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Your narrator, the Leader
After two days gazing in awe at the beautiful Steve Ditko murals and museum artifacts in Johnstown, PA the Leader continued his journey to the nearby Mars, PA to attend the Pulpfest convention. Pulpfest is one of the Leader's favorite conventions since he gets to see pulps, paperbacks and original art not on display at the usual comic book shows. Of course the Leader enjoyed seeing his dealer friends Tim Kupin, Ray Walsh, Joe Saines, Bill Thade, Rick Santman, the Meteor House men, Chris Maffei, Craig Poole, Derek Woywood, Doug Ellis, Todd Warren. He especially enjoyed his Friday and Saturday night dinners with Tom Martin and late night reveries with two members of the Men's Adventure magazine coterie Wyatt Doyle and Eric Blackburn. The Leader's only lament was the absence this year of the other two members of that coterie - Bob Deis and Jackie Pollen.

Click here for Page 2 of the Leader's Report on Pulpfest 2025
Click here for Page 3 of the Leader's Report on Pulpfest 2025
Click here for the Main Introduction Page to see the Leader's Report on the Steve Ditko Murals and Museum
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Dealer Setup Thursday 7 August 2025
John McMahan
John McMahan talking with a potential customer. John always has a nice selection of pulps, paperbacks and Silver Age comic books.
John McMahan
John with two copies of the late 1940s Avon Fantasy Reader digest magazine featuring Robert E. Howard stories. This title only had reprinted stories but it is collectible because of the outlandish covers. I only need these two issues and the famous #12 with the naked women in plastic tubes to complete my collection.
Michael Koval
Mike is holding Planet Stories March 1954 with a cover by the famous artist Frank Kelly Freas. The Fall 1949 issue at right has a story noted on the cover by Leigh Brackett. Ms. Brackett was one of the few pulp writers to break into the big time realm of writing screenplays for Hollywood movies. She wrote the screenplay for the Howard Hawks movie Rio Bravo, 1959 starring John Wayne and Dean Martin.
Ed Hulse
Noted pulp magazine and old movie historian Ed Hulse with his latest book on pulp magazines Blood 'N' Thunder 2025 Special Edition.
Mike Contran
I first met Mike Contran at the Windy City Pulp and Paperback Show last April and was glad to see him again at Pulpfest. Mike's holding a large magazine with an atom bomb explosion on the cover which was common for magazines in the Cold War years of the 1950s and 1960s. At left are some of his hardcover Edgar Rice Burroughs books. Mike was kind enough to buy one of my Edgar Rice Burroughs dye sublimated shirts that made their debut at Pulpfest this year.
Tim Kupin
Veteran dealer Tim Kupin aka Koop stays on the road setting up at shows most of the year. Here's Koop with a rare Tarzan poster signed by artist Burne Hogarth who was known for the Tarzan Sunday newspaper comic strip pages in the 1930s and 1940s. For now, Koop has a "Not For Sale" sign on it.
Tim Kupin
Koop with a copy of Marvelmania Catalog #2 from 1972 with Marvel comics related merchandise you could mail order. Marvelmania International is the fan club that succeeded Marvel's first fan club the Merry Marvel Marching Society (M.M.M.S). The Monster Mania #2, 1967 fanzine has a Frank Frazetta cover and is devoted to the British movie studio Hammer known for its horror movies with Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. I currently have a bid in on Bruce Hershenson's internet movie auction site for this fanzine which ends Sunday night 31 August. We'll see how it goes.
Joe Saines
Joe Saines is a toy soldier expert but he brings lots of other interesting stuff to Pulpfest each year. Notice the metal space ship models at left. At far right on the bookshelf are several titles of hardcover reprint EC comics in their slipcases. These were published by Russ Cochran as "The Complete EC Library" starting in the late 1970s.
Joe Saines
Joe holding Headline Comics #30, 1948 with cover art by Jack Kirby and his partner in those days Joe Simon.
Joe Saines
Joe with two paperback books with the usual sexy covers. Queen Of Blood was an American International Pictures science fiction horror film from 1966. It had some well known actors including John Saxon, Dennis Hopper and veteran horror movie actor Basil Rathbone. I do collect some movie tie-in paperbacks but I'm sure this one is out of my price range.
Ray Walsh
Ray Walsh is the long time owner of the Curious Book Shop in Lansing, MI. I last saw him at the Windy City show last April. He always has an assortment of interesting merchandise even including movie posters. He's holding a copy of the venerable science fiction pulp magazine Amazing Stories and what Ray said was a rare hardcover copy of The Disney Poster Book. Ray usually arrives late and never finishes setting up on the first day so we'll check back tomorrow and see what else he will have uncovered by then.
Click here for Page 2 of the Leader's Report on Pulpfest 2025
Click here for Page 3 of the Leader's Report on Pulpfest 2025
Click here to see the Leader's Report on the Steve Ditko Murals and Museum