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Your narrator, the Leader
The Leader attended the Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention at the Westin-Lombard Hotel in Lombard, Ilinois 3 - 6 April 2025. He has enjoyed attending the similar Pulpfest convention in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania for several years and had been advised by the collectibles dealers there that the Windy City show was much larger with therefore more merchandise and dealers that would be of interest to the Leader. The Leader is pleased to announce that he was advised correctly; the Windy City show is indeed a splendid show with a dazzling array of vintage popular culture collectibles.
He had been reluctant to attend in the past due to the Windy City show being so geographically remote from his Leader’s Lair in Virginia. However, the Windy City’s show promoter, Doug Ellis, promised him a free media pass to ameliorate the discomfort of making the long journey and the Leader wanted to see again his Favorite Comic Book Dealer Gene Carpenter. The Leader enjoyed a pleasant dinner with Gene Friday night. In addition to Gene the Leader was also pleased to see dealers he knew from Pulpfest and other shows - Mark Hickman, Rick Santman, Bill Thade, Ray Walsh, Craig Poole, John Mahan, Joe Saines, and John Gunnison. And of course he was pleased to meet dealers at this Windy City show who were new to him who will be revealed in this Leader’s Report.

Click here for Page 1 of the Leader's Report on the Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention 2025
Click here for Page 2 of the Leader's Report on Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention 2025
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Sunday 6 April 2025
John Gunnison
Another permanent fixture at Pulpfest is John Gunnison. John is a big player among pulp collectors. His company Adventure House publishes reprints of the pulps so you can read the stories without having to spend too much money. If you want to spend a lot of money on the original pulps, John can help you with that too. Here's John talking with a customer.
John Gunnison
John with a board game for the popular 1960s Frank Herbert novel Dune which has been adapted into movies and a TV series.
Mike Conran
Mike Conran had a nearly complete collection of Jim Steranko's newspaper format Mediascene. It later changed into a regular magazine size and changed its name to Prevue. I don't like buying lots of oversize magazines since they are too hard to store properly but this issue devoted to science fiction with a Wally Wood illustrated cover does look tempting.
Amanda Peebles
I saw Amanda representing Heartwood Books at last year's Pulpfest. Here she is with a high grade Weird Tales pulp with a Margaret Brundage illustrated cover. The $3,000 price tag isn't likely to snag any buyers on the last day of the show so I'll probably see this issue again at Pulpfest this coming August.
Garyn Roberts
Garyn is another frequent Pulpfest attendee. He has here a 1970s or maybe early 1980s copy of Marvel Comics' fanzine for its fan club FOOM which stands for Friends Of Ol' Marvel. It managed to last 22 issues before being replaced by Marvel Age which has a comic book format and lasted a respectable 140 issues. Marvel's first fan club started circa 1965 and was known as the M.M.M.S. which produced no fanzines, just an occasional brief newsletter named "The Merry Marvel Messenger." I've still got my one copy of this newsletter and my M.M.M.S kit tucked away in a box. I'm sure they're worth more now than the $1.00 I paid Marvel in 1965. Marvel's second fan club was Marvelmania International which produced a few fanzines and catalogs for ordering Marvel related merchandise and several posters.
Garyn is also holding a fanzine Woodwork devoted to famous EC and Marvel artist Wally Wood.
Thomas Stransky
Thomas Stransky of Midway Books holding a copy of the pulp magaizne Science And Invention published by Hugo Gernsback before he made history by inventing modern science fiction by publishing the first science fiction pulp magazine Amazing Stories in 1926. These earlier Gernsback magazines showed his interest in science and technology and paved the way for Amazing Stories.
At right is the DC comic book Mystery In Space #3, 1951 with a cover drawn by Carmine Infantino and two stories written by famous science fiction writer Manly Wade Wellman. In the 1950s the comic book spinner racks and drugstore shelves were filled with with science fiction comic books. The best comic book science fiction stories were done by EC of course and those stories are easily available in many reprint editions. Marvel/Atlas also did lots of good science fiction stories in titles like Marvel Tales, Journey Into Unknown Worlds and many other titles. After decades of never being reprinted now we will get to read those stories in Fantagraphics Books new Atlas Comics Library which reprints the stories in hardcover and in color. But what about all those charming DC science fiction stories from the 1950s and early 1960s? DC has never to this day showed much interest in reprinting its Silver Age science fiction comics properly which means in hardcover and in color. There was a softcover in color Mysteries In Space in 1980 and in 2008 a handful of other volumes in softcover but in black & white instead of color. We'll just have to hope that Fantagraphics or another publisher someday will rescue us from DC's shameful neglect of their wonderful legacy of 1950s science fiction comics.
