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

Click here for Page 2 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.

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Saturday 1 August 2026

Craig Poole Art collector Craig Poole of Richmond, VA showing off his inventory of original paintings for pulps and paperbacks.	Craig Poole When you buy one of Craig's original painting you usually get the pulp or paperback book the painting was used for. Craig's holding a Ballantine Tarzan series paperback from the 1960s. The cover artist is Richard Powers. Powers wasn't that great at drawing realistic looking people. But he was great at painting those abstract / surrealist science fiction paperback covers in the 1950s and 1960s.	Rick Santman Rick with Astounding Stories December 1937 and Astounding Stories July 1935. Check out those cool Robert A. Heinlein hardcover books on Rick's display wall.

Rick Santman Rick with the longest running pulp magazine - Argosy March 1938 with a Tarzan story by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Argosy lasted in various pulp and slick magazine formats from 1882 to 2016. Many of the issues in the early years were weekly instead of the usual monthly, so good luck trying to put together a complete collection of Argosy.	Bill Thade Bill Thade always has interesting Golden and Silver Age comic books. He's holding the Charlton comic Space Adventures #7, 1953 with a cover story "Transformation" about a man changing himself into a woman. That was a very unusual story idea in the 1950s. In the foreground is Weird Tales Of The Future #2, 1952 with the famous Basil Wolverton art cover and the Avon comic Strange Worlds #8, 1952. All of these Weird Tales Of The Future, Strange Worlds and many of the Space Adventures have been reprinted by PS Artbooks if you want to read the stories without spending thousands of dollars.	Paul Herman Paul Herman (green shirt) always has a large selection of paperback books and digest magazines. At far right is book dealer Tim Paxton looking over some of Paul's paperbacks.

Henry Franke Henry Franke is a big mover and shaker in the world of Edgar Rice Burroughs fandom. Here's Henry holding up a recent issue of the Burroughs fanzine Burroughs Bulletin with the novel Apache Devil on the cover. If you have any questions about Burroughs just ask Henry.	David Schmidt Here's David Schmidt holding the pulp Wonder Stories May 1932 from the publisher of Amazing Stories Hugo Gernsback. Wonder Stories later became Thrilling Wonder Stories. David is also holding Marvelmania Catalog #2, 1971 from which you could order all sorts of merchandise from Marvel Comics' second fan club Marvelmania. I have this issue and #4 from when they first came out but I have never been able to afford the best one, Marvelmania Club Catalog #1, 1969. It’s the best because it's the only one in color.	David Schmidt On David's display wall is an issue of Snafu which was one of Marvel's 1950s satire magazine. The EC comic book company invented the idea of a satire comic book style magazine with Mad magazine in the mid 1950s and Marvel and other comic companies wanted to cash-in with their own versions. Fantagraphics just released Snafu as part of its hardcover Atlas Comics Library line of books. David is holding a mid 1960s regular magazine size issue of the science fiction magazine Analog. Analog was the renamed Astounding Science Fiction and had been a digest size since the early 1940s. In the mid 1960s Analog experimented with this regular size magazine for several issues before reverting back to digest size where it remains today. It is in these regular size Analog's that the famous science fiction novel Dune by Frank Herbert was first serialzied. For a more complete history of Astounding Science Fiction / Analog's history of format sizes see this brief article from a previous Leader's Report.

Michael Croteau, Win Scott Eckert Mike and Win are two of the owners of the Meteor House publishing company that specializes in publishing books by and about the science fiction writer Philip Jose Farmer. The missing member of what should be the usual trio is Paul Spiteri who was absent this year.	Tim Paxton Rare book dealer Tim Paxton always has interesting hardcover and paperback science fiction and fantasy novels. Here's Tim with hardcovers of big time writers Arthur C. Clarke, Ray Bradbury and Robert Bloch.	Brendan Faulkner Brendan Faulkner of R&B Enterprises is a veteran collector and dealer of science fiction and movie memorabilia. Here's the old warhorse with a nice hardcover copy of Great American Comic Books.

Tom Martin Tom Martin with a Fantastic Adventures Quarterly pulp magazine and some interesting Silver Age comic books. The DC comic book Showcase #29, 1960 is the third appearance in that title of the Sea Devils who were the underwater equivalent of DC's Challengers Of The Unknown and similar titles. This #29 drawn by top DC artist DC artist Russ Heath has a "gray tone" cover which is popular among collectors because it makes the cover look like it was painted instead of having the regular line art. After three appearance in this tryout title Showcase the Sea Devils got their own comic book which lasted 35 issues from 1961 - 1967.	Larry Hallock Rare book dealer Larry Hallock with two valuable hardover books. When Evil Wakes was edited by famous H.P. Lovecraftian style horror writer August Derleth. The Dark Man And Others is a collection of horror stories by another writer influenced by Lovecraft - Robert E. Howard best known of course for his famous Sword & Sorcery character Conan the Barbarian.	Ray Walsh Curious Book Shop owner Ray Walsh dickering with a young man over the price of Ray's personal high grade copy of The House On The Borderland by William Hope Hodgson. Ray was asking $600 but settled for $500.

Martin Swiatkowski I've been seeing veteran collector Martin Swiatkowski at Pulpfest and the Windy City show for the past nine years. Here's Marty showing off some of his latest acquisitions from Pulpfest. Marty is the only attendee of Pulpfest whos is taller than me. To add insult to injury, he also has more paperback books than me; Marty has about 20,000 paperbacks to my about 3,000.	Mark Hickman Mark's father Lynn Hickman promoted PulpCon for many years before the name was changed to Pulpfest. Mark has been a dealer at PulpCon / Pulpfest since 1996 but this year he had a medical ailment that prevented him from setting up as a dealer. Here's Mark in front of Doug Ellis's booth holding up some original art he had just bought from Doug.	Auction Night The Pulpfest Saturday late night auction is always popular with dealers and collectors because of the large array of valuable merchandise for sale. At the end of the table is Pulpfest vendor and professional auctioneer Joe Saines and his three assistants who keep track of the winning bids. The empty chair on Joe's right belongs to co-auctioneer John Gunnison. I bid in Pulpfest's auction last year and only won one lot. I bid on several lots this year and again only won one lot so it looks like I'm establishing a tradition of winning only one lot per year.

	Wyatt Doyle, Eric Blackburn, Innes Weir, Lewis Forro After the dealers' room closes and there is no Pulpfest nighttime programing to photograph I enjoy sitting in hotel lobby talking with the Men's Adventure Magazines crew shown here. There is never any shortage of popular culture topics to discuss. So ends the Leader's Report for Pulpfest 2027!

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

Click here for Page 2 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.