Interview: RON HILL

Today, I chat with artist Ron Hill, who is also one of the architects behind the revival of DocCon, which will be a part of Pulpfest later this week.

Ron Hill has been an editorial cartoonist, humorous illustrator, graphic designer, educator, author, armchair theologian, and video documentarian (not all at the same time, of course!) for over 40 years. Born in Cleveland, he graduated from the Art Institute of Pittsburgh and immediately returned to Northeast Ohio to begin working in advertising.

In the 1980s–90s, as part of the illustration team of Lombardo & Hill, Ron drew countless interior illustrations for role-playing games published by TSR, West End Games, Iron Crown Enterprises, and Chaosium, many licensed from The Lord of the Rings, Indiana Jones, and Star Wars. An accomplished quick-sketch caricature artist, he has drawn (to date) probably a quarter-million faces at thousands of private and public events from Chicago to New York. His editorial cartoons have appeared in the Chagrin Valley Times, Solon Times, Geauga Times Courier, and West Life since 1999. In 2000, he started illustrating the popular “Armchair Theologian” book series for Westminster John-Knox; these 15 volumes have been translated into German, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Italian.

From 2002–2015, he taught an Interactive Media College Tech Prep program at Alliance High School and has always conducted workshops at area art centers (including the Valley Art Center) since 1990. After co-founding Act 3 in 2016, a media company and indie book publisher in Cleveland, he has recently embarked (once again) on his solo career as a freelance artist, and has completed two personal documentary projects,

“Go-Kart Therapy” and “We Are Doc Savage: A Documentary on Fandom.” He has always lived in the Chagrin Valley of Northeast Ohio, and you can learn more at www.RonHillArtist.com.

Hi, Ron. Thanks for taking some time to chat!

You bet, Anthony!

Last year at Pulpfest (2024), you premiered your short documentary We Are Doc Savage, which is all about the influence this classic character has had since his debut in the pulp magazine that bore his name, in 1933. What is it about Doc Savage that first caught your interest, and what effect did that have on you?

The covers, hands down! In May of 1975, I was a geeky sci-fi kid, in seventh grade when I first saw a Doc Savage book. I was on an overnight school trip, and we stopped at a mall for lunch. I went to a bookstore and saw #74, The Derrick Devil, with Fred Pfeiffer’s funky artwork. That logo and the illustration and the back cover intrigued me – but I didn’t buy it! Instead, I went with a safer buy: James Blish’s Start Trek 9 and The Science Fiction Hall of Fame. But when I got home, there was a package of Bantam Books (I would order from the ads in the back pages with my lawn-mowing dough) and inside was a Bantam catalog. Inside was that awesome logo and the available books. I immediately ordered the first four books, and when they arrived a few weeks later, I was hooked. I think I read all four in one week. And the Man of Bronze was the movie edition, which is another story!

Can you talk about the history of the documentary project, its genesis and road to completion?

Hah! That’s a long and winding road. After art school, the first act of my professional career was working in advertising as an art director, illustrator, and graphic designer, and I also did caricatures and cartoons on the side, for ten years. When I turned 31, I quit the day job and went freelance, mostly doing caricature gigs and drawing for RPG publishers with a friend. We did dozens of books for D&D, West End Games, Chaosium and Iron Crown Enterprises. I was also trying to sell comic strip concepts to the newspaper syndicates; that was act two for me. Then at 40 I fell into a position as a high school career and technical Interactive Media teacher, while freelancing editorial cartoons, illustrating theology books and still doing caricature entertainment summers and weekends; I suppose this was my third work act. Anyway, since I like to do something new every decade or so, after 13 years I quit teaching and helped start a media company with an old friend (the RPG illustrator) and new friend: Act 3, LLC. Act 3 was formed in 2016, and we did websites, illustration, and video production. That is where I learned about video editing. We created lots of short films for non-profits, helping them tell their story. Well, we always wanted to do a documentary, something for ourselves. So, in December of 2021, I pitched the idea of “We Are Doc Savage: A Documentary on Fandom.” My partners greenlit the project in January. I was always a
Doc Savage fan. When the internet exploded in the 90s, I got to know the Doc Savage works of WWW fans Chuck Welch, Frozencat, Chris Kalb, Scott Cranford, Win Scott Eckert, Rick Lai, Will Murray… and contribute artwork, articles, and research of my own. But I never made time to go to the conventions. I would get the invites to the Doc Cons and say to my wife, “If only I didn’t have bills, or school, or work…” So I never dove into the con scene. But I had just turned 60 and suddenly wanted to see what it was all about. And why not document it? So I went to my first convention in spring of 2022, which was Windy City. That was going to be the test to see what kind of footage and assets we could gather. Well, by the end of 2022, Act 3 was doing OK, but not great, you know? The Pandemic really slowed us down. Again, I was 60, and not really that excited about the business side of owning a business, so I removed myself from my own company and went freelance again. My partners are all still my best friends. Part of my separation agreement was that I could take all the footage and documentary assets and finish it on my own. I bought a new computer system at home and spent the next almost two years finishing it.

