PulpFest is not only lauded for its programming but also for its very substantial dealers’ room.
Beginning on Thursday, August 4, the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Pittsburgh – Cranberry will be home to thousands of collectible pulp magazines and digests, vintage paperbacks, first edition hardcovers and series books, original art, B-movies and serials, collectible comic books, and much more.
What dealers are we expecting at PulpFest 50? For the next three days, we’ll be profiling our dealers, telling you a little bit about each of them so you get to know them.
Doug Sims — who owns Heroes and Games, a comic book and collectible games store located at the Greater Columbus Convention Center in Ohio — will again be returning as a PulpFest 50 dealer. According to Doug, PulpFest is “Always one of my favorite cons to attend!” He will have long runs of all our favorite pulp heroes in the paperback format, Golden, Silver, and Bronze age comics, pulp-related games, and much more.
Mark Hickman, another Ohio dealer, will be offering a variety of science-fiction magazines and hero pulps, as well as comic books and original artwork from the pulps, comics, digests, and paperbacks. Mark will also be selling copies of The Collected Pulp Era, a two-volume set reprinting the complete run of his father Lynn Hickman’s classic pulp fanzine. Both volumes are very highly recommended.
We Are Doc Savage is a feature-length documentary film that will focus on the collectors, creators, and characters of Doc Savage fandom. Director Ron Hill is a lifelong Doc Savage fan and a contributor of articles, artwork, and cartoons to The Bronze Gazette, the premier Doc Savage fanzine. His first Savage articles appeared on the Hidalgo Trading Company website in 1996. Ron and Act 3 will have a table at PulpFest 50 where attendees will learn how they can support this exciting film through their stories and a Kickstarter campaign. The film’s release is planned for 2023 to honor the 90th anniversary of the Man of Bronze’s first pulp adventures.
Bob Kindel of Light Trading, LLC has been selling books at science fiction conventions and dice at gaming conventions throughout the Midwest since 1982. Based in Ohio, this will be Bob’s first PulpFest. He heard about our convention through the Burroughs Bibliophiles. Please welcome him to our convention.
Michael & Tracey Kowal have attended Pulpfest many times, both in Columbus and in Pittsburgh. Michael has been an avid collector of science fiction magazines, comic books, and first-edition, signed, limited, and special collection books. The Kowals will be selling pulps, science fiction and mystery digest magazines, Silver and Bronze Age comics, and large-size science fiction magazines from Michael’s collection. They’ll also have a complete collection of the World Fantasy Award-winning PULPHouse: The Hardback Magazine. Residents of the Pittsburgh area, please welcome these first-time PulpFest dealers.
2018 Munsey Award winner William Lampkin is the advertising director for PulpFest as well as the editor and designer of The Pulpster, the convention’s award-winning program book. Bill will have a tempting selection of pulp fanzines and other collectibles for sale at his table. He will also be the moderator of our “Fifty Years of PulpFest” panel on Thursday evening, August 4. Bill attended his first Pulpcon in 2006 and his first PulpFest in 2014.
A professional journalist and illustrator with over thirty years of experience, Sara Light-Waller is an accomplished new-pulp fiction author/illustrator. She is the winner of the 2020 Cosmos Prize for her illustrated short story, “Battle at Neptune.” Sara has a recent series of new pulp paintings as well as her book illustrations to view and purchase on her studio website: Flying Pony Studios. In 2022, she brings out her third illustrated new pulp novelette: Incorruptible. Find out more about her books at Lucina Press. A member of the PulpFest organizing committee and a regular contributor to our website and The Pulpster, she’ll be presenting on Planet Stories on Friday evening, August 5, and discussing pulp art with award-winning artist and illustrator Mark Wheatley on August 6.
Author of the Edgar-nominated “Hector Lassiter” historical crime series, Craig McDonald is an award-winning novelist, journalist, and editor. The “Lassiter” series chronicles the exploits of a fictional Black Mask author and his encounters with such notable figures as Ernest Hemingway, Orson Welles, Ian Fleming, and Lester Dent. McDonald’s internationally acclaimed works have found a global audience and have also been adapted in graphic novel format. His works have been published by Simon & Schuster and Macmillan Press. Craig — who writes regularly for pulpfest.com — will have copies of his new Doc Savage and The Shadow-inflected novel available at PulpFest 50.
