
William Patrick Maynard was born and raised in Northeast Ohio. An avid reader of vintage thriller fiction and a keen student of film and comic art, he has been writing fiction since childhood. Since 2009, he has been authorized by the Sax Rohmer literary estate to continue the Fu Manchu series. The Terror of Fu Manchu was released in 2009 and The Destiny of Fu Manchu in 2011. In addition to his novels, Bill also writes mystery and science fiction short fiction and screenplays. His recent fiction has appeared in George Mann’s Further Encounters of Sherlock Holmes, Flinch Books’ Occupied Pulp, Bold Venture’s Zorro: The Daring Escapades, and other anthologies. Bill has also authored nearly 300 pop culture articles and has contributed DVD commentaries for classic films of the last century. Bill has published articles in Blood and Thunder, The Cimmerian, The Pulpster, and Windy City Pulp Stories, among others. He has also penned a substantial number of pulp fiction columns for The Black Gate website. He was co-guest of honor — with Will Murray — at PulpFest 2013. In late 2018, Bill joined the PulpFest marketing department as a writer. Since then, he has contributed significantly to our website and our convention. Until recently, Bill served as PulpFest’s assistant director of marketing and the director of the convention’s afternoon programming.
From the beginning of his very varied career, writer Gary Phillips has always tipped his cap to those who came before and has been a living, breathing homage to pulp culture and aesthetics. From his graphic novels — Peepland and Angeltown — to his short stories — “L. A. Noir” and “Treacherous” — and his novels — including a pulp version of Matthew Henson, the first black explorer to reach the North Pole, his ethos has remained steadfast. A long-time native of Los Angeles who lives close to where he was born and raised, Phillips writes some of the most realistic crime fiction in the genre, filling his stories with characters that fit right into the context of their times. He particularly admires Dashiell Hammett for his plotting and ability to keep his stories “grounded in reality.” Phillips’ restless devotion to bettering his craft shows as he is still publishing some of his best work even after twenty-three years of being a professional author. Chantelle Aimée Osman, his editor at Agora Books, has written, “Knowing him for a decade before acting as his editor, I can’t think back to a single conversation where Gary didn’t refer me to some (usually obscure) pulp author or series. To me, and to many in the industry, Gary basically serves as the pulp ‘North Star,’ pointing the way for those who come after and making sure we remember those who came before.” In addition to his Doc Savage-inspired novel, Matthew Henson and the Ice Temple of Harlem, and his Hammett-inspired detective novels, Gary has contributed stories to Asian Pulp, The Avenger Chronicles, Bass Reeves, Frontier Marshall, Black Pulp, The Darker Mass: Heroes from the Shadows, Echoes of Sherlock Holmes, The Green Hornet Casefiles, Jewish Noir, Los Angeles Noir, The Spider: Extreme Prejudice, and similar pulp-inspired anthologies. To learn more about Gary, read “PulpFest Profile — Gary Phillips — To the North Pole and Beyond by Way of the Moon.” At PulpFest 2023, Gary served on panels saluting both The Spider and Doc Savage.
While some nominees are like Doc Savage — out front and known to most — others are like The Shadow — hidden from view for most of the time, yet still there and appearing when needed. A pulp collector since a teenager, Sheila Vanderbeek began attending pulp conventions in 1975. She has attended nearly all of the major pulp conventions since her first. She helped with all the radio recreations that were performed at Pulpcon. A member of the Battered Silicon Press pulp advisory committee, Sheila has helped with many books for the publisher. In addition to recommending authors and series, she has supplied all or most of the stories included in Battered Silicon’s Great Merlini, John Solomon, Needle Mike, Park Ave Hunt Club, Satan Hall, and Suicide Squad collections, as well as others. She has also provided copies of stories to Steeger Books and other pulp-related publishers. Owning one of the largest and wide-ranging pulp collections in existence, Sheila also provided content information to Leonard Robbins for his groundbreaking pulp magazine indices. She has also helped with countless other research projects in the pulp field. Sheila has been a member of the Pulp Era Amateur Press Society since 1997.
Although some may believe he is old enough to have purchased pulps off the newsstand, Chuck Welch is a mere whippersnapper. As one of the original Internet Fans of Bronze, Chuck started attending Pulpcon in the late 1990s. After meeting his future wife at one of those conventions, Chuck took some time off to start a family. At the behest of Bill Mann, he returned to attend PulpFest. As was his wont, Chuck immediately started volunteering and making suggestions to the organizing committee. Having enough of his puppy-dog eyes, he was asked to join the team. Chuck served as the convention’s technology director, helping to update the convention’s website. When the Internet began to take off, Chuck began Flearun, a Doc Savage group now at Facebook. He is also the creator of the Hidalgo Trading Company — perhaps the closest anyone has come to presenting an online Doc fanzine — and the current editor of the Doc Savage fan magazine The Bronze Gazette. He actively supports both the Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention and PulpFest through his online activities.
