Click here for Page 1 of the Leader's Report on Pulpfest 2026.

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Click here for the Main Introduction Page to see the Leader's Report on the Virginia Comic Con 12 September 2026.

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Friday 31 July 2026

Bill McMahon I used to see veteran collector Bill McMahon at the Williamsburg Film Festival and the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Con. But those shows are dead now so the only place left where I can see him is Pulpfest. At this show Bill had a few nice condition Amazing Stories and Thrilling Wonder Stories pulps.	Bill McMahon Bill with Amazing Stories October 1951 and Thrilling Wonder Stories with a John D. MacDonald story. Early in his career before he became famous as a detective / mystery writer (mostly for his Travis McGee series) John D. MacDonald wrote some science fiction stories. I'm not a fan of detective fiction but I did read MacDonald's novel The Executioners because I had seen the two movies, Cape Fear, made from it and I wanted to compare the book to the movie treatments.	Bob McGeeney Bob McGeeney had these two interesting books related to Edgar Rice Burroughs and his most famous creation, Tarzan of the Apes.

Terry Meister Terry Meister with two thick annual pulps Amazing Stories Quarterly and Fantastic Adventures Quarterly.	David Smith Now here's a pulp annual with not all reprints! It has some reprints but Amazing Stories Annual, 1927 featured the first appearance of the novel The Mastermind Of Mars written by Edgar Rice Burroughs. The story had been rejected by several other pulp publishers because it contained "organ transplants" and "religious fundamentalism" but Amazing Stories publisher Hugo Gernsback wanted it and Burroughs gave him permission to rename the title from Burroughs's original title Vad Varo Of Barsoom. Good idea, Hugo! Gernsback's title stayed on all later book editions. This annual is also Amazing Stories's only annual. That uniqueness, eye-catching cover and the Burroughs connection makes it one of the most expensive and desirable of pulps. Speaking of expensive and desirable pulps, David Smith's CGC graded pulp shown here Amazing Stories #29, 1928 falls into that category. The cover is illustrated by famous science fiction artist Frank R. Paul but what makes it expensive is the first appearance of the novella Armageddon 2419 featuring the first appearance of the space opera hero Buck Rogers. Buck is tied only with Flash Gordon for being the two most famous space opera heroes in science fiction history. Incidentally, the flying figure on the cover isn't Buck Rogers.	Mike Brenner Rare book dealer Mike Brenner showing off his lovely inventory of rare hardback and paperback books. Let's take a closer look at that When World's Collide I see on Mike's top shelf in the next photo.

Mike Brenner Edwin Balmer and Philip Wylie's 1933 novel When World's Collide was bought by Paramount Pictures in the early 1950s possibly to be developed into a movie by Paramount's most famous producer and director, Cecil b. DeMille. But probably for the best, another Paramount producer ended up getting the job, George Pal. It was an excellent move and later Pal wanted to film the sequel novel After World's Collide but it never happened.	Joe Saines Veteran collector and professional auctioneer Joe Saines with a collection of PS Artbooks. This is a British publishing company that puts out hardcover reprints of American horror and science fiction Silver Age comic books. I have several PS Artbooks because I couldn't afford to buy the original comic books and no other reprint publishing company ever showed any interest in them. PS Artbooks is to be commended for publishing rare, esoteric comics overlooked by other publishers. But, they don't do the best job with production values. Their books don't have introductions or other explanatory text. They don't have a table of contents. The biggest problem is the reproductions of the reprinted pages look a bit murky and subdued. Taschen, IDW and Fantagraphics do a much better of photographing the original comic book pages and cleaning them in up in Photoshop for better printing quality.	Joe Saines Joe with some rare British paperback editions of James Bond and other Ian Fleming books. I'm not much of a fan of detective and crime novels so I haven't read any of these Richard Stark novels Joe is holding. But I do have on Blu-Ray the movie Point Blank, 1967 starring Lee Marvin and Angie Dickinson.

