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!

SERIES SATURDAY: Warriors of Zandar

This is a blog series about … well, series. I love stories that continue across volumes, in whatever form: linked short stories, novels, novellas, television, movies, comics.

 

Beyond The Farthest Star: Warriors of Zandar

Publisher: American Mythology

Publication Date(s): 2022

Writer/Editor: Mike Wolfer

Pencils and Inks: Allesandro Ranaldi

Colors: Arthur Hesli

Letters: Natalie Jane

 

Last week on Series Saturday, I reviewed American Mythology’s recent four-issue mini-series Pellucidar: Across Savage Seas featuring Gretchen Von Harben, the first of two comic book series officially considered canonical Edgar Rice Burroughs Universe entries. Beyond The Farthest Star: Warriors of Zandar is the second of those series, and stars Gretchen Von Harben’s daughter Victory Harben.

Over the past two years, readers of the “Swords of Eternity Super-Arc” series from Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc. (Carson of Venus: The Edge of All Worlds by Matt Betts; Tarzan: Battle for Pellucidar by Win Scott Eckert; and John Carter of Mars: Gods of the Forgotten by Geary Gravel) have been introduced to Victory, learned a bit about her childhood, and bore witness to a few of her many adventures bouncing through space and time thanks to an accident involving the Gridley Wave that allows those in Pellucidar to communicate with the surface world. Beyond the Farthest Star: Warriors of Zandar is another of those space-and-time-bouncing adventures, in which Victory finds herself on the far-off titular planet and smack in the middle of a battle between two races: the peaceful Ki-Vaas and the brutal Keelars. As usual, the out-going and gregarious Victory makes a new friend almost immediately, which pulls her further into the local conflict: the Keelars are harvesting the Ki-Vaas and subjecting them to a device that extracts and saves the life-force of anyone placed in it.

Writer Mike Wolfer paces the main story – Victory and her friend’s attempts to rescue the captive Ki-Vaa and stop the Keelars – pretty perfectly across the four issues, once again easily matching Edgar Rice Burroughs’ prose style in comic book form. Complications abound before Victory and her compatriots solve the problem at hand, but there is a resolution to the main story. We also get a nice look into Victory’s character: her sense of social justice, her willingness to do the right thing even at great personal peril, her open-hearted nature. In Wolfer’s hands, Victory Harben continues to be a character I want to know more about and want to see in adventure after adventure.

There are some unresolved secondary plots, but as this is definitely not Victory’s final adventure I’m not concerned that they will remain unresolved for long. I am intrigued by references to the Keelar’s unseen master “The One from Above,” a figure who remains mysterious and unseen even in the final issue of the mini-series. I’m also wondering just how long Victory will remain on Zandar and whether this world will also be the setting for Christopher Paul Carey’s upcoming novel Victory Harben: Fires of Helos, which is the final installment in the “Swords of Eternity” Super-Arc mentioned above.

Wolfer also does a wonderful job, mostly via dialogue that doesn’t feel like an info-dump and never feels out of character, conveying the differences between the Ki-Vaa and Keelar societies. Burroughs, in his Mars and Venus books especially, was known for making sure his alien planets were populated with a diversity of physical and societal types where so much science fiction of the time (and even in the more recent past) took the short-cut of having homogenous planet-wide societies. The latter may make for easier storytelling, but it also feels a bit unrealistic.

Allesandro Ranaldi’s artwork is highly expressive and really conveys the alien nature of the planet Victory has found herself on. Wolfer conveys via dialogue the differences between the two societies, and Rinaldi shows us the very large difference in physicality. The Ki-Vaa are humanoid but distinctly not human, while the Keelar are blockier, for lack of a better term. (It’s probably not intentional on the part of the artist, but the Keelar remind me of shorter, hairless versions of Looney Tunes character Gossamer.) Arthur Hesli’s colors make this new world pop.

Victory Harben is not the only connection between this series and the greater canonical Edgar Rice Burroughs Universe: the planet Zandar is in the same solar system as Poloda, the planet introduced in the novel Beyond the Farthest Star (hence the lengthy title of the mini-series). Farthest Star is one of my favorite Burroughs novels. We’ll never know what Burroughs intended for Tangor, the hero of the novel, or Poloda or the solar system as a whole – but ERB Inc. clearly has plans for them. Victory Harben is, I think, the ideal character to bridge the gap between Farthest Star and the rest of the canonical ERBU.