REHupa

I spent my entire day Saturday May 2nd at the Windy City Pulp & Paperback Convention “over by dere” in Lombard, Illinois, perusing the spacious dealer’s room and sucking in the ever-disintegrating pulp paper fumes that prevailed in the air. Well, that’s not entirely true – more than half the time I was there, I was chatting up some old and new Howard fans.

The dealer’s room at the Westin Lombard was packed with vendors displaying a big ol’ pile of stuff, and sorting through the pulps, paperbacks, magazines & journals and items of that ilk, one could find the Howardphile likes of: my fellow blogger Morgan “Doc Pod” Holmes, Jim Barron, Jeff Wentzel, Frank “Skipper” Coffman, Jimmy Cheung, Ed Chaczyk, Bob Lumpkin, and dealer Scott Hartshorne. New to the thrills of Howard collecting, but decidedly no slouch, is Jason Landers, fellow Hoosier and one fellow who was pretty glad he hooked up with some of us silverback Howard Heads!

While the lot of us did our part in helping out the dealers there, it was obvious the tough economic times were affecting everyone in attendance. Scott Hartshorne gave me a deal on a couple of items, but I certainly would not want to be involved in a business that relied on disposable income these days. Everyone is feeling the crunch.

The two items shown above were of special interest to us Howard Heads: Robert E. Howard’s signature on a small scrap of paper (minimum bid $500) and another scrap with HPL’s scrawl, giving a thumbs up to Howard’s story “The God in the Bowl” (minimum bid $750).

Bob Weinberg shared some info on these items. They are from the estate of Robert Barlow, who was undoubtedly the biggest fanboy of the first half of the 20th Century! When we asked about the God in the Bowl HPL comment on a story that was not published in Howard’s (or HPL’s) lifetime, Bob told us about the practice that some pulp writers engaged in: sharing typescripts to generate feedback and comments from their peers. Howard, of course, also carried on this practice with his amateur literary “fanzines” like The Junto and The Right Hook. He and his friends interested in writing and literature would contribute to their own amateur publications (often only producing one copy, or as many copies as carbon paper would allow). They would then share these copies, with each member of the group reading the entire issue that was sent, even doing commentary and adding those pages to the publication, and then mailing it to the next person on the list. Wow – these were people who were passionate about their interests, for sure! Something we all can relate to, huh?

I didn’t hang around for the 8 pm auction, so I don’t know if the REH or HPL items sold. Maybe Doc Pod can add his comments. But I had a great time seeing old friends and making new ones, and best of all: talkin’ ’bout Bob.

Indy Adds: A note from Jason Landers tells me the Howard autograph went for a “paltry” $900! The HPL note sold as well, for an unknown amount. Nice to know someone still has some disposable income!