Was there anything that surprised you as you compiled interviews and pulled the documentary into its final form?

I think the biggest thing that surprised me was that everybody in Doc Savage fandom is so nice, and generous and giving of themselves to each other —Doc fans really do take the Doc Savage Code to heart.

This year sees the return of DocCon, as one of several conventions that are hosted by Pulpfest. How did the return of this venerable fan gathering come about?

Jen DiGiacomo, who I got to know from two previous PulpFests and was a real cheerleader for the documentary project, said last year at PulpFest she was starting Doc Con again for 2025 PulpFest, and did I want to be on her committee? I said sure, I could certainly help with design. Jen is a powerhouse of energy and passion when she takes something on, and it is really infectious; I didn’t want to let her down. It’s too bad she ran into a conflict with her one-woman show when it got accepted overseas, so she won’t be here – this year! We will be talking about 2026 plans real soon. So, after never attending a Doc Con, I find myself right in the thick of things, with super-generous fans, like yourself. And I am told that of the three Mini-Cons at PulpFest, this year Doc Con has generated the most interest, according to a survey of PulpFest members responding. That is gratifying and a little scary – we want this Min-Con to be special!

What can anyone attending Pulpfest expect in terms of DocCon programming?

Mike Chomko was very enthusiastic from the start. When Jen told him she wanted to do this, he said yes, and she pretty much had the programming ideas – of course, the 50th anniversary of the George Pal’s “Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze” was a perfect theme to explore. Jen had recently acquired various ephemera from the movie production, and Chris Kalb had some other stuff, so one panel will cover that. And the Bantam Revival panel was Jen and Will’s idea, and I was happy to help flesh that out since that was my passion for 50 years – Bantam and illustration. I am really looking forward to sharing the stage with Will and Chris as moderator.

Let’s talk about your other creative endeavors for a moment. You recently provided the amazing cover art for Jack of All Comics! edited by Jim Beard and published by Becky Books (in which, full disclosure for readers, I have an essay). What was the process of creating that cover?

That was pretty much a straight illustration commission. Jim Beard is so much fun to work with. He hired me two years ago to do a cover of one of his Grown-Up Kids Remember books, about Start Trek TOS. So when he said he wanted to emulate the first issue of Fantastic Four, I saw the image in my mind’s eye immediately. Presto- bango and it’s done, Jim is happy. That’s always cool when that works out.

Does your process change at all from project to project? What is your favorite artistic medium to work in?

My favorite medium is pencil and ink. Old-school. But I do all my editorial cartoons on my iPad Pro. It is still drawing with the Apple Pencil. I even “pencil” the cartoons in a blue layer, and then “ink” over it in another layer. Then below that I do a “watercolor” layer. It is easier to edit, and when it’s done you don’t have to scan it. Of course there are no originals, but as many as I do, at least I save on art materials – pixels are free.

You’re also a caricaturist. How did your interest in that develop, and what’s your process like when doing caricatures at events?

I did not go to college. I did go to night school when I was 40, to get my Ohio Career- Tech teaching certificate, but I only have an associate’s degree from the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. In 1980, AIP was a tech school, just commercial art skills. No math, science, humanities, whatever… build a portfolio and hit the streets as a commercial artist. Well, I took a 3-hour extracurricular class in caricature quick-sketch from an amazing artist named John Johns. He taught that a caricature is simply an “exaggerated likeness.” At the end of the afternoon, he engaged a dozen of us to draw at the Three Rivers Art Festival. That was a ten-day festival. We drew ten hours a day producing caricatures at

