We’re about sixty days away from the start of PulpFest 2025! On Thursday, August 7, be one of the hundreds of pop-culture fans arriving at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Pittsburgh – Cranberry, just north of Pittsburgh in Mars, Pennsylvania. Click the button marked “registration” at the top of this page to learn how to join this summer’s annual get-together for popular fiction and art fans.
If you’re planning to register for PulpFest 2025, remember that you can also submit material to this year’s auction. As long as you let us know what you intend to submit by 11:59 pm on Sunday, June 29, 2025 — along with photographs and descriptions of your submissions — your items will be eligible for online bidding. Click here for more information, or write to Mike Chomko at mike@pulpfest.com.
Another fast-approaching deadline is your nominations for the 2025 Munsey Award or Rusty Award. We must receive your nominations by 11:59 pm on Friday, June 13.
To nominate a person or organization for either or both of these prestigious awards, please state your reasons in a few sentences. Send your nomination to PulpFest marketing and programming director Mike Chomko at mike@pulpfest.com. You can also reach Mike at 2217 W. Fairview Street, Allentown, PA 18104-6542. For further guidelines about Munsey nominations, please click here.
The 2025 Munsey Award will be presented on Saturday, August 9, as part of our evening programming at PulpFest 2025.
PulpFest 2025 will be celebrating the “Masters of Blood and Thunder” this August. We’ll also have salutes to the “Great Pulp Villains,” Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze, and more at this year’s convention.
And don’t forget about the other terrific conventions that will be held in conjunction with this year’s PulpFest — ERBFest 2025, Farmercon XX, and Doc Con XXI, the first Doc Savage convention in nearly a decade. That’s four conventions for the price of one! You can’t beat that deal!
As part of our latest celebration of that Master of Adventure, Edgar Rice Burroughs, we’ll be hosting an art show on Friday and Saturday afternoon. It will be hosted by Henry G. Franke III — the editor of The Burroughs Bulletin and The Gridley Wave monthly newsletter. Henry is also one of the co-hosts of our 2025 ERBFest.
But that’s not all. PulpFest is very happy to welcome back FarmerCon, a gathering of the many fans of author Philip José Farmer.
Since 2011, PulpFest has hosted FarmerCon, a convention that began in Peoria, Illinois, the hometown of Philip José Farmer. Originally a gathering of Farmer fans figuratively, and literally, right outside Phil’s back door, FarmerCon offered presentations, dinners, and even picnics at the author’s house. After the passing of Phil and Bette Farmer in 2009, it was decided to take FarmerCon on the road to broaden its horizons. By holding the convention alongside PulpFest, Farmer fans get a variety of programming and a room full of pulp and book dealers to enjoy.
Our Farmer friends will be returning to PulpFest in 2025 for FarmerCon XX, celebrating the life and times of Philip José Farmer, longtime pulp fan and Grand Master of Science Fiction.
And just in time for the Golden Anniversary of George Pal’s film, Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze, the convention for the “Fans of Bronze” returns. Doc Con 2025 will take August 7 – 10 at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Pittsburgh – Cranberry as part of PulpFest 2025.
Doc Con centered around Doc Savage, the pulp character created by Lester Dent for the Street & Smith line of pulp magazines in 1933. It was founded in 1998 by Rob Smalley who thought of it as “a chance for fans to get together to celebrate the heroes of the pulp era.”
The general public is welcome to attend our programming events free of charge. To learn more about our programming, please click the 2025 Schedule button at the top of this page.
In the weeks ahead, we’ll be posting here about our dealers, more about our great programming line-up, our Pulpster program book, the writers and artists who will be appearing at PulpFest, and much more. You can keep abreast of these updates by bookmarking our homepage or liking us on Facebook. You can also follow us on X/Twitter or Instagram. Don’t forget to sign up for the PulpFest e-letter — focusing on the “behind-the-scenes” planning for this summer’s convention — by clicking here. Just give us your name and email address and click the “submit” button. While you’re at it, you may as well subscribe to our YouTube channel and enjoy the great videos that Craig McDonald has been creating since last year.
You can join PulpFest 2025 by clicking the registration button on the PulpFest website. If you want to sell at the convention, our dealers’ room is full. However, we are adding a limited number of 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 sign up for a spot. Any attendees who are interested in providing security services, please write to Jack Cullers at his email address above.
If you need lodging, the DoubleTree is essentially sold out, but you can click here for nearby hotels. As of this writing, there are a few rooms available at the convention rate on Saturday night. Click “book a room” on our website and edit your stay for just Saturday night.
If you’re looking for a roommate for your DoubleTree stay, please email convention chairman Jack Cullers at jack@pulpfest.com. He may be able to put you in touch with someone.
Join us at PulpFest 2025 for our celebration of the sesquicentennial of the births of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Rafael Sabatini, and Edgar Wallace, plus a whole lot more. You’ll have an amazing time!
So what’s your taste? Heroic warriors and omnipotent sorcerers? Mysteries that leave you breathless? Adventures inside the earth or beyond the farthest star? Finding true love when least expected? All have their roots in pulp fiction.
PulpFest is the convention for fans of popular culture and genre fiction both old and new. It celebrates the many ways that pulp magazines have inspired creators over the years.
Our lead image was adapted by William Lampkin from Clinton Pettee’s cover for the October 1912 issue of The All-Story, illustrating Edgar Rice Burroughs’ novel, “Tarzan of the Apes,” printed in its entirety.
The Munsey Award was created in 2009 by award-winning artist and pulp art historian David Saunders. Dan Zimmer of The Illustrated Press and former publisher of Illustration Magazine produced a limited signed and numbered edition of the award. The Munsey is named after Frank A. Munsey, the publisher of the first pulp magazine.
Our Farmercon postcard was adapted by William Lampkin from Griffith Foxley’s cover for the March 1946 Adventure. The artist painted at least one other cover for Adventure, the July 1940 number. He also painted covers for true crime magazines such as Master Detective and True Detective Mysteries and created interior art for Liberty. Foxley is best remembered for his paperback book cover paintings, including the Dell first edition of Fredric Brown’s Madball, Ernest Hemingway’s Across the River and Through the Trees, and the Donald Lam and Bertha Cool mystery, Top of the Heap. He seemed to primarily work for Dell’s paperback line.
Released in 1975 by Warner Bros., George Pal’s Doc Savage — The Man of Bronze starred Ron Ely in the title role. Directed by Michael Anderson, it was meant to be the first of several Doc Savage motion pictures. The artist who created the theatrical poster for the film was Roger Kastel.
Frank R. Paul, the “grandfather of science-fiction art,” painted the cover for the program book of the 13th World Science Fiction Convention — Clevention — held on September 2 – 5, 1955 at the Manger Hotel in Cleveland, Ohio. Although the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Pittsburgh – Cranberry is not quite as futuristic as Paul’s illustration — excerpted for our featured image — the hotel was completely renovated in 2016.
Our featured image is excerpted from Rudolph Belarski’s cover for the 1950 edition of Rafael Sabatini’s The Fortunes of Captain Blood, published by Popular Library. One of the sequels to the author’s popular Captain Blood, the book was originally published by Houghton Mifflin in 1936.
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.
Trademarks Tarzan®, Tarzan of the Apes®, Edgar Rice Burroughs®, Master of Adventure™, and others owned by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. Associated logos, characters, names, and the distinctive likenesses thereof are trademarks or registered trademarks of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. Used by Permission.
