REHupa

The first PulpFest was held in Columbus, Ohio this past weekend and appears to have been a rousing success. This particular pulp magazine convention arose out of the ashes of Pulp-Con. I had attended Pulp-Con regularly since 1993 when it was held at University of Dayton, then Bowling Green State University, and then at the Dayton Convention Center. I watched dwindling numbers of attendees the past four or five years while no changes were attempted to revive the show. I even wrote “A Tale of Two Pulp Shows” for The Cimmerian in the September 2006 issue contrasting the Windy City Pulp & Paperback Show to Pulp-Con. I didn’t even bother attending Pulp-Con last year and apparently many others passed. Meanwhile the Windy City show continued to grow and become the premier pulp convention.

Three board members of Pulp-Con decided to split off and start up their new show, which would move to Columbus. The new city itself has proved to be critical with Columbus serviced by most airlines. New ideas were entertained including lots of programs throughout the day. The radio play was consigned to File 13. These changes have paid off.

I like having the show in Columbus myself. It is a shorter drive for me and there is more to do in Columbus in general than in Dayton. The Dealer’s Room was filled if not packed with both dealers and attendees. The pulp selection was pretty good with plenty of Weird Tales, various science fiction titles, hero pulps, detective pulps, and adventure pulps. I was able to expand my Gordon D. Shirreffs and the man who went to high school with Robert E. Howard– Will C. Brown/Clarence S. Boyles Jr. in western pulps. A couple more of Armand Brigaud stories from Jungle Stories and Argosy, fill some more holes in my P. Schuyler Miller collection, and get a good start on my Manly Wade Wellman science fiction collection.

I took my stack of Weird Tales duplicates and sold off two-thirds of them. A side trip to a local Half-Price Books netted some marked down copies of Mark Finn’s Blood and Thunder. Plus, I was able to be home around 4:00 P.M. Sunday and still enjoy a little bit of the weekend at home.

I aided in transportation of refreshments for the con suite provided by the Robert E. Howard Foundation. Howard fans know how to entertain.  Rusty Burke represented the Foundation this weekend and there were some Howard fans such as Jim Barron, Jeff Wentzell, and Jason Landers present.

It looks like there were 350 attendees for the show or maybe a little bit more. So this pulp show is off to a great start and it looks like it will be bigger next year. Same hotel, same weekend in August. See you there.