$2 a pop. It was so fun and immediate. In those ten days, I lived it up at night, six-packs and steak from the corner store, up the next morning and at it again. I earned enough to pay for the last quarter of school, my supplies for that last quarter, and an engagement ring! True story: a week after that first festival, when I was home for a couple weeks that summer, I said to my then-girlfriend, Margie, let’s go to the mall. And I bought a $1000 engagement diamond ring with crumpled up dollar bills. How cool is that? I thought to

myself this is how it feels to be a rock star on the road. Some musicians like studio work, some like being on the road. To me, one feeds the other. I go to a wedding and come home with $800 after drawing for a few hours, and everyone is happy. A couple gigs a weekend, adding up to 60 gigs a year means I can afford to work at home during the week, finding illustration his, creating editorial cartoons, illustrating books… and producing documentaries, hah ha. So ever since 1982, I kept doing caricatures at all kinds of events, eventually being able to go freelance because of my gig work. Almost 45 years later I still get that rush drawing for people. My process? After so many years and thousands of gigs and maybe a quarter million faces, it’s really all muscle memory at this stage. I mean, I see faces and immediately know how I would exaggerate those features, and how much. Oh, and Margie and I will celebrate our 43rd wedding anniversary this October. So yeah, caricatures have been very, very good to me.

Do you have any other projects coming up that you’d like people to know about?

Not really. I just kind of grab what comes along and looks interesting. Something always comes along. I don’t think I would do another documentary unless I get a chance to do one about the history of comic strips in Cleveland. I just hope to keep drawing for another 25 years or so… and I hope that includes more cool pulp illustration projects!

Thanks again, Ron! See you in a few days at Pulpfest!

You’re welcome, Anthony! Can’t wait to see you.

Readers, it is not too late to register for and attend Pulpfest 2025 (THE pulp magazine-focused convention in the Northeast) and the other three conventions it hosts: FarmerCon (dedicated to the works of Philip Jose Farmer), ERBFest (dedicated to the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs) and DocCon (dedicated to all things Doc Savage related). Check out the Pulpfest website for registration and hotel information!

Interview: Mike Chomko of PULPFEST

Today, I chat with Mike Chomko, one of the founders and organizers of Pulpfest. Mike Chomko, the winner of the 2010 Munsey Award,  has been a regular at pulp cons since the early nineties. In September of 2008, he joined Jack Cullers, Barry Traylor, and Ed Hulse to launch PulpFest. Mike serves as the marketing and programming director of the convention and is also the publisher of The Pulpster. A former member of the Pulp Era Amateur Press Society, Mike was the publisher of Purple Prose, a highly respected pulp fanzine that ran for seventeen issues in the late 1990s and early 21st century. Around the same time, he founded Mike Chomko Books, an independent purveyor of genre fiction and related materials. His specialty is pulp-related material. In “real life,” Mike is a retired registered nurse who worked in the operating room for nearly 20 years. Married for over forty years, he is the father of two adult children and a grandfather. To reach Mike by email, write to mike@pulpfest.com.

Mike Chomko (right) with authors Bob Deis and Wyatt Doyle

Hi Mike! Thanks for taking some time out of what I’m sure is a busy schedule prepping for PulpFest 2025 to chat.

Of course, Anthony/Antny/Anton/Ant/Dinty/Thanny/T/Sandy/Andrew/The Other Guy /Stormy/;  . . . I’m not exactly sure what to call you. Perhaps I’ll just call you, Lamont.

I mean, I don’t mind being mistaken for one of The Shadow’s many identities … (For those who don’t know, my email signature is a list of every nickname I’ve ever had. I guess I need to add Lamont now!)

For readers who may be unfamiliar with PulpFest, can you tell me a little about the convention’s focus and history?

The focus of PulpFest is pulp magazines — fiction periodicals named after the cheap pulp paper on which they were printed. The first pulp was published in 1896 by Frank A. Munsey. It was called The Argosy.

The first PulpFest took place in 2009 in Columbus, Ohio. The convention was founded by Jack Cullers, Barry Traylor, Ed Hulse, and me. Chris Kalb, a very talented artist and illustrator, helped us by setting up our website. He also put together several flyers and ads for the convention. So Chris was a big help getting PulpFest off the ground, but he didn’t want to be one of the so-called organizers or founders. But he helped big-time.

