On Saturday, Feb. 24, the 2018 Pulp AdventureCon was held in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. This is the fourth time it’s been held, and I had been at the first and second ones, but had to miss last year’s event due to being out of town.
I’ve never been able to attend a pulp con, so this is the only one I’ve been to. Overall this was a good event, though I wish there were more dealers and attendees there. I think some of the problem was a group had a rival event going on up in West Palm Beach, and it appears the organizers of the other event intentionally set it the same weekend and tried to get dealers to come to their event. Sad.
The Big Name at this year’s event was Allen Bellman, Golden Age artist of Marvel Comics (Captain America, etc.) and Lev Gleason Publications. Bold Venture Press, the company behind this event had recently published a book by Bellman on his comic career: Timely Confidential. These were available for sale, which he was signing and including a piece of artwork.
Of course, Rich Harvey and Audrey Parente of Bold Venture were there with all their books, including Pulp Adventures, Awesome Tales, the various Plot Genie volumes, the complete Zorro, Railroad Stories volumes, and their various new and reprint volumes by Stuart Hopen, Charles Boekman, C.J. Henderson, Hugh Pentecost, Theodore Roscoe, and more. I actually wasn’t aware of what all they’ve published.
Joe Lovece was there with his various volumes, the Steam Man of the West series, Dime Novel Cover series, Penny Dreadful series and more.
The guys behind the Men’s Adventure Library were there with several of their books reprinting material (stories and covers) from “men’s adventure magazines,” sometimes called the “sweats.”
There were some other deals in rare books, pulps, and comics as well.
Overall it was a good show. I hope they are able to do it again next year and can get a larger crowd. Thanks much to Rich and Audrey for continuing to do these.
