With summer right around the corner, no less than five pulp-related conventions are scattered throughout North America. From Cross Plains, Texas all the way north to Toronto and places in between, the convention season is heating up!
Starting things off on Saturday, May 31, is the Fantastic Pulps Show & Sale — Canada’s premier pulp event. A fun show held for nearly 25 years at the Lillian H. Smith Branch of the Toronto Public Library, 239 College Street in Toronto, Ontario, this year’s show will run from 11 am until 4 pm.
A small but terrific event featuring a range of pulp and pulp-related items, you’ll find collectible pulp magazines, pulp reprints, vintage paperbacks, posters, and other ephemera offered by several book and paper sellers. The Merril Collection will also have a sale table of science fiction and fantasy paperbacks and hardcovers. Peter Halasz will be talking about Canada’s H. Bedford-Jones, the “King of the Pulps.”
The Fantastic Pulps Show & Sale is a great time for both serious pulp collectors and the casually interested, with lots of great stuff to see! For additional information, please visit the Toronto Public Library’s Merril Collection of Science Fiction, Speculation & Fantasy or contact the staff at 416-393-7748 or lsmestaff@tpl.ca.
Next up will be the 3 Rivers Comicon from June 7 – 8 at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in the heart of Pittsburgh. Tickets are available through the convention’s website or at any of the six New Dimension Comics locations. They will also be available at the door.
New Dimension Comics owner Todd McDevitt — a regular PulpFest dealer — and general manager Jon Engel launched 3 Rivers Comicon in 2016. After hearing complaints from customers about the increasing cost of conventions and how the shift to an array of pop culture had left comics in the shadows, they felt challenged. “We made it our mission to do it,” McDevitt said. “This is going to be a comic convention. If you want something else, go somewhere else.”
Weekend events will include panels, gaming, photo opportunities, and cosplay contests for kids and adults. There will also be an exclusive beer brewed for the convention that will be released during the 3 Rivers Comicon VIP Party. Visit the convention’s website for more information on events, as well as the convention’s guests and exhibitors.
The 2025 Robert E. Howard Days gathering is June 13 – 14 in Cross Plains, Texas. This year’s focus will be the centennial of Robert E. Howard’s first professional sale. In 1925, Howard’s short story, “Spear and Fang” appeared in the July issue of Weird Tales, marking the writer’s entry into the world of professional writing. A century later, his stories remain alive, being published and enjoyed by new and old readers alike.
The award-winning artist and Overstreet Hall of Fame inductee Mark Wheatley will be the Guest of Honor for this year’s Howard Days. One of Mark’s current projects is creating cover paintings for the Ultimate Edition series of Robert E. Howard books from the Robert E. Howard Foundation Press.
A new painting by Mark Wheatley, pictured above, will be available as an exclusive, signed, art print as a benefit for the Cross Plains civic organization, Project Pride, a sponsor for the annual Robert E. Howard Days.
In addition to the Guest of Honor appearance, there will be panel discussions, a celebration banquet, a silent auction, an open-air dealer’s area, a souvenir postal cancellation stamp, original REH manuscripts on display, gaming, poetry readings, a hot dog lunch, a BBQ dinner, and more. The REH Museum, grounds, and pavilion will be open for all to enjoy, with tours of the house and grounds. There will also be a bus tour and a walking tour of Cross Plains. Best of all, you will be in the company of your fellow Fans of Robert E. Howard and all his marvelous, iconic, and innovative literary creations.
Sponsored by Project Pride and the Robert E. Howard Foundation, with help from the members of the Robert E. Howard United Press Association (REHupa), Howard Days is a two-day extravaganza of tours, panels, auctions, banquets, speeches, signings, readings, buying and selling, rare Howard collectibles, and – most importantly of all – great Howardian fellowship. Come to Cross Plains to honor and support the Legacy of Bob Howard.
The cost for pre-registration is only $25 per person, due by May 31, 2025. To learn more about registering, please click here or click the “registration” button on the Howard Days homepage.