Before the first PulpFest, there was a long-running pulp convention known as Pulpcon. The first of these took place in 1972, and the convention pretty much continued on a nearly annual basis through 2008. Jack, Barry, and I were all members of the “crew” that organized Pulpcon during its final years. But many people felt that major changes were required for the convention to survive, and PulpFest was the result.

So between PulpFest and Pulpcon, we’ve been around for more than fifty years, celebrating “mystery, adventure, science fiction, and more” pretty much each and every summer.

Every year, PulpFest has a theme. What is the theme for PulpFest 2025, and what programming can attendees expect to enjoy related to that theme?

My wife likes to kid me about the anniversaries we celebrate at each and every PulpFest. Of course, if I forgot about our wedding anniversary, she’d be ticked off at me.

Regardless, we have this spreadsheet listing the start of important magazines such as Black Mask, Doc Savage, Weird Tales, or what have you. And then there’s another that lists the birthdays of major writers, artists, editors, publishers, and so on.

Well, I already knew that 2025 was the 150th anniversary of the birth of Edgar Rice Burroughs. But when I was looking at our spreadsheets last summer, I also noticed that Edgar Wallace, who was called “The King of the Thrillers” in Great Britain, and Rafael Sabatini, the celebrated author of historical fiction, were also born in the same year.

I pointed this out to Bill Lampkin, the convention’s advertising director, and we came up with the line, “Celebrating the Masters of Blood and Thunder.” We thought the phrase pretty much summed up the writing of all three writers.

So this year’s programming will have presentations on Wallace, Sabatini, and Burroughs, along with films related to at least two of the authors: King Kong and The Sea Hawk.

Although both Wallace and Sabatini had a good deal of fiction in America’s pulps, ERB was one of the “big guns” of the industry, creating Tarzan of the Apes, John Carter of Mars, and other series for the rough-paper magazines. So we’ll have presentations on Tarzan illustrators, Tarzan merchandising, and ERB’s “disciple,” Ray Bradbury. All of these will be part of our mini-convention, ERBFest 2025. Your membership in PulpFest also makes you a member of ERBFest.

2026 is also the anniversary of the “villain pulps.” These were character pulps that had bad guys as their so-called “star.” There was Doctor Death, The Mysterious Wu Fang, and in Weird Tales, a series of Doctor Satan adventures. These all began in 1935. Doctor Yen Sin, The Octopus, and The Scorpion came later.

In addition to ERBFest, we’ll also be hosting Farmercon XX, a convention that we’ve been hosting almost every year since 2011. And then there’s Doc Con 2026, a convention that we’re reviving thanks to a group of Doc Savage fans who have been attending PulpFest for a number of years. This year, PulpFest and Doc Con will be celebrating the Golden Anniversary of the George Pal film, Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze. It came out fifty years ago, back in 1975.

I would love to hear about your own personal connection to the pulps: your first encounter with them, favorite titles or characters, etc.

Well, my birthday is around the middle of August. So every year, I’d get presents from our relatives right before the start of school. And not having a whole lot of money, my parents naturally used the bulk of my birthday money for school clothes.

Back in the mid-sixties, there used to be a big department store in Allentown, PA (where I now live) where we’d go for school clothes and other necessities. This store had a book department, and I liked to read. So my parents let me have five bucks of my birthday money and let me wander off to the book department. And that’s where I found my first three Doc Savage paperbacks — The Land of Terror (because I loved dinosaurs), The Quest of Qui (because I thought Vikings were great), and The Brand of the Werewolf (because I liked to watch monster movies, despite the nightmares they caused).

That’s how I found out about the pulps. My first pulp was a Shadow magazine with no back cover, the one featuring the story “Chicago Crime.”

Somewhere along the line, I heard about Tom and Ginger Johnson’s Echoes, John Gunnison’s The Pulp Collector, Doug Ellis’s PulpVault, and the late Howard Hopkins’ Golden Perils. I probably started getting them from Bob Weinberg and later subscribed.

I used to write letters of comment to most of these fanzines. Then some short book reviews. I began to index them. I probably learned about Pulpcon by reading someone’s report in one of the fanzines I read religiously.

My first Pulpcon was the one in Wayne, New Jersey . . . the so-called “Pulpcon from Hell.” As Wayne was about 90 minutes from where I lived, I could commute nightly to it. Of course, I pretty much only spent my time in the dealers’ room (so I missed out on the programming). But I was hooked.

