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.
Following its declaration of bankruptcy in early 1929, the Experimenter Publishing Company – the publisher of Amazing Stories – was taken over by the Irving Trust Company. With Hugo Gernsback gone, the magazine’s Associate Editor, T. O’Conor Sloane, was placed in charge of Amazing.
Although well-grounded in the sciences, Sloane was nearing his 80th birthday when he became the editorial director of the first continuing science fiction magazine. Under Sloane, Amazing muddled along for nearly a decade, losing more and more readers year after year. In 1938, the management team finally threw in the towel and sold out to Ziff-Davis.
At the urging of Roger Sherman Hoar, the popular pulp writer better known as Ralph Milne Farley, the new publisher hired Milwaukee science fiction fan and writer, Raymond A. Palmer, as editor of Amazing Stories.
The co-founder of the first science fiction fanzine, The Comet, Palmer was told by his employers to boost circulation or see Amazing Stories shuttered. Throwing out any Sloane material that was on hand, RAP – as he was nicknamed – targeted the youth market, publishing the thrilling type of science fiction that he had enjoyed as a kid. “Gimme bang-bang,” he told his writers.
Not only did Amazing Stories survive during Ray Palmer’s editorship, it prospered, outselling all of its rivals. Before long, Ziff-Davis was adding more pulps to its stable, including Fantastic Adventures, Mammoth Detective, South Sea Stories, and other titles.
We hope you’ll join PulpFest on Friday, July 31, at 7:50 pm as we welcome John Ventre to our programming stage for “The Amazing Ray Palmer,” a look at RAP’s years as a Ziff-Davis editor, as well as his career as editor and publisher of such magazines as Fate, Flying Saucers from Other Worlds, Mystic Magazine, Other Worlds Science Stories, Universe Science Fiction, and other titles.
An author, speaker, conference host, and UFO researcher, John Ventre is a retired state security and public affairs director for UPS. John was also the Pennsylvania State Director for the Mutual UFO Network for ten years and hosted nearly 60 episodes of UFOs Over Pittsburgh on television. He has also appeared on twenty episodes of the History Channel’s Hangar 1: The UFO Files. John has authored several books on UFOs, the apocalypse, and demonology, and has been active in politics and charities in southwestern Pennsylvania.
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 Malcolm H. Smith’s cover art for the November 1949 issue of Other Worlds Science Stories, illustrating Richard S. Shaver’s “The Fall of Lemuria.” It’s the first issue of the Clark Publishing science fiction digest, edited by Raymond A. Palmer, under the pseudonym of Robert N. Webster.
Our lead image was adapted by William Lampkin from H. W. McCauley’s cover art for the July 1943 issue of Amazing Stories. The man in the image is none other than Ray Palmer, who was the editor of Amazing Stories at the time.
In 1938, Amazing Stories was acquired by Ziff-Davis, a company then based in the Windy City. Naming Ray Palmer as the magazine’s editor, the cover for the first “pure-Palmer” issue was a photograph staged by Horace Hime and Frank Lewis. The concept was largely derided by science fiction fans. After one more cover photograph, the magazine returned to illustrated covers.
In late 1947, Ray Palmer and Curtis Fuller, another Ziff-Davis employee, established Clark Publishing. Together, they began publishing their own magazines, including Fate. After hiding behind the name Robert N. Webster for a year or two, Palmer became the name on the masthead of Fate, Other Worlds Science Stories, and other Clark Publishing magazines after he left Ziff-Davis in late 1949. Pictured above is the first issue of Fate, dated Spring 1948, with cover art by James B. Settles.