Visit the Howard Days homepage or Facebook site to learn more about this great event. You can also get more information by emailing Bill Cavalier. You can reach him by email at indybillcav@gmail.com or 2cavaliers@sbcglobal.net.
The summertime Monster Bash returns from June 20 – 22 at the Pittsburgh Marriott North, 100 Cranberry Woods Drive, Cranberry Township, Pennsylvania, just a few miles from the PulpFest host hotel. To book a room for the convention, call 724-772-3700 and be sure to ask for the special Monster Bash rate. You can also book a room here.
The International Classic Monster Movie Conference and Film Festival will feature Lon Chaney’s grandson, Ron Chaney; Bela Lugosi’s grandaughter, Lynne Lugosi-Sparks; American stunt performer and filmmaker Ricou Browning’s daughter, Renee Browning; Kathryn Leigh Scott and Sharon Smyth, two actors who appeared in the supernatural soap opera, Dark Shadows; actor and director Daniel Roebuck, who played Grandpa Munster in the film; screenwriter and film director John A. Russo, who co-wrote Night of the Living Dead; historians & Monster Bash magazine writers Greg Mank, Frank Dello Stritto, Tom Weaver, and Lucy Chase Williams; the legendary Ohio TV horror host, Son of Ghoul; and others.
Monster Bash celebrates the classic horror and science fiction films of the silent era through the 1980s. It’s a film festival; a place to meet the people in the movies, behind the movies, and fellow fans of the movies; and a monster memorabilia shopping gala.
Featuring over 100 vendor tables of collectibles, monster magazines, original movie posters, Blu-Rays, DVDs, VHS, model kits, action figures, comic books, vintage toys, and more, there will also be an extensive film festival, guest talks and interviews, a live musical performance, game shows, taco night, monster-sized sheet cakes, drive-in movie night, and other events.
Visit the Monster Bash website or call 724-238-4317 for further information. To purchase a membership pass to the three-day convention, click here.
Events like the Fantastic Pulps Show & Sale and Howard Days may keep you satisfied until PulpFest. So stay informed. Bookmark pulpfest.com to learn about all things pulp! Then like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter and Instagram. And don’t forget to subscribe to our e-letter and the PulpFest YouTube Channel, where you’ll find more than sixty videos, most of them by award-winning author and journalist Craig McDonald.
PulpFest 2025 is scheduled for August 7 – 10 at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Pittsburgh – Cranberry in Mars, Pennsylvania. We’ll be celebrating the 150th anniversary of the birth of bestselling writers Edgar Rice Burroughs, Rafael Sabatini, and Edgar Wallace. All this, plus ERBFest and FarmerCon XX, plus the long-awaited return of Doc Con at PulpFest 2025. That’s four conventions for the price of one!
Click the registration button below our home page banner to join PulpFest 2025 and help us celebrate “The Masters of Blood and Thunder” and more at this summer’s pulp con. To book a room at our hotel, click here.
Our featured image is excerpted from George Rozen’s cover art for the January 15, 1942 issue of The Shadow, illustrating Walter B. Gibson’s “The Book of Death.” Rozen’s cover art was also adapted for a previous Fantastic Pulps Show & Sale poster.
The Fantastic Pulps Show & Sale poster was adapted by Neil Mechem from Rudoph Belarski’s cover art for the January 7, 1939 issue of Argosy, illustrating the Edgar Rice Burroughs serial, “The Synthetic Men of Mars.”
“Solomon Kane’s Homecoming,” a poem written by Robert E. Howard, was first published in the Fall 1936 issue of Fanciful Tales, a semi-professional magazine that ran for a single issue. It is illustrated above by Mark Wheatley.
The PulpFest poster was adapted by William Lampkin from Duncan McMillan’s cover for the September 1, 1930 issue of Adventure.
The remaining illustrations are logos or posters for the conventions advertised.