I began writing my own Pulpcon reports. I volunteered to help Jack and Barry with the Pulpcon auctions. The three of us became fast friends. It was John DeWalt — one of this year’s nominees for our Munsey Award — who nudged me to join the Pulp Era Amateur Press Society, AKA PEAPS. There, I started Purple Prose, my own fanzine, modeled after the things I admired in Echoes and the rest. Eventually, I expanded Purple Prose and made it available by subscription.

Although I had to give up publishing my own fanzine when I returned to college to become a registered nurse (I’m a retired operating room nurse), I recently rejoined PEAPS when they asked me to contribute to their 150th issue. I guess I’m a glutton for punishment.

I’m pretty much a generalist when it comes to the pulps. I’ve enjoyed the character pulps, science fiction, adventure, detective pulps, and so on and so on. Although both of my kids (both now in their late 30s) are readers, neither wanted my pulps. So I’ve sold off most of what I ever owned. About all I have left are a few readers copies and a bunch of aviation and detective pulps because I happen to really like the writer, Franklin H. Martin.

What do you think we can or should do to maintain interest in (or foster interest and awareness of) this pretty quintessentially American publishing format, and the great characters and concepts that originated in it?

Well, I honestly think that PulpFest does an awful lot to foster interest and awareness of pulps. When we moved to Mars, PA in 2017, our first guest was the artist Gloria Stoll-Karn. She had previously been a guest at Pulpcon, but we had her back because she lived right in Pittsburgh, just south of the convention.

A few years after that, the Pittsburgh public television station contacted me about a documentary on local women artists. One of them was Gloria. They wanted me to appear in the film, but I guess because of budget limitations, they didn’t have me come out to Pittsburgh . . . although Allentown is in the same state, the two cities are nearly 300 miles apart). So I recommended a local professor to them, and she was interviewed about Gloria. I think not long thereafter, the Norman Rockwell Museum in Massachusetts put on an exhibit of Gloria’s work, including some of her pulp covers.

I honestly believe that PulpFest having Gloria as its guest made people aware of her, and hence the interest. After all, we do have a pretty darn active website.

What can the average pulp fan do to keep the pulps alive?

Attend at least one pulp convention a year, be it Windy City, Pulp Adventurecon, PulpFest, ECOF, or what have you. I know it's hard to travel, and it's certainly not cheap. But the pulp cons have done a lot to promote interest in pulps and pulp collecting. The only way we can keep doing this is to have people attend. Yes, it's easy to buy pulps online by bidding in an Adventure House or Heritage Auction, but pulp cons have been plugging away for decades, trying to keep the interest there and to grow it as much as possible. And we can only keep doing it with your help.

This year’s PulpFest is also host to three other conventions: FarmerCon (dedicated to the work of Science Fiction Grandmaster Philip Jose Farmer), DocCon (focused on classic Pulp character Doc Savage) and ERBFest (devoted to the “Master of Adventure,” Edgar Rice Burroughs). How did PulpFest come to play host to these other conventions?

Back when I was publishing Purple Prose, I started selling books part-time to help pay for my printing bills. Fanzine publishing is a money loser, a time-honored tradition. Anyway, people would ask me if I could get this book or that.

I can’t recall who it was, but someone inquired about a fanzine called Farmerphile. I wrote to its publisher, Mike Croteau, and worked out a deal to sell his periodical. I think I made a buck a copy.

Anyway, Mike was involved with Farmercon. After Phil Farmer and his wife, Bette, passed away, there didn’t seem much impetus to continue the pilgrimage to Peoria, Illinois where the early Farmercons were held (often in the Farmer’s backyard). Mike asked me if they could have the 2011 Farmercon at that year’s PulpFest. After clearing the idea with my partners, the first combined PulpFest and Farmercon took place.

Phil’s fans had such a blast, they asked if they could return. After all, where else could they find a room full of pulp and book dealers to enjoy? Plus all of the programming (including their own) and socializing. And PulpFest gets to do a lot of the heavy lifting like working with the hotel, maintaining an active website, and so on.

Some years later, the country was hit with COVID. That was the year we had to cancel PulpFest. Come 2021, things continued to be a little dicey, and some conventions continued to be shut down. Things didn’t look good for the return of a Burroughs’ convention.

I emailed Henry G Franke III of The Burroughs Bibliophiles and proposed ERBFest to him. He cleared it with his board and our Burroughs mini-con was born.

