Convention season kicks it up a notch or two in May. Starting things off is the 2026 Northwest Coast Mangani Gathering, organized by the Burroughs Bibliophiles chapter of Northern California and the Pacific Northwest. NCM VIII will begin on Thursday, May 7, and run through Sunday, May 10, in Roseville, California. The dealers’ room will be open every day of the convention, except for Sunday.
This year’s gathering of the Mangani will be at the Best Western Plus Orchid Hotel & Suites at 130 North Sunrise Boulevard, located in Roseville, outside of Sacramento. There is no registration fee to join the convention.
There will be six presentations at NCM VIII, planned for Friday and Saturday afternoons, plus movie nights on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights. The Plastic Mangani Band, made up of members and friends of the chapter, will also perform. Four guest artists will be attending, including comic strip and comic book artist Thomas Yeates, Dan Parsons, Dan Brereton, and Chris Schenck.
An auction is planned for Saturday afternoon, followed by an informal pizza dinner. There will also be a farewell breakfast on Sunday, May 10. All NCM VIII activities will be held at the convention’s host hotel.
This free celebration devoted to the life and works of Edgar Rice Burroughs is an annual event sponsored by the Northwest Coast Mangani Chapter of the Burroughs Bibliophiles. You can reserve a room at the Best Western by clicking this link, or you can call the hotel at 916-784-2222. Be sure to mention the group name, “The Northwest Group.” The convention rate is $139 plus taxes per night for a room with two queen beds or one king bed. Parking, Wi-Fi, and a hot breakfast each morning are free. For additional information, please write to Dwayne Covey at dacmgcsec@aol.com.
Heading east to Ohio and the Crowne Plaza North, you’ll find the Columbus Moving Picture Show, scheduled for May 21 – 24. If you’re a collector of motion pictures and related items or an old movie fan, this is the show for you.
The convention’s host hotel is located at 6500 Doubletree Avenue, about 16 miles north of downtown Columbus, near the junction of routes 71 and 270. To book a room at the Crowne Plaza North, click here. You can also book a room by calling 877-666-3243. Be sure to mention the show to get the convention rate.
The Columbus Moving Picture Show features an extensive schedule of classic sound and silent films. The 1946 Republic Pictures cliffhanger The Crimson Ghost kicks off at noon on Thursday. The final contribution to serial-making by William Witney, this post-war Republic serial with its memorable titular villain, makes it thoroughly entertaining. For a look at the convention’s complete film program, click here.
You’ll also find over 100 tables of movie-related collectibles, such as posters, lobby cards, press kits, DVDs, and original films, in the convention’s spacious main hall, plus more dealer tables in the hotel’s various salons and foyers. You will certainly be hard-pressed to go home empty-handed.
To register for the convention, click here. To keep abreast of the latest details on the Columbus Moving Picture Show, be sure to sign up for their mailing list by clicking here. You can also follow the show via Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter/X.
The Fantastic Pulps Show & Sale — Canada’s premier pulp event — will take place on Saturday, May 30. A fun event 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 3 pm.
A small but terrific gathering 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.
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.
And of course, if you’re in Pittsburgh on May 30, please be sure to visit the Pgh Book Fest at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, located at 4400 Forbes Avenue in the Oakland neighborhood of the city. The Pgh Book Fest is a free event that celebrates the city’s rich literary community and love of reading. The festival features local and nationally-recognized authors, dozens of poets, children’s activities, bookstores, entertainment, publishers and more. To learn more, click our link above.
Our featured image is a still from the 1946 Republic Pictures 12-part movie serial The Crimson Ghost. Starring Charles Quigley, Linda Stirling, and Clayton Moore, with I. Stanford Jolley as the voice of the Crimson Ghost, this entertaining cliffhanger concerns a criminal mastermind who is out to steal a device that can short-circuit every electrical current on the planet. The Crimson Ghost and his gang of thugs use the machine to commit robberies, wreck cars, and crash planes. The complete serial will be shown at the Columbus Moving Picture Show, spread over several days.
Our lead image, by Thomas Yeates, one of the guest artists at NCM VIII, depicts Tarzan of the Apes being chased by a Tyrannosaurus rex. Edgar Rice Burroughs’ character encountered many dinosaurs – including T. rex – in the novel, Tarzan at the Earth’s Core. He was also chased by a Tyrannosaurus rex in the October 30, 1932 Sunday comic strip by Hal Foster. And in Dell’s comic book Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Tarzan #7, dated January/February 1949, the ape man tangles with another Tyrannosaurus in the story “Valley of the Monsters,” written by Gaylord Du Bois and illustrated by Jesse Marsh.
Leading our information about the Columbus Moving Picture Show is a poster for the 1946 Republic Pictures movie serial The Crimson Ghost. The poster artist is not known.
The Fantastic Pulps Show & Sale poster was adapted by Neil Mechem from Rafael DeSoto’s cover art for the October 1934 issue of All Detective Magazine, published by Dell.
