So what’s this PulpFest that has so many people talking? With more than 4,600 followers on Facebook, over 2,100 on Instagram, and about 1,500 on X/Twitter, it certainly has been generating a lot of excitement. And don’t forget the 800 subscribers to our YouTube Channel and the 900+ who subscribe to the PulpFest E-letter. You can get our E-letter by clicking here.
PulpFest is named for pulp magazines — fiction periodicals named after the wood-pulp paper on which they were printed. Frank A. Munsey pioneered the format in 1896 with The Argosy. Stories like Edgar Rice Burroughs’ “Tarzan and the Apes” got things rolling.
The pulps began to flourish following the introduction of specialized magazines such as Detective Story and Western Story Magazine. Publishing legends Black Mask, Weird Tales, and Amazing Stories debuted during the 1920s. The early thirties introduced the hero pulps, while science fiction exploded as the world went to war in 1939.
By 1955, the pulps had largely disappeared. Although displaced by paperback books, comics, radio, television, movies, and more, the rough-paper periodicals had a profound effect on popular culture across the globe. They inspired everything from Star Wars and Jurassic Park to Batman and Spider-Man. The fiction and art of the pulps reverberated through films, comics, paperbacks, television, and even anime, video games, and role-playing games.
PulpFest will celebrate three “Masters of Blood and Thunder” and a lot more at our 2025 convention. We’ll also be joined by Doc Con XXI, ERBFest 2025, and Farmercon XX. Your PulpFest 2025 membership will garner you memberships in all three of our associated conventions as well. That’s four conventions for the price of one! You can’t beat that deal!
We’ll start previewing all of the great programming planned for PulpFest 2025 and our associated conventions in our posts here at our website, beginning May 12.
But our programming is only the beginning! The PulpFest 2025 dealers’ room will feature tens of thousands of pulp magazines, vintage paperbacks, digests, genre books, original art, first edition hardcovers, series books, reference books, men’s adventure and true crime magazines, dime novels and story papers, Big Little Books, B-Movies, serials and related paper collectibles, old-time radio shows, and collectible comic books and newspaper adventure strips. We’ll also have author, artist, and publisher presentations and an auction and art show during the convention.
Expect all this and more at PulpFest 2025. We hope you’ll join us from August 7 – 10 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 our website. If you need lodging, you can also book a room on our site. But hurry! Our hotel has sold out the last few years well before PulpFest gets underway.
Published by the Frank A. Munsey Company, the October 1912 issue of The All-Story featured Edgar Rice Burroughs’ celebrated novel “Tarzan of the Apes,” published in its entirety. Clinton Pettee painted the front cover art for the magazine.
Burroughs’ Tarzan is perhaps the most famous character to emerge from the pulps. Others include Zorro, Conan the Barbarian, Dr. Kildare, The Shadow, Buck Rogers, Sam Spade, Doc Savage, and Cthulhu. Their stories have inspired countless creators the world over! Our featured image is excerpted from George Rozen’s cover art for the August 1, 1933 issue of The Shadow Magazine.
Learn more about the pulps and PulpFest by visiting our YouTube Channel for Craig McDonald’s What Is PulpFest?
And don’t forget to subscribe for more great videos from Craig & Company.