Doc Con came about when Jen DiGiacomo and Bill Lampkin approached me in 2024 and proposed reviving the convention devoted to The Man of Bronze at this year’s PulpFest.

Started in 1998, Doc Con ran for about 20 years, with its last one — until now — taking place in 2017. Now thanks to the efforts of Jen, Bill, Ron Hill, Scott Cranford, and several more fans, we’ll have the 21st Doc Con as part of this year’s PulpFest.

And word has it that another group wants to talk to me about adding a fourth “mini-con” to the mix. Thank goodness I can use my fingers to count or I’d lose track of all of our associates.

Regardless of what happens, it’s great to have Doc Con, ERBFest, and Farmercon be part of PulpFest. It’s nice to have so many fans with different interests under the pulp con tent.

What are the odds that in the next year or two, we’ll see PulpFest grow to include, say, ShadowFest or AvengerCon?

Well, I think I kind of answered that in the last question. Let’s see what I learn at this year’s convention.

Finally, is it too early to share the dates, location, and/or theme for PulpFest 2026?

I can’t remember when we started, but Bill Lampkin and I have been running an ad in recent issues of The Pulpster — our conventions’ main program book — advertising the dates, location, and theme of the next year’s PulpFest and its associated conventions.

So we started looking at our spreadsheets about two months ago and 2026 happens to be the centennial of the first science fiction magazine, Amazing Stories. So that will be the main theme for 2026: “An Amazing Century!”

But it’s also the centennial of Bernarr Macfadden’s Ghost Stories. Unfortunately, one of the leading experts on the magazine lives in England, while the other lives in California. So we’re looking for someone to speak about the magazine/pulp of “true” ghost stories.

There are other anniversaries, including important birthdays for Rogers Terrill, Earle K. Bergey, Ryerson Johnson, Arthur Sullivant Hoffman, and others. And for magazines like Ka-Zar, Thrilling Wonder Stories, Sheena, and The Witch’s Tales. And let’s not forget about The Skipper and The Whisperer.

And 2026 also marks the 80th anniversary of “O’Brien and Obrenov,” Philip José Farmer’s first professional sale. And the centennial of Burroughs artist Bob Abbett. And who knows what ideas Doc Con will have for me.

Next year’s convention will be July 30 - August 2 at the DoubleTree by Hilton Pittsburgh - Cranberry in Mars, PA. It’s a good location for us (as long as our experiment this year, using the foyer outside our dealers’ room for more dealers’ tables works out for us) and our attendees really like it here.

I for one really like the location. It’s only a 6-hour drive for me from northwest NJ, and I travel enough by plane for work that being able to drive to/from Pulpfest makes it easier to attend. One last question: what can you tell me about this year’s Auction at Pulpfest?

In addition to our great programming, all put together by volunteers, we have a very nice auction this year. Currently, we have more than 200 lots, mostly consigned by PulpFest 2025 members. We also have a few small estates that also placed items with us for the auction.

We have a nice run of the large-sized Argosy from 1941 – 42; over 50 issues of New Worlds Science Fiction, long the leading British science fiction magazine; the first two issues of The Pulpster from its years as the Pulpcon program book; a complete set of Bantam’s Doc Savage paperbacks; several Arkham House first editions; a nice selection of Shadow pulps; the first appearance of Peter Pan; the ultra-rare LA Bantam Book #13, Children’s Favorite Stories; a run of Who’s Who in Baseball from the 1930s; artwork by Michael Wm. Kaluta; and much more. Also consigned are nearly 30 issues of Weird Tales from the 1920s and some pretty science fiction digests from the 1950s.

If you can't make it to PulpFest 2025, we do accept online bids. Visit our website and click the auction button to learn how to participate. Online bidding has been extended through Tuesday, August 5th, 2025.

Because off how close this post is going live to the start date of Pulpfest, parties interested in bidding remotely by phone can also email Mike (at mike@pulpfest.com) for contact information.

That’s a lot to bid for! I can’t wait to check it all out. Thanks again, Mike!

You’re very welcome, Lamont. Thanks very much for having me.

Readers, it is not too late to register for and attend Pulpfest 2025 (THE pulp magazine-focused convention in the Northeast) and the other three conventions it hosts: FarmerCon (dedicated to the works of Philip Jose Farmer), ERBFest (dedicated to the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs) and DocCon (dedicated to all things Doc Savage related). Check out the Pulpfest website for registration and hotel information!

