Pulp magazines have had a profound effect on popular culture across the globe. Their stories and art have reverberated through a wide variety of media — comic books, movies, paperbacks, genre fiction, television, men’s adventure magazines, radio drama, video, anime, manga, and role-playing games. And their influence continues today.
We hope you’ll join PulpFest 2025 from August 7 through August 10 at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Pittsburgh – Cranberry in Mars, Pennsylvania. We’ll be celebrating the “Masters of Blood and Thunder,” the “Great Pulp Villains,” Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze, and the writers, artists, and publishers of contemporary genre fiction at this year’s convention.
One of the leading publishers of today’s pulp-inspired fiction — Flinch! Books — will be front and center on the PulpFest stage on Friday, August 8, at 1:30 pm. Plan to be there for our 2025 Flinch! Fest and help celebrate the publisher’s 10th anniversary.
Flinch! Books was founded in 2015 by two Ohio-based writers living on the shores of Lake Erie. Since their initial foray into the world of independent publishing — Something Strange is Going On!: New Tales From the Fletcher Hanks Universe — co-publishers Jim Beard and John C. Bruening have followed with six other wide-ranging anthologies, as well as editions of their own work. Leading western writer, James Reasoner called one of their recent books, Six-Gun Legends, “. . . a really strong anthology with an intriguing concept and a good bunch of authors and stories.”
But what about the founders of Flinch! Books that we mentioned above?
Jim Beard became a published author when he sold a story to DC Comics in 2002. Since that time he’s written official Star Wars and Ghostbusters comic book stories and contributed articles and essays to several volumes of comic book history. His prose work includes the novellas Green Hornet: How Sweet the Sting and Kolchak: The Last Temptation; co-editing and contributing to Planet of the Apes: Tales from the Forbidden Zone; a story for X-Files: Secret Agendas; three books of essays on the 1966 Batman TV series and another on Star Trek comics; the Sgt. Janus occult detective series of novels; Monster Earth, a shared-world giant monster anthology series; Captain Action: Riddle of the Glowing Men, the first pulp prose novel based on the classic 1960s action figure; and more. Jim also provided regular content for Marvel.com, the official Marvel Comics website, for over seventeen years. He is now the publisher at Becky Books and the co-publisher at Flinch Books with John C. Bruening. In recent years, Jim has presented at PulpFest on such topics as Fiction House Comics, The Shadow, and “Tarzan: Lord of the Merchandising Jungle.”
John Bruening drew his literary inspiration from the stories of his father’s generation, defined by the Great Depression and World War II. “I was enamored with the adventure stories and pulps of my dad’s era. We were at rock bottom in the 1930s and facing a global threat in the 1940s. That landscape of adversity was the place where great heroes emerged.”
John has been writing professionally for nearly 40 years, first as a newspaper reporter and magazine editor and later as an advertising copywriter and marketing specialist. As far back as he can remember, he’s been a fan of comics, pulps, adventure fiction, classic movies and serials, old-time radio, and any other form of heroic storytelling. His debut novel, The Midnight Guardian: Hour of Darkness, was called “the creative construct of a first-rate storyteller” (William Patrick Maynard, writing for blackgate.com). John followed with the 2019 sequel, The Midnight Guardian: Annihilation Machine. The third volume in the series — The Midnight Guardian: God and Sinners — appeared in late 2022. Since then, John’s fiction and essays have also appeared in books by numerous other small press publishers, including Moonstone Books, Blue Planet Press, Becky Books, Stormgate Press, and others.
Please join PulpFest 2025 as we welcome Jim and John for “In-Your-Face Pulp-Style Adventure Fiction!” from Flinch! Books. Their Flinch! Fest is part of our fine line-up of programming at this year’s PulpFest.
The general public is welcome to attend our afternoon programming events free of charge. To learn more about our programming, please click the 2025 Schedule button at the top of this page.
For those who also want to enjoy our dealers’ room, you can join PulpFest by clicking the register button at the top of this page. And don’t forget to book a room. The DoubleTree is essentially sold out, but you can click here for nearby hotels. If you’re looking for a roommate, write to Jack Cullers at his email address below.
Remember, in addition to your membership in PulpFest 2025, you’ll also be a member of Doc Con XXI, ERBFest 2025, and Farmercon XX. That’s four conventions for one price! You can’t beat that deal.
If you’re interested in selling at PulpFest, our dealers’ room is full. However, we are considering adding tables in the pre-function hallway outside of the dealers’ room. These tables will cost $125 each and will be guarded by security overnight. If you are interested, please write to Jack Cullers at jack@pulpfest.com to be added to our waiting list.
The pulps gave us Buck Rogers, Conan the Barbarian, Cthulhu, Doc Savage, Hopalong Cassidy, John Carter of Mars, Sam Spade, The Shadow, Solomon Kane, Tarzan, Zorro, and many other pop culture icons. These characters and their stories continue to inspire writers, artists, and publishers even today.
Our featured image is excerpted from Adam Benet Shaw’s cover art for Occupied Pulp, edited by Jim Beard and John C. Bruening. The anthology features work by Justin Bell, John C. Bruening, Patricia Gilliam, William Patrick Maynard, Will Murray, and Bobby Nash.
Our lead image is a collage celebrating the 10th anniversary of Flinch! Books. It features the covers of the publisher’s fifteen books that they’ve released to date.
