PulpFest 2025 enters its second day, following a successful dealer set-up, early registration, early-bird shopping, and a full slate of programming. If you missed our first day, there’s still more to come at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Pittsburgh – Cranberry in Mars, Pennsylvania.
There is ample free parking surrounding the convention’s host hotel. It is very conveniently located at the intersection of three major roadways in Cranberry Township. The DoubleTree is just off the Pennsylvania Turnpike and Interstate-79. The address is 910 Sheraton Drive, Mars, Pennsylvania. We have a map on our website, or click here for a link to a large map of the area.
The dealers’ room will be open today from 9 am until 4:45 pm. Located in the Grand Ballroom of the DoubleTree, our dealers’ room will feature exhibitors selling and trading pulp magazines and related materials, digests, vintage paperbacks, contemporary genre fiction and pulp reprints, men’s adventure and true crime magazines, first-edition hardcovers, series books, dime novels, original art, Big Little Books, B-movies, serials and related paper collectibles, old-time-radio shows, and Golden and Silver Age as well as pulp-related comic books and games. That’s why PulpFest is known as the “pop culture center of the universe!”
For those who have not yet registered for PulpFest 2025, you can do so today from 9 am until 4:45 pm. To help things move smoothly, please bring along a completed registration form. You can download a copy by clicking here or through the link found on our registration page. Paper forms will also be available at the door.
A full weekend membership to PulpFest 2025 will cost $50 at the door for those who have not registered in advance. Although there is no daily membership available for Thursday, August 1, daily memberships for Friday or Saturday will be available for $25 per day. Your PulpFest membership also includes membership in Doc Con XXI, ERBFest 2025, and FarmerCon XX. That’s four conventions for the one price!
If that’s not enough, New Dimensions Comics, Pittsburgh’s largest retail seller of comics, games, and collectibles, is offering a 10% discount to PulpFest 2025 members from August 7 – 10. Just show your PulpFest badge to the staff when you’re checking out. With six storesin the area, New Dimension’s closest location is just 2.5 miles from the DoubleTree at 20550 Route 19 in Cranberry Township.
Our daytime programming will begin at 12:30 pm with Personal Demons and the Creative Mind, a panel of contemporary writers who will discuss how various pulp-era creators drew on their anxieties, experiences, and weaknesses to fuel and add to their work. Click the link above to learn more.
We’ll also have this year’s Flinch! Fest and The Universe According to Edgar Rice Burroughs, part of our ERBFest 2025 programming.
The ERBFest 2025 art show will also begin today. Honoring the sesquicentennial of the birth of Edgar Rice Burroughs, it will take place in the Chestnut Room, across from the hotel’s main elevator. The art exhibit will be hosted by Henry G. Franke III, the editor of The Burroughs Bulletin and The Gridley Wave monthly newsletter.
Our daily auction preview will run from 3:30 – 4:45 PM. We’ll be selling over 200 lots of material from a few small estates and lots consigned by members of the convention. The auction will take place on Saturday, August 9, beginning at 9 pm. The general public is welcome to attend and bid. To learn more or to download an auction catalog, click here.
Our full evening programming slate will begin at 6:55 pm, beginning with Masters of Men’s Adventure Magazines, a presentation on the writers, artists, editors, publishers, and models for the men’s adventure magazines of the late 20th century.
A showing of George Pal’s 1973 film, Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze, will close our Friday evening programming, beginning shortly after 11 pm. If you prefer socializing, join us in the Ember & Vine lounge at the DoubleTree for Fraternize at Farmercon, part of this year’s convention for the fans of Philip José Farmer.
You’ll find our complete schedule for Friday, August 8, below. You can also access our schedule via our homepage by clicking the 2025 schedule button on our home page or via your mobile phone or tablet, by visiting pulpfest.com/schedule/. Each event on the schedule is linked to a post that provides additional information about the event. Just click on the event’s title.
Watch for the “panels” banner to find our programming area at the convention. The general public is welcome to attend all of our programming, free of charge.
If you are not from the Pittsburgh area and have yet to book your room for PulpFest 2025, please call 1-724-776-6900 or 855-610-8733 to reach the DoubleTree. Although the convention rate is no longer available, there may be some vacancies at the hotel. Other options include the Hampton Inn, Hilton Garden Inn, or Home2 Suites. They’re all less than two miles away from our host hotel. Click here to learn more.
Please travel safely to summer’s pulp con.
Friday, August 8, 2025
Dealers’ Room
9:00 am – 4:45 pm — Dealers’ Room Open to All PulpFest Members
9:30 am – 4:45 pm — Submit Your Auction Items to PulpFest (Dealers’ Room)
Art Show
11:30 am – 1:30 pm — ERBFest — Edgar Rice Burroughs, Master of Adventure (hosted by Henry G. Franke III in the Chestnut Room)
Afternoon Programming
12:30 pm – 1:25 pm — Personal Demons and the Creative Mind (John Bruening, Morgan Holmes, Craig McDonald, and Will Murray, with William Patrick Maynard)
1:30 pm – 2:25 pm — Flinch! Fest (John C. Bruening & Jim Beard)
2:30 pm – 3:25 pm — ERBFest — The Universe According to Edgar Rice Burroughs(Christopher Paul Carey, Cathy Wilbanks, Chris L Adams, & Win Scott Eckert)
Auction Preview
3:30 PM – 4:45 PM — Auction Preview (in Willow & Walnut Rooms)
Evening Programming
6:55 pm – 7:40 pm — Masters of Men’s Adventure Magazines (Bob Deis & Wyatt Doyle)
7:45 pm – 8:30 pm — ERBFest — The Masters of Tarzan Illustration (Mark Wheatley and Doug Klauba)
8:35 pm – 9:20 pm — FarmerCon XX — Tarzan the Time Traveler and Discourses on Doc (Christopher Paul Carey & Win Scott Eckert)
9:25 pm – 10:10 pm — Rafael Sabatini, Master of Blood and Thunder (Morgan Holmes)
10:15 pm – 11:00 pm — Doc Con — Doc Savage and the Bantam Revival: A Conversation with Will Murray (with Ron Hill)
11:05 pm – 12:40 am — Doc Con Film Showing — Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze (1975)
Hotel Lounge
11:05 pm – ?? am — Fraternize at Farmercon — Socialize at Ember & Vine
Our featured image is excerpted from Robert McGinnis‘ original art for Rafael Sabatini’s Captain Blood Returns, published in 1963 by Popular Library. The novel was originally published in 1931 by Houghton Mifflin Company. We hope you join us tonight at 9:25 as Morgan Holmes discusses Rafael Sabatini, Master of Blood and Thunder, as part of our evening programming.
Our lead image was adapted by William Lampkin from Thomas Beecham’s cover art for the March 1956 issue of Fury: Exciting True Adventures for Men, illustrating Howard Pyle’s article, “Bloody Buccaneers of the Spanish Main.” We’ll be saluting the 150th anniversary of the birth of Rafael Sabatini — one of the leading writers of pirate stories of all time — the “Masters of Men’s Adventure,” and more at PulpFest 2025.
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 poster artist is Roger Kastel.
PulpFest advertising director William Lampkin designed the logos used in our post.
