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Friday 4 April 2025

Gene Carpenter It's the first day of the show late Friday morning before the show opens to the public and Gene hasn't even started setting up his comic book display wall.

Fred Taraba Fred Taraba of Taraba Illustration Art in Casper, Wyoming had the largest selection of original magazine and book art at the show. Here's Fred behind his table talking with a potential customer.

Fred Taraba Fred with the original art for the cover of a coloring book of the big 1950s movie star Janet Leigh and a copy of the book itself.

Fred Taraba Fred with the original art to the cover of a sexy paperback book. At upper right is the original art to the Men's Adventure magazine Men from 1965. The artist is Gil Cohen who illustrated many of the stories for publisher Martin Goodman's line of Men's Adventure magazines. Goodman is best remembered as the publisher of Marvel Comics.	Fred Taraba Fred with the original art to the cover of another paperback book and a copy of the book itself.	Lauren Stump Lauren Stump representing Shasta Phoenix Art with samples of original art from the fantasy novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs. At left is John Carter of Mars illustrated by Reed Crandall. Crandall had a long career in comic books drawing for EC and Atlas in the 1950s and Warren Magazines like Creepy and Eerie in the 1960s. In the middle is an illustration by Italian artist Fortunino Matania. At right is Carson Napier of Venus by artist Richard Hescox.

Dr. Markus Rohrwild Markus Rohrwild from Riehen, Germany had a nice display of science fiction art from magazines, books and digest magazines. Let's take a closer look at the painting in the upper right corner in the next photo at right.	Dr. Markus Rohrwild The painting in the upper right with the blue matte is by famous American science fiction artist Ed Emshwiller. In the 1950s and 1960s Emshwiller drew many covers and interior illustrations for the noted science fiction digest magazines Galaxy and The Magazine Of Fantasy And Science Fiction. I like his clean, clear style and recently bought these two books of his art.	Dr. Markus Rohrwild Markus with the original art to the cover of the Warren Publishing magazine Creepy #117, 1980 painted by noted American fantasy artist Ken Kelly.

Larry Hallock Larry Hallock of Ygor's Books had a interesting selection of rare science fiction hardcover books and digest magazines. On Larry's table at far left is the Marvel magazine Monster Madness #2, 1972 with a photo on the cover of Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff and Basil Rathbone from the movie The Son Of Frankenstein, 1939.	Larry Hallock Larry with the first hardcover edition of Foundation And Empire which was the second book in Isaac Asimov's majestic Foundation Trilogy. I read all three books in the Avon paperback editions in the 1970s. I may reread them all again someday. A few years ago I bought a large collection of science fiction books from a lady in Richmond, VA and luckily a hardcover book of the entire Trilogy was included. It's only a bookclub edition but that will have to do for now. Larry is also holding here one of many books with H.P. Lovecraft stories. Book collectors like signed copies. The photo at right shows the horror and science fiction writers and artist who signed this one.	Larry Hallock Larry's signed copy of H.P. Lovecraft's Tales Of the Cthulhu Mythos.

John Mahan I see John Mahan at Pulpfest each year. At that show he sets up in the spot Gene Carpenter had when Gene used to attend Pulpfest. Here's John presiding over his impressive inventory of Marvel Silver Age comics books, hardcover books and pulps.	John Mahan John with four issues of the leading science fiction pulp of the late 1930s up through the mid 1950s, Astounding Science Fiction.	Ray Walsh Ray Walsh is the long time owner of The Curious Book Shop in East Lansing, Michigan. It's already well into the afternoon and Ray still has several boxes of his inventory he hasn't put on display yet. The pulp magazines Amazing Stories and Startling Stories seen in the foreground are examples of the wonderful stuff Ray still has lurking in his unopened boxes. I sometimes think Ray and Gene Carpenter have a private contest going to see who can be the slowest setting up all their merchandise.

