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.
Although the pulps played a very important role in the evolution of American popular culture, they were disappearing by the early fifties. While some became digests, the rough paper magazines seemed increasingly out of step with the generation coming home from the Second World War.
“The heroes who beat Hitler and Hirohito came back home to a period of difficult adjustment. . . . Men who had walked through the charred remains of Hiroshima or the gory battlefields of Europe returned to families and friends acquainted only with the sanitized version of the war that had been fed to the home front.
Sex with prostitutes or starving refugees, the need to kill a sixteen-year-old kid or be killed, and suicide missions that left battalions decimated were experiences that only other vets could understand. Men’s adventure magazines spoke their language, and reassured an entire generation that they were indeed heroes.”
Some of the great old pulps became men’s adventure magazines. Adventure, Argosy, Bluebook, and Short Stories were all retooled as “sweat magazines.” But most of the approximately 160 titles in the men’s field were introduced fresh and raw, designed to appeal to the returning veterans of World War II, and later, the soldiers shipped off to fight in Korea and Vietnam.
With so many titles, the men’s adventure magazines needed writers and artists. One of these was Gil Cohen, an illustrator who trained at the Philadelphia Museum School of Art. Known today as one of the leading military aviation artists in the world, Cohen was a freelance artist for ad agencies and the men’s adventure magazine market from 1953 through the early 70s. One of his biggest accounts was the Magazine Management company, publisher of For Men Only, Male, Men, Stag, and other titles. An assignment for Popular Publications’ Argosy eventually led to Cohen’s long-standing association with the Mack Bolan series, illustrating paperback covers for Don Pendleton’s Executioner novels.
We hope you’ll join PulpFest on Friday, July 31, at 7 pm as we welcome Wyatt Doyle to our programming stage for “Gil Cohen: Inside & Out,” a discussion of the artist’s work on covers and interior illustrations for the men’s adventure magazines and his career in general – from magazines to paperbacks to his celebrated work as a fine artist with a focus on aviation.
Wyatt Doyle is a writer and photographer from Pennsylvania. He launched New Texture in 2006 and edits and designs most of its publications. Wyatt co-edits the Men’s Adventure Library with Bob Deis, collecting classic stories and artwork from the men’s adventure magazines. Their books include Eva: Men’s Adventure Supermodel; Exotic Adventures of Robert Silverberg; George Gross: Covered; A Handful of Hell: Classic War and Adventure Stories; Maneaters: Killer Sharks in Men’s Adventure Magazines; Mort Künstler: The Godfather of Pulp Fiction Illustrators; One Man Army: The Action Paperback Art of Gil Cohen; Pollen’s Women: The Art of Samson Pollen; Weasels Ripped My Flesh! and other titles.
PulpFest 2026 begins on July 30 and runs through August 2 at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Pittsburgh – Cranberry in Mars, Pennsylvania. In addition to honoring the centennials of Amazing Stories and Ghost Stories, we’ll also be celebrating the sesquicentennial of writer Jack London’s birth, the centennial of the birth of artist Robert Kennedy Abbett, and more at this year’s convention.
The general public is welcome to attend our programming free of charge. To learn more about our presentations, please click the 2026 Schedule link found on our website.
For those who also want to enjoy our dealers’ room, you can join PulpFest by clicking the register link found on our website. And don’t forget to book a room at the DoubleTree. They’re going fast!
Remember, in addition to your membership in PulpFest 2026, you’ll also be a member of Doc Con 2026, FarmerCon XXI, and The Shadow Con 2026. That’s four conventions for one price! You can’t beat that deal.
If you’re interested in selling at PulpFest, all of our wall and foyer tables have been reserved. A few island tables are remaining for $110 per table. Please click the “register” link on our website to learn how to join the convention as a dealer.
Our featured image is excerpted from Gil Cohen’s cover art for the August 1961 issue of Man’s World magazine, depicting a Mosquito bomber raid during World War II.
Our lead image was adapted by William Lampkin from Cohen’s original cover art for the April 1967 issue of Men.
Our final image is the October 1959 number of Action for Men, with front cover art by Cohen, illustrating David Darrington’s true story, “Fraulein U-Boat.”
