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Your narrator, the Leader
The Leader attended Pulpfest in Columbus, Ohio 21 - 23 July 2016. He enjoyed last year's show which he attended for the first time and plans to go every year from now on. The Leader loves comic books of course but he also is interested in pulp magazines and paperback books and original artwork for the same and Pulpfest is one of the few shows that has dealers selling lots of that type of merchandise.

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Dealer Set Up and Early Bird Buyers, Thursday, 21 July
Gene Carpenter
Here’s Silver Age comic book dealer Gene Carpenter (in orange cap) of All American Comics starting to set up late Thursday afternoon 21 July. Gene does over 30 shows a year and most normal people would consider all the tedious driving and lugging these heavy boxes in and out of hotels and convention centers to be too much work. But most of those normal people are trapped in boring jobs under the thumb of their bosses and enmeshed in the usual petty office politics. Gene turned his back on all that over 40 years ago when he chose the freedom of working for himself doing something he enjoys. He hasn’t looked back since.
Martin Grams, Jr.
Prolific author Martin Grams, Jr. also sets up at several shows per year, sometimes traveling with Gene Carpenter. Marty also promotes my favorite show, the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Con in Hunt Valley, Maryland. Here’s an Early Bird buyer looking over Marty’s rare movie and TV DVDs.
Greg Ketter
Greg Ketter of DreamHaven Books & Comics. had a lot of nice pulps at the show. I don’t know Greg and didn’t get much of a chance to talk to him during the show.
Tim Paxton
Here’s Tim Paxton (in blue shirt) appraising this Early Bird’s hardcover book collection. I enjoyed talking with Tim at last year’s show about H.P. Lovecraft and maybe locating me a first edition of Clifford D. Simak’s book City. Tim brought a lot more hardcovers to this year’s show, as seen in the foreground of this photo. I didn’t get a chance to talk to Tim at this year’s show.
Tony Tollin & Tony Isabella
In the evenings each night of the show various experts gave talks or slide show presentations pertaining to pulp magazines. Thursday night the first talk “Street & Smith’s Second Stringers - The Whisperer and The Skipper” was to be by pulp and comic book historian Will Murray. I wanted to meet Mr. Murray since I've been reading his articles in the old Comic Book Marketplace but he had to cancel. So small press publisher Tony Tollin and Marvel comic book writer Tony Isabella took his place.
Tony Tollin & Tony Isabella
Tony Isabella & Lewis Forro
This is the first time I’ve seen comic book writer Tony Isabella. I mentioned to him I had been following his career since the early days when he used to write for comic book fanzines. He mentioned the old Don & Maggie Thompson edited Comics Buyers’ Guide and I told him something like “even older than that. The early Marvel fanzine Marvel Mirror from the early 1970s.” Tony remembered that fanzine’s editor, Greg Kishel. I asked him about another prominent fanzine writer from that time, Dwight Decker. Tony said the last he heard Dwight was involved in self publishing.
Garyn Roberts
The next presentation of the night was “Traveling Though Time With H.G. Wells” by Garyn Roberts. Mr. Roberts talked about how important H.G. Wells was to the early history of science fiction and noted that the first 29 issues of the first science fiction pulp magazine, Amazing Stories, all had one Wells story and listed him on the cover. The cover shown in this photo is from a 1928 issue of Amazing Stories which was the first issue without Wells listed on the cover. Note the word “Scientifiction.” The phrase “science fiction” hadn’t been invented yet.

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