Craig will be part of our Friday afternoon panel on “Bringing the Pulps to the 21st Century — The Writers,” and will be discussing the work of Ernest Hemingway and Dashiell Hammett with William Patrick Maynard on Saturday, August 6. Craig will also be debuting The Blood Ogre, the first book in a new series inspired by the great pulp heroes of the 1930s.
John McMahan sells collectibles on ebay as mybckpages. He comes to us from Oklahoma, where he has long been active as a fan and dealer. At PulpFest 50, John will be selling pulps, books, comics, original art, movie posters, and more. He will also have copies of Hard-Boiled Christmas Stories, the anthology he edited with 2006 Lamont Award winner John Wooley. Check out our profile of the latter by reading “PulpFest Profile: Seven Senses of John Wooley” on our website.
Peter Macuga will be selling at PulpFest for the fourth year. He will be bringing many boxes of pulps and books to sell, including early issues of Astounding Stories, up through the late 1940s. Peter will also have collectible hardcovers from Gnome Press and other publishers.
From Waterloo, Illinois, Dave Schmidt will be bringing pulps and digests, collectible paperbacks, original artwork, and other paper ephemera. This will be his first PulpFest in many years. Visit Main Street Music for more information about this fine Midwestern dealer of paper collectibles.
Tom Martin has been a longtime collector of pulps, digests, vintage paperbacks, golden age comics, and many related items. Located in southwestern Ohio, Tom has attended many pulp conventions since the late 1970s, sometimes as a collector and other times as a dealer. He will be offering a diverse selection of items from all areas of our collecting interests, including a few surprises that are rarely offered. Be sure to visit his display at PulpFest 50.
Collecting since the early days of pulp fandom, legend has it that Walker Martin has owned practically every pulp at least once! A resident of New Jersey, he’ll be selling a variety of pulp magazines, original artwork, one-of-a-kind canceled checks from the files of Munsey and Popular Publications, and more at PulpFest 50. Walker contributes a regular column on pulp collecting to Steve Lewis’ Mystery*File blog.
The assisting marketing director for PulpFest, William Patrick Maynard is also the author of the first authorized Fu Manchu thrillers in over thirty years. He will be signing and selling copies of his books, including the Flinch! Books anthology, Occupied Pulp. Bill will also have a selection of material from his own collection to sell. In addition to manning a table in our dealers’ room, he will be hosting our “Bringing the Pulps to the 21st Century — The Writers” panel on Friday afternoon and joining Craig McDonald for a discussion concerning “Influence or Coincidence? Hemingway’s Fiction and Hammett’s Hardboiled Pulp,” on Saturday. Bill will also be part of our Flinch! Books panel.
If you would like to register as a dealer at this year’s PulpFest, we’ve run out of tables. Please contact Jack Cullers to be added to our waiting list. You can reach him at jack@pulpfest.com.
To enjoy our dealers’ room, click the Registration button at the top of this page to join PulpFest. And don’t forget to book a room at the DoubleTree by Hilton Pittsburgh — Cranberry in Mars, Pennsylvania. They’re going fast! So don’t wait! Remember, you must book your room by 11:59 PM tonight to get the special convention rate.
You can also reserve a room by calling 800.222.8733 or 724.776.6900. Be sure to mention PulpFest to get the special convention rate.
We’ll be profiling more of our PulpFest 50 dealers through Friday, July 22. Please visit our site on Thursday for our next segment.
Our PulpFest 50 advertisement was adapted by William Lampkin from Planet Stories for March 1952 with cover art by Allen Anderson. Published by Fiction House, we’ll be saluting the publisher’s centennial at PulpFest 50. Our featured image is also by Allen Anderson, adapted from his cover art for the Spring 1950 issue of Planet Stories.
William Lampkin is the editor and designer of The Pulpster. Pictured above is our 2021 edition of the PulpFest program book. Issue #30 features cover art by Graves Gladney, originally used to illustrate “The Scent of Death,” first published in The Shadow for June 1, 1940. Bill Lampkin designed the cover from Gladney’s original artwork.
Walker Martin is the only collector known to have a complete run of Munsey’s All-Story pulp. He picked up the last issue that he needed at a recent PulpFest. Pictured here is All-Story Weekly for March 20, 1920, with cover art by P. J. Monahan.