John McMahan John is holding two cool looking comic books with lurid painted covers: Amazing Adventures #2, 1951 and Weird Thrillers #2, 1951 both with cover painting by Allen Anderson. The DC comic books Star Spangled War Stories in the foreground are from the early 1960s. DC had many war comic titles all through the 1950s and 1960s. One of the more interesting ones was Star Spangled War Stories from 1960 - 1968 that featured a series called "The War That Time Forgot." It was about a group of American soldiers in World War II fighting to survive on a lost island in the Pacific Ocean inhabited by dinosaurs. DC artists just loved to draw dinosaurs!	Ray Walsh Ray Walsh is the long time owner of the Curious Book Shop in East Lansing, Michigan. I've been seeing him at Pulpfest for many years. He had car trouble this year and didn't get to the show until today. And of course it always takes Ray a long time to get setup because he never has anybody to help him and he brings a lot of merchandise. Here's Ray in the midst of his vintage goodies holding two of many Burroughs Bulletin fanzines he brought this trip. I found two of these with Frank Frazetta covers and articles so I bought them. I'm surprised Ray didn't have a heart attack; I've seen him at Pulpfest for 10 years and this is the first time I bought anything from him.	Ray Walsh Ray with two DC Silver Age science fiction comics: House Of Secrets #42, 161 and Rip Hunter Time Master #7, 1962 (Yep, another dinosaur) with the story drawn by famous artist Alex Toth. I am a science fiction fan and would like to read these old DC science fiction comics. But, DC has neglected them with no hardcover reprints in color except for the Adam Strange omnibus from a few years ago. Unless Fantagraphics (currently doing the nice 1950s Atlas/Marvel reprints) or some other company gets a license from DC to reprint their old science fiction comics then all those wonderful and quirky stories will remain in oblivion.

Ed Hulse Pulp magazine and old movie expert Ed Hulse with some recent books related to pulps that Ed edited or wrote introductions for. Ed was telling me about his next book due in May 2027 The Art of Classic Action & Adventure Movie Posters: The Story of the Genre in 750 Eye-Popping Posters. I collect movie history books so I am sure to buy it.	Terry O'Neill Terry O'Neill onwer of Terry's Old School Comics in Kelso, Washington is mostly a comic book dealer but he also has a nice inventory of pulps and digest magazines. The pulps you see on Terry's display wall here are in much nicer condition than you usaully see them.	Terry O'Neill Terry with two pulps featuring scary looking sea monsters: Amazing Stories February 1927 (cover art Frank R. Paul) and Amazing Stories June 1926 (cover art Frank R. Paul illustrating Jule's Verne's Journey To The Center Of The Earth. These are early issues of this pulp title since Amazing Stories was only invented in 1926. The early issues of Amazing Stories frequently featured big name writers on the cover like H.G. Wells, Jules Verne and Edgar Rice Burroughs. All the Wells and Verne stories and most of the Burroughs stories were reprints but publisher Hugo Gernsback thought splashing their names on the cover would dress up the magazine.

Will Murray Will Murray is a well known comic book and popular culture expert. He has written lots of novels featuring iconic pulp magazine heroes like Tarzan, the Shadow, Doc Savage and so on. Here's Mr. Murray with some of his latest books.

Curt Phillips The "Picto-Fiction" magazines in the foreground are the last gasp of the legendary EC comic book line. After the new Comics Code Authority in 1955 put EC's pre-Code "New Trend" comic books out of business EC put out a new line called the "New Direction" with the Code's approval. That line quickly flopped. So next EC put out a magazine line named "Picto-Fiction" that didn't need the Code's approval but each magazine only lasted one or two issues. So the only vestige of the 1950s EC empire still with us today is Mad magazine. Curt Phillips is holding a rare copy of Collier's magazine from 1952 with a cool space ship cover. This issue was part of a series about the upcoming exploration of space written by various space scientists like Willy Ley and Werhner Von Braun (I don't how they managed to leave out Arthur C. Clarke) with great illustrations by the most famous space artist of all, Chesley Bonestell. I didn't want to track down all the Collier's issues with this series but fortunately a hardcover book with all the articles was published in the 1950s Across The Space Frontier. which I managed to get a copy from ebay a few years ago.

Click here for Page 1 of the Leader's Report on Pulpfest 2026.

Click here for Page 3 of the Leader's Report on Pulpfest 2026.

Click here for the Main Introduction Page to see the Leader's Report on the Virginia Comic Con 12 September 2026.