For twenty-five years, Howard Wright was the editor and publisher of the Doc Savage fan magazine, The Bronze Gazette. He created his magazine when there was no real Internet and very little information readily available about Lester Dent’s “Man of Bronze.” His main reason for starting the publication was to gather information about Doc Savage, disseminate this news to the “Fans of Bronze,” and keep Doc fans going during the “lean” years when Doc was, for the most part, a mere memory. Through Howard’s sustained efforts, interest in Doc was maintained and his return to the limelight assured. His final issue of the Gazette was published at the beginning of 2016. The magazine is being continued by Terry Allen, Kez Wilson, and Chuck Welch, creator of the Hidalgo Trading Company and a former member of the PulpFest organizing committee. It takes three people to duplicate Howard’s superb work on the Gazette. Howard continues to write for The Bronze Gazette.
Dan Zimmer has been working to promote greater awareness of pulp artists by producing and distributing Illustration Magazine since 2001. He has published nearly eighty issues of the magazine. Dan has tirelessly contributed his time, expertise, and personal wealth to promote a more respectful awareness of the artistic accomplishments of pulp artists through the deluxe publication of the many biographical articles on such artists that have appeared in his magazine. He has done this despite the overwhelming fact that his creative vision is far beyond receiving any reasonable economic return for his efforts. His devotion to classic American illustrators is manifest in the elegant presentation of his magazine and has helped to turn the tide in our culture’s growing appreciation of pulp art. Dan has also published illustrated biographies of pulp artists Walter Baumhofer, Rafael DeSoto, Tom Lovell, Norman Saunders, and H. J. Ward through his book-publishing arm, The Illustrated Press. Additionally, he has supported the pulp community by drawing his readers’ attention to various pulp conventions, including the Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention, Pulpcon, and PulpFest. He’s also helped them by sharing scans of original pulp art for advertising the convention and illustrating publications. Dan has also served as the sponsor of Windy City’s annual pulp art exhibit and created the limited edition print of David Saunder’s Munsey Award painting without cost to the PulpFest organizing committee.
A ballot listing these twelve nominees and their nominating petitions will be forwarded to all of the living Lamont, Munsey, and Rusty Award winners. These individuals will elect the winner of the 2024 Munsey Award.
The recipient of the 2024 Munsey Award will be announced on Saturday, August 3, as part of our evening programming, open to all members of PulpFest 2024 as well as the general public.
A limited edition of thirty-six numbered and signed prints, designed by artist and pulp enthusiast David Saunders, serves as the Munsey Award. The print was produced by Dan Zimmer of The Illustrated Press and the publisher of Illustration Magazine.
David Saunders is a New York artist whose work can be found in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, The New Museum, and at other museums and in public buildings throughout the United States and other countries. He has taught art at Yale, Oberlin, and many other colleges worldwide, including schools in Paris, London, and Tokyo. An expert on pulp art, he has been a guest speaker on the subject, including The Pulp Art Show held at the Brooklyn Museum in 2003, and has served as the guest of honor at various pulp conventions. He has presented at PulpFest countless times. David has written biographical articles on pulp artists Allen Anderson, Rudolph Belarski, Frederick Blakeslee, Ernest Chiriacka, Rafael DeSoto, John Newton Howitt, J. W. Scott, and others. He is also the author of Walter Baumhofer, Rafael DeSoto, Norman Saunders, and other book-length biographies and appreciations of the great pulp artists. David’s website —Field Guide to Wild American Pulp Artists— is a leading source of information for those interested in the artwork found in the pulp magazines. In 2016, David was honored with a special “retro” Lamont Award, to acknowledge his generous and substantial work for the pulp community. David will be discussing the “Spicy” artists at PulpFest 2024.
Our second image is the ERBFest 2024 banner, designed by William Lampkin. It shows Edgar Rice Burroughs reading the first book edition of The Land That Time Forget, published by A. C. McClurg in 1924.
PulpFest advertising director William Lampkin adapted our final image from H. L. Parkhurst’s cover for the December 1934 issue of Spicy-Adventure Stories.