PULPFEST 2024 Report

Those who follow me on Instagram or are friends with me on Facebook know that I spent this past weekend (actually, 5 days: July 31 to Aug 4) at Pulpfest in Cranberry, Pennsylvania. Pulpfest is a convention dedicated to the pulp magazines of the early 20th century (so called because they were printed on pulp/newsprint paper as compared to the “slick” magazines). It’s a convention I look forward to every year, probably my favorite. (Yes, I also love Readercon, held in Quincey, Massachusetts in July, but for different reasons.)

Before I talk about why I love Pulpfest so much and tell you a bit about this year’s convention, allow me to present you with a photo featuring every pulp magazine I own:

Yes, that’s it. Five pulp magazines. One issue of Startling Stories (which happens to include stories by the great Robert Bloch and also John Broome); one issue of Doc Savage (including the novel The Flaming Falcons); three issues of Planet Stories (one of which has a story by Fredric Brown, another of which has a short novel by Gardner F. Fox). And I am perfectly fine with the fact that I only own five pulp magazines, none of them in any salable condition (in fact, they were all gifts from a friend, duplicates of his own collection).

So why go to a convention dedicated primarily to pulp magazines, if I don’t collect pulp magazines?

Camaraderie.

See, Pulpfest is really three conventions in one. While the focus of Pulpfest panels is the preservation of the history of pulp magazines in all their multi-genre splendor (pulps ranged from romance/spicy to horror, adventure, mystery, western, science fiction, fantasy, and probably some genres I’m forgetting, to the “single character” pulps (both heroic, like The Shadow, The Avenger, and Doc Savage, and the villainous, like Doctor Satan.)), they also have welcomed FarmerCon (dedicated to celebrating the work of Philip Jose Farmer) and ERBFest (dedicated to celebrating the work of Edgar Rice Burroughs). And next year (2025), Pulpfest will expand to being “FOUR conventions for the price of one!” with the addition of DocCon, celebrating Doc Savage.

I started going to Pulpfest because of FarmerCon. I’d been online friends for quite a few years with a group of fans of Philip Jose Farmer and was finally convinced to meet them in person when Pulpfest relocated from Columbus, Ohio to Pittsburgh (Cranberry) Pennsylvania around 2018. I could (and will, one of these days) write an entire post, or even series of posts, about how Phil Farmer’s books (most notably, his fictional biographies of Tarzan and Doc Savage) inspired and intrigued me. Among the group of Farmer fans, I am easily the least knowledgeable about Farmer and his works. But that’s okay, they don’t hold it against me. They welcomed me with open arms, and I absorb their knowledge (and their book recommendations and writing advice) eagerly. These people have become more than friends (and far more than just online acquaintances) over these past few Pulpfest/FarmerCons.

Many of the FarmerCon folks are also big fans of Edgar Rice Burroughs – another relatively early influence on me (thanks in part to an adult neighbor who lent me some of the novels after seeing me reading some Marvel and DC Tarzan and John Carter of Mars comics), and another author about whom I am the least knowledgeable among our friend group when we gather. (See above for why I’m fine with that.) This year, it was decided to hold an ERBFest as part of Pulpfest, including the 2024 Dum Dum Banquet (if you’re fan of the Tarzan books, you know why it’s called that).

Many of the FarmerCon and ERBFest folks are also big fans of Doc Savage. You see where this is going – lather, rinse, repeat the above.

I LOVE (yes, in all caps) just hanging out and talking with all of these people in the hotel lobby until way later than is healthy for me, as well as attending panels and dinners and wandering the dealers’ room having conversations with the people I know, and people I’ve never met before. I usually don’t stop smiling and laughing the whole time I’m there unless I’m sleeping. These folks are “good medicine,” as my father used to say.

The panels I attended this year included:

·       “The Women of Edgar Rice Burroughs,” where panelists Cathy Mann Wilbanks (Vice-President of Operations at Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc.) and Bernice Jones discussed both the real women in Burroughs’ life (his mother, daughter, and two wives) and the strong, independent, progressive-for-the-time women in his fiction (Jane Porter Clayton, wife of Tarzan; Dejah Thoris, wife of John Carter of Mars; Duare, wife of Carson of Venus; Maggie Lynch, the main character of Burroughs’ novel The Girl From Farris’s; and many others). If there was one complaint from the attendees, it was that the panel wasn’t long enough to cover all of the strong, capable female characters Burroughs created (notable absences: Meriem, wife of Korak (son of Tarzan); Betty Caldwell and Llana of Gathol (from the John Carter books); and Virginia Maxon (from Burroughs’ The Monster Men).