Robert Wiener
I've read many science fiction novels in the last 60 years but my favorite is still Clifford D. Simak's City. I read the ACE Books paperback edition on my summer vacation at my grandmothers home in Tarrant City, AL at the impressionable age of about 17. Reading the book at that special time and place is partly why the whimsical charm of the book still lingers with me today. I knew from talking to art collector Craig Poole that the cover painting by Ed Valigursky to that ACE paperback still existed but I didn't know who had it. Saturday night while looking around the auction preview room I was talking about where it might be. Doug Ellis heard me and came over and told me that a dealer named Robert Wiener at the show owned it. I asked Doug to point him out to me but the opportunity didn't appear that night. Sunday morning I was attracted to a dealer's table who had some original art I wanted to photograph. I looked at the dealer's name tag and it was Robert Wiener. I was wearing one of my three shirts with the ACE City cover and Mr. Wiener looked at me and said "I have that painting."
I asked Mr. Wiener if I could drive to his home in New Hampshire and photograph the painting so as to maybe make a limited edition batch of posters from it to sell. He said he would think about it and that he would have to consult with Ed Valigursky's still extant daughter. On reflection, I'm not sure I want to drive all the way to New Hampshire from Virginia but time will tell.
Jerry Peters
I met dealer Jerry Peters Wednesday night before the dealers' started setting up and talked him throughout the show. It wasn't until Sunday afteroon that I could get to his table to photograph him. Here's Jerry talking with a potential customer at his disheveled but interesting table full of pop culture collectibles.
Jerry Peters
If you like giant apes, then jungle pith helmet Jerry was your go-to-guy at this Windy City show. Behind him is a poster of King Kong fighting the Tyrannosaurus Rex from the movie King Kong, 1933. Jerry's holding a box of Super 8mm film of the movie Son Of Kong, 1933 and a King Kong movie-tie-in hardcover book. At left is a large pressbook aka exhibitor's campaign manual of for the movie Mighty Joe Young, 1949. Let's take a closer look at this in the photo below left.
Jerry Peters
The lady sitting at the piano held aloft by giant ape Joe Young is the movie's female star Terry Moore. King Kong stop motion special effects technician Willis O'Brien also worked on this movie assisted by his young protege Ray Harryhausen. This pressbook is a deluxe version in partial color instead of the usual black & white. I sold a regular b&w incomplete pressbook of this movie in 2009 on ebay. If it had been complete I would have kept it.
Doug Ellis
Standing next to his original art display is the promoter of the Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention, the man who makes it all happen - pulp magazine and art impressario Doug Ellis. I'll see Doug again this coming August at Pulpfest in Pittsburg, PA.
Gene Carpenter
As usual I've saved the best for last, the Leader's Favorite Comic Book Dealer - Gene Carpenter. Because of his recent medical tribulations Gene isn't quite as robust as in times past so he's not always able to set up his famous 40' comic book display wall. So to try to make Gene's display area as large as possible I photographed it with a extra wide angle lens.
Gene Carpenter
Gene always has some of the most important Golden Age comics available. Action Comics 13,1939 with a DC house ad for the upcoming release of Superman #1 which was the second DC title to feature Superman. Also World's Finest #14, 1944 from the fabled Mile High pedigree collection. I suppose World's Finest was the third regularly published comic title to feature Superman since the Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane comics weren't invented until the 1950s. I'll next see Gene again at the VA Comicon in Richmond 17 May.
In my many years of comic book collecting I did have occasion in the early 1980s to dip into the legend and lore of the Mile High collection as chronicled here.
Click here for Page 1 of the Leader's Report on the Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention 2025
Click here for Page 2 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