Your narrator, the Leader
The Leader attended Pulpfest in Cranberry, Pennsylvania 19 - 22 August 2021. This show along with the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Con in Maryland are his two favorite shows but sadly the two shows had conflicting dates this year and the Leader had to forgo attending the Mid-Atlantic show. Three of the dealers the Leader enjoys seeing at Pulpfest, Gene Carpenter, Martin Grams, Brendan Faulkner all made the opposite decision and chose the Mid-Atlantic over Pulpfest to the Leader's mild chagrin. Still, the Leader enjoyed seeing his other dealer friends Mark Hickman, Ray Walsh, Joe Saines who always attend this show. The Leader was especially pleased to visit with his special Men's Adventure magazine dealer friends Bob Deis and Wyatt Doyle and their customer Eric Blackburn. A special surprise addition to the Men's Adventure coterie was Jacqueline Pollen who the Leader found enchanting. She is the widow of noted Mens Adventure magazine artist Sampson Pollen. The Leader, Wyatt, Eric and Ms. Pollen had a stimulating dinner at Max & Irma's restaurant where the Leader also satisfied his two year wait to consume that restaurant's famous Garbage Burger. The Leader also culminated another two year wait. At this show in 2019 he wanted to take his picture at the famous flying saucer in the nearby town of Mars but none of the local residents in Cranberry knew where it was. This year the Leader arrived early and sniffed out its location and took his long delayed photo. Another two year wait ended in failure however. Each year he and Gene Carpenter (who alone knows the location) visit the magical Secret Ice Cream Parlor. Before leaving for the show the Leader asked Gene the directions to the Secret Ice Cream Parlor. Gene's directions were to an ice cream store but the wrong one. Perhaps Gene wants the location to remain a secret.
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Thursday Night 19 August 2021
Henry G. Franke
The Burroughs Bibliophies is a long established literary group devoted to the study of the books of the world's most famous pulp magazine writer, Edgar Rice Burroughs. One of the group's top members, Henry Franke, gave an interesting 35mm slide presentation covering Burroughs's life and many books. The emphasis was on his years of service in World War II in the Pacific Theater as a U.S. Army and Navy war correspondent. If you need to know anything related to Burroughs, ask Mr. Franke.
Standing at right introducing Mr. Franke is Pulpfest's director of programming Mike Chomko.
Henry G. Franke
Some of ERB's first edition hardcover books. I'll have to be satisfied with the paperback versions of these. I can't afford the hardcover originals.
Henry G. Franke
The photo at bottom is one of the last photos taken of Burroughs. He is with two female family members and Tarzan actor Lex Barker on a movie set. When movie Tarzan Johnny Wessimuller got too old and fat for the job in the late 1940s the job was passed onto Lex Barker who later passed it to body builder Gordon Scott in the late 1950s.
Friday 20 August 2021
Cathy Wilbanks and Christopher Paul Carey
Here are two more Edgar Rice Burroughs experts, Christopher Paul Carey and Cathy Wilbanks of "Edgar Rice Burroughs Universe" which markets books and other merchandise for the company Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. Chris is Director of Publishing for ERB Inc. and Cathy is Vice President of Operations for ERB, Inc. Chris and Cathy had lots of new editions of Tarzan, John Carter and other Burroughs's books for sale. Many of their books have dust jacket covers drawn by famous fantasy artist Joe Jusko.
Cathy Wilbanks
Cathy with a new "restored" hardcover edition of a ERB science fiction novel from 1942 Beyond The Farthest Star. Cathy and Chris told me the original publications had been heavily edited but their new edition is the way ERB originally wrote it. The cover is by Frank Frazetta and is the same as the paperback edition of this book published by Ace Books in the 1960s. I have lots of ERB paperbacks rummaged from used book stores the past 40 years but I never saw any copies of The Girl From Hollywood. Cathy told me Burroughs wrote this book soon after moving to Southern California in the 1940s and was based partly on his experiences with the Hollywood movie people he was working with on the Tarzan movies.
