So what’s this PulpFest that has so many people talking? With over 5,300 followers on Facebook, nearly 2,300 on Instagram, and 1,600 on X/Twitter, it certainly has been generating a lot of excitement. And don’t forget the 940 subscribers to our YouTube Channel and the 1,500 who subscribe to the PulpFest E-letter. You can get our E-letter by clicking here.
PulpFest is named for pulp magazines — fiction periodicals named after the wood-pulp paper on which they were printed. Frank A. Munsey pioneered the format in 1896 with The Argosy. Stories like Edgar Rice Burroughs’ “Tarzan and the Apes” got things rolling.
The pulps began to flourish following the introduction of specialized magazines such as Detective Story and Western Story Magazine. Publishing legends Black Mask, Weird Tales, and Amazing Stories debuted during the 1920s. The early thirties introduced the hero pulps, while science fiction exploded as the world went to war in 1939.
By 1955, the pulps had largely disappeared. Although displaced by paperback books, comics, radio, television, movies, and more, the rough-paper periodicals had a profound effect on popular culture across the globe. They inspired everything from Star Wars and Jurassic Park to Batman and Spider-Man. The fiction and art of the pulps reverberated through films, comics, paperbacks, television, and even anime, video games, and role-playing games.
PulpFest 2026 will celebrate the centennials of Amazing Stories and Ghost Stories, plus a great deal more at this year’s convention. Hugo Gernsback’s groundbreaking science-fiction pulp and Bernarr Macfadden’s purportedly “true” magazine concerning the spirit world both debuted one hundred years ago.
PulpFest will celebrate three “Masters of Blood and Thunder” and a lot more at our 2025 convention. We’ll also be joined by Doc Con 2026, FarmerCon XXI, and The Shadow Con 2026. That’s four conventions for one price! You can’t beat that deal.
Over the last two weeks, we’ve been previewing all of the great programming planned for PulpFest 2026 and our associated conventions in our posts here on our website. And there’s more to come!!
But our programming is only the beginning! The PulpFest 2026 dealers’ room will feature tens of thousands of pulp magazines, vintage paperbacks, digests, genre books, original art, first edition hardcovers, series books, reference books, men’s adventure and true crime magazines, dime novels and story papers, Big Little Books, B-Movies, serials and related paper collectibles, old-time radio shows, and collectible comic books and newspaper adventure strips. We’ll also have author, artist, and publisher presentations and an auction and art show during the convention.
Expect all this and more at PulpFest 2026. We hope you’ll join us from July 30 – August 2 at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Pittsburgh – Cranberry in Mars, Pennsylvania for an Amazing time!
You can register for PulpFest 2026 and its associated conventions by clicking the registration link on the convention’s website at pulpfest.com. If you need lodging, you’ll also be able to book a room through the PulpFest website.
Published by the Frank A. Munsey Company, the October 1912 issue of The All-Story featured Edgar Rice Burroughs’ celebrated novel “Tarzan of the Apes,” published in its entirety. Clinton Pettee painted the front cover art for the magazine.
Burroughs’ Tarzan is perhaps the most famous character to emerge from the pulps. Others include Zorro, Conan the Barbarian, Dr. Kildare, The Shadow, Buck Rogers, Sam Spade, Doc Savage, and Cthulhu. Their stories have inspired countless creators the world over! Our featured image is excerpted from George Rozen’s cover art for the August 1, 1933 issue of The Shadow Magazine.
Learn more about the pulps and PulpFest by visiting our YouTube Channel for Craig McDonald’s What Is PulpFest?
And don’t forget to subscribe for more great videos from Craig & Company.
Happy Memorial Day. First widely observed on May 30, 1868, to commemorate the sacrifices of Civil War soldiers, after World War I, it became an occasion for honoring those who died in all of America’s wars and was then more widely established as a national holiday throughout the United States.
Pictured here is the December 1929 issue of Ghost Stories featuring cover art by George W. Gage, illustrating Cheiro’s “true ghost story” concerning the spirit of Edith Cavell, communicating her thoughts on sacrifice, duty, and mercy from beyond the grave.
Cavell was a British nurse who treated wounded soldiers from both sides during the First World War. She was executed on October 12, 1915, by the German military, after it was discovered that she had helped some 200 Allied soldiers escape from German-occupied Belgium.