Ray Walsh Peter Macuga and John Mahan weren't the only dealers at the show to have collectibles pertaining to Astounding Science Fiction. Here's Ray with two paintings (not prints or posters) of Astounding pulp magazine covers. Both are reproductions of the only two Astounding covers to feature a story by H.P. Lovecraft. Ray said he bought these many years ago and didn't know the artist is. The painting at left is from Astounding February 1936 illustrating the Lovecraft story "At The Mountains Of Madness." Ray was asking $350. The painting at right is from Astounding June 1936 illustrating the Lovecraft story "The Shadow Out Of Time." Ray was asking $250. Later in the day Ray sold both of them.	Ray Walsh Ray with some salesmen samples or calendars of pinup models. The model at right is Hollwood 1940s movie star Linda Darnell.	Jane Frank Jane Frank is the widow of Howard Frank. The Franks were devoted collectors of original science fiction and fantasy art and amassed one of the largest collections of that type of art in the world. Most of the Frank Collection has been sold through Heritage Auctions over the last several years. Click here for two of the Heritage Auctions Frank Collection catalogs. I can't afford to buy any of Ms. Franks paintings but a few years ago I did buy her wonderful book on my favorite science fiction paperback cover artist, Richard Powers. The famous movie director Alfred Hitchcock licensed out his image as a marketing ploy to various mystery magazine and book publishers. The cover of the book would have a photo or painted image of Hitchcock. Here's Jane with two original paintings for paperback book covers showing Hitchcock.

Craig Poole I've been seeing original art collector Craig Poole at Pulpfest for the past several years. He lives in Richmond, VA not far from my town of Virginia Beach. Craig specializes in collecting original paintings for the covers to Ace Double sci-fi paperback books. He rarely offers those for sale since they stay in his personal collection but he still had lots of nice paintings here at the show.	Craig Poole Craig with original art from science fiction paperbacks. The artist are top row left to right: Johnny Bruck, Jack Gaughan. Bottom row left to right: Richard Kohfield, Davis Meltzer.	Craig Poole Craig with the original art to a Bantam paperback showing the art for the front and back covers and the paperback books. I forgot to ask him the name of the artist.

Craig Poole Closeup of the front and back covers of the Bantam paperback.	Jason Croft Jason Croft publishes the digest size magazine Bachelor Pad. The female models are modern day but Jason photographs them in the classic style of 1950s and 1960s girlie pinup magazines. Speaking of classic 1950s girlie pinups let's take a closer look at that Mamie Van Doren movie poster over Jason's shoulder in the next photo.	George Hagenauer George with a movie poster of the Mamie Van Doren movie Guns Girls And Gangsters. This movie and two other Mamie movies are available on Blu-Ray disc in Mamie Van Doren Film Noir Collection.

Mark Hickman I see Mark each year at Pulpfest. His father Lynn Hickman promoted Pulp Con for many years before the name was changed to Pulpfest. Two years ago I was pleased to buy from Mark at Pulpfest a letter to his father from Forrest J. Ackerman and a Christmas card with a hand written note from Clifford D. Simak. Mark still has the box of letters of other writers who attended Pulp Con and I've been trying to buy more but he can't find the box. I urged him to keep looking and maybe he will have found it in time for Pulpfest this coming August.

Mark Hickman Mark with some copies of the digest magazine Nebula Science Fiction which Mark tells me are bit rare since they were published in England.

Bill Cavalier, Will Oliver, Paul Herman, John Bullard of the Robert E. Howard Foundation Press If you have a question about Edgar Rice Burroughs you should ask the editor of the Burroughs Bulletin Henry Franke who was attending this show. If you have a question about Robert E. Howard you should ask one of these men. Robert E. Howard should be among the three most famous pulp magazine writers along with Edgar Rice Burroughs and H.P. Lovecraft. I had read many Burroughs novels as a teenager because I was drawn in by the Ace paperbacks with the Frank Frazetta and Roy Krenkel covers. I thought ERB was a pretty good writer. A few years later at the Waldenbooks store in Oglethopre Mall in my hometown of Savannah, GA I was drawn in again. This time it was the Lancer paperback with a Frank Frazetta cover depicting the Howard Conan story "Rogues In The House." I didn't know who Howard was but I bought the book because I liked Frazetta. When I actually read the book I discovered that Howard had a vivid, exciting prose style that in my mind made him a better writer than even Edgar Rice Burroughs. So I tracked down and read the rest of the Lancer Conan paperbacks even before the Marvel comic book Conan The Barbarian came out in the early 1970s. Click here for Page 1 of the Leader's Report on the Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention 2025 Click here for Page 3 of the Leader's Report on the Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention 2025 Click here for Page 4 of the Leader's Report on the Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention 2025