Ray Walsh
I always enjoy seeing every year veteran book store owner Ray of Walsh of Curious Book Shop in East Lansing, Michigan. Ray has one of the largest Pulpfest displays and he carries in and sets up his massive collection of magazines, pulps and books all by himself. This year Ray showed me his recent acquisition from an estate, 2,000 8" x 10" size movie publicity photos from the 1930s and 1940s. I dabble in collecting movie and TV publicity photos so I asked Ray what the price was for all of them. I hoped he was going to say $5,000 but he said $20,000. I then asked if I could cherry-pick any John Wayne photos and pay $20 each but he said no. Ray said he was probably going to consign the photos to Hake's Auctions.
Ray Walsh
Ray with two of his many wonderful pulps: Amazing Stories January 1941 with the John Carter cover story actually written by ERB's son John Coleman Burroughs. The cover is illustrated by the famous J. Allen St. John who drew many ERB pulp covers in those days; Startling Stories April 1945 with the cover story written by prolific pulp writers Edmond Hamilton. Later in the 1950s and 1960s Hamilton wrote lots of Superman comic book stories for DC Comics and gave them the same science fiction flavor he gave his pulp magazines stories. The cover is by noted pulp artist Earle Bergey.
John Hauser
Veteran comic book dealer John Hauser is noted in comic book collecting circles for discovering two important pedigree comic collections, the Green River and the Curator collections. John's copy of Famous Fantastic Mysteries April 1950 has the first publication of "The Secret People" by famous British science fiction author John Wyndham writing under one of his pseudonyms - John Beynon. Wyndham is best known for his novels The Day of the Triffids and The Midwich Cuckoos both of which have been made into movies. The cover art on this pulp is by an obscure artist, "Lawrence." If you like midgets and mushrooms check out the cover art on the 1964 Lancer paperback version done by a much more famous artist, Frank Frazetta.
I bought an average condition copy of this Lancer paperback when I was a kid in Savannah, GA because I liked the Frazetta cover art. A few months ago when a high grade unread copy popped up in a Proxibid internet auction I paid the big stupid money to get it.
Mark Hickman
Mark Hickman is another of the dealers I enjoy talking with each year at Pulpfest partly because of his science fiction ancestral pedigree - Mark's father Lynn Hickman was one of the founders of the original Pulpcon shows in the early 1970s. The elder Hickman knew and corresponded with many famous science fiction and comic book personalities who were guests at Pulpcon in those days. At this year's show Mark brought a box of letters written to his father by by those famous Pulpcon guests. Mark is holding one of the letters written by DC comic book artist Joe Kubert and is also showing here a Tarzan sketch by Kubert signed by him. See some of the other examples in the photos at right and below.
Mark Hickman
Page one of a two page letter from Famous Monsters Of Filmland editor sci-fi literary agent Forrest J. Ackerman. The second page (not shown) is signed at the bottom "Forrest."
Mark Hickman
Letter from noted science fiction Frederik Pohl.
Mark Hickman
Here's a promotional flyer about an early Star Trek fan club, newsletter and lots of merchandise for mail order. I received one of these in the mail back in the day; I think it was in the late 1960s when the TV show was still on the air. I may have my copy tucked away in a box but I wasn't sure so I asked Mark the price but he said he wasn't ready to sell it yet.
Mark Hickman
Here's the Creme de la Creme for me - a handwritten Christmas card from my favorite science fiction author, Clifford D. Simak!
Tom Martin
Tom Martin is a dealer who doesn't often set up at Pulpfest and it was a pleasure to meet him for the first time. He had a nice collection of pulps seen on his table here in reasonably high grade, certainly much better condition than you usually see pulp magazines.
Tom Martin
Tom with a rare issue of Science Fiction Digest #2, 1954 with the Creature From the Black Lagoon on the cover. Less rare but still not easy to find is Mechanix Illustrated May 1954 with another Creature cover.
Mark Hickman & Tom Martin
Mark and Tom with two rare movie tie-in artifacts. I've always liked the Ray Harryhausen movie 20,000 Miles To Earth and I've been trying to buy for several years now the Amazing Stories digest issue with the Ymir monster on the cover. Amazing Stories digests are not especially rare but most people are hoarding this issue so the few that are available are in the rarefied $200 range. The only other copy in the dealers room was Tim Paxton's in the same price range. Much rarer than this Amazing Stories digest is the item Tom is holding: a promotional poster for the digest and the movie! I knew this item existed but I had never seen one until Tom's copy popped up at this show.
You are on Page 1 of the Leader's Report on Pulpfest 2021.
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