·       “Flinch!Fest,” focused on current and recent releases from small press publisher Flinch! Books, during with Flinch co-publishers Jim Beard and John C. Bruening read passages from their stories in the western anthology Six Gun Legends, Bruening’s novel The Midnight Guardian: Gods and Sinners, and the Flinch anthology Quest for the Space Gods: The Chronicles of Conrad von Honig, which led into panel guest Brian K. Morris reading from the newest Flinch release, Quest for the Delphi Occulus, which Morris wrote for the press and which also features Conrad von Honig.

·       “The Universe According to Edgar Rice Burroughs,” during which ERB Inc Vice-President of Operations Cathy Mann Wilbanks and Vice-President of Publishing / Creative Director Christopher Paul Carey were joined by Joe Ferrante, one of the producers of the upcoming John Carter of Mars: the Audio Series (currently funding on Kickstarter), to discuss the audio project (including a video message from Sean Patrick Flannery, who will be voicing John Carter)  before launching into announcements of the next slate of ERB Universe books (including a new Land That Time Forgot novel, Fortress Primeval, by Mike Wolfer in 2025, as well as the very soon to release A Princess of Mars: Shadows of the Assassins by Ann Tonsor Zeddies (the first full length Dejah Thoris novel) and several projects featuring Victory Harben), as well as the next slate of books in the Edgar Rice Burroughs Authorized Library.

·       “Farmercon XIX Panel,” moderated by Keith Howell, during which Meteor House Press publishers Paul Spiteri and Win Scott Eckert discussed the recent Meteor House releases of The Full Account (which combines, in alternating chapters, Jules Verne’s Around the World in 80 Days with Philip Jose Farmer’s The Other Log of Phileas Fogg, which tells the same story from a different, more science fictional, angle) and the Secrets of the Nine Omnibus (which brings together under one cover Farmer’s A Feast Unknown, The Mad Goblin, and Lord of the Trees, as well as some connected short stories and essays by Eckert, Frank Schildiner, and others). They were joined by Meteor House author Sean Lee Levin, who talked about his non-fiction release Crossovers Expanded: The Secret History of the World Volume 3 as well as his fiction debut chapbook The Lazarus Cabal.

Sadly, due to my own poor scheduling, I had to miss several panels, including “Burroughs, Farmer, and Pulp,” in which author Craig McDonald interviewed one of my favorite artists, Douglas Klauba, about his work on various book covers for Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc and Meteor House. I would have loved to listen to Doug talk about his process.

I also got to see the world premiere of We Are Doc Savage, a documentary about Doc Savage fandom directed by Ron Hill, which will soon be making the film festival rounds. I readily admit I teared up several times, and finished the documentary thinking not only how wonderful Doc Savage fandom is in general and how the Doc Savage stories have influenced so many people but also thinking “Damn, I know some really incredibly cool and wonderful people,” since so many of my friends were interviewed for the film.

And of course, I bought stuff. Too much stuff. No pulps, but a lot of paperbacks, some hardcovers, two art prints (one by Doug Klauba, the other by Mark Wheatley), some comics, and a small pile of DVDs. On the vintage paperback side, I made progress filling in some series I’m re-collecting (including Dark Shadows and The Man from U.N.C.L.E.) and started (and possibly completed) two more (Strange Paradise and Mathew Swain). I also found a first edition hardcover of the novelization of Miracle on 34th Street. And I bought current releases from the tables of small press publishers Flinch! Books, Becky Books, Stormgate Press, Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc., and Meteor House, as well as from authors Craig McDonald and Brian K. Morris. If you’d like to see pictures of everything I purchased, head on over to my Instagram page.

I could go on and on about the dinner time and late-night conversations; there were SO MANY in-jokes, and so many instances of just basking in friends talking about the things they love. But this post is already way longer than my usual.

Pulpfest 2024 is over … but Pulpfest 2025 (including Farmercon XX, ERBFest, and DocCon!) is a mere 53 weeks away: Thursday, August 7th through Sunday, August 10th, 2025, at the Doubletree by Hilton in Cranberry, PA. Join us!