From August 4 – 7, PulpFest will be returning to the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Pittsburgh – Cranberry in Mars, PA for its fiftieth convention.
Founded in 1972 by three St. Louis pulp fans, the first Pulpcon (our name at the time) drew about one-hundred pulp fans to the Colony Motor Hotel in Clayton, Missouri over a June weekend in 1972.
Initially viewed as a one-and-done affair, Pulpcon became an annual event, convening each and every summer through 2008. It became PulpFest with its 2009 edition. Except for 2020 — when the convention was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic — fans of early twentieth-century popular culture have gathered each and every summer for Pulpcon/PulpFest for over fifty years.
For the last fifty years, Pulcon/PulpFest has celebrated mystery, adventure, science fiction, and much more. The pulp magazines of the early twentieth century — cheaply-priced all-fiction magazines printed on pulpwood paper — were the vessel where the hardboiled detective, science fiction, and sword and sorcery genres developed and flourished. The pulps gave us Buck Rogers, Conan the Barbarian, Cthulhu, Doc Savage, Hopalong Cassidy, John Carter of Mars, Sam Spade, The Shadow, Solomon Kane, Tarzan, Zorro, and many other pop culture icons.
PulpFest 50 will celebrate “A Half-Century of Pulp Cons,” in recognition of our golden anniversary. Our guest of honor will be award-winning author Robert J. Randisi, called “one of the last true pulp writers” by Booklist magazine. The author of nearly 700 novels and over sixty short stories, Robert Randisi has also edited more than 35 anthologies and written a screenplay.
PulpFest 50 will also honor the centennial of Fiction House, the pulp magazine and comic book publisher that gave us Action Stories, Fight Comics, Jumbo Comics, Jungle Stories, Lariat Story Magazine, North-West Romances, Planet Stories, Rangers Comics, Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, Wings, and many other classic titles.
Additionally, our fiftieth summertime PulpFest will salute the ninetieth anniversary of Popular Publications’ “Dime” line of pulp magazines, particularly Dime Western and Dime Mystery. Both magazines debuted in 1932 and played a major role in the evolution of popular fiction.
We’re calling our salute to these two publishers, “Action for a Dime!” Our programming line-up will include talks on Robert E. Howard, the creator of Conan, Fiction House comic books, Ernest Hemingway and Dashiel Hammett, and much more (including an interview with our guest of honor). We’ll also have panels featuring contemporary writers and artists as well as a showing of the Republic Pictures movie serial, King of the Royal Mounted.
PulpFest 50 will also host an expansive dealers’ room packed with pulp magazines and related materials, vintage paperbacks, digests, men’s adventure and true crime magazines, contemporary genre fiction, first-edition hardcovers, series books, dime novels, original art, Big Little Books, Golden, Silver, and Bronze Age comic books, old-time-radio shows, gaming materials, and film serials, B-movies and related collectibles, and more!
On Saturday evening, August 6, the convention will hold a substantial auction featuring more than 200 lots of pop culture material.
To learn more about PulpFest 50, please visit the convention’s homepage at pulpfest.com. You can also learn about PulpFest on its Facebook page, Twitter feed, or Instagram.
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