‘Bookery’s Guide to Pulps & Related Magazines’ 2nd edition

A pulp magazine price guide? Yup.

Bookery’s Guide to Pulps & Related Magazines by Tim Cottrill is the second edition of this work and came out in 2020 from Heritage Auctions via Ivy Press. The first edition came out in 2005, which was actually an update of The Ultimate Guide to the Pulps from 2001. Tim Cottrill owns a book/collectibles store called Bookery Fantasy in Ohio, hence the name. I first learned of it a couple of years ago and wanted to get a copy. Hopefully I can get a copy of the first edition.

I actually found it funny to see some of the reactions to it on one of the pulp email lists I was on. Most poo-pooed the idea of a pulp price guide and on how accurate the prices would be. As a long-time comic-book collector, I recall similar comments about The Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide. But I have gotten it for years (decades) not for the price information, but for all the other info on comics: artists, characters, etc, as well as the informative articles.

So for the same reason, this is why I wanted this guide.

In addition to the listing of pulps, which includes the publisher, number of issues, and usually some info on the pulp itself, we get notes on major authors/artists in many of the issues, as well as several articles and other information.

We get a forward by Jim Steranko. Then we get an introductory article which covers “what are pulps?,” their influence, grading, and pricing. We get a breakdown of genres, a list of publishers, which also includes their variants. Terms and abbreviations are given. A multi-page color section shows full-size pictures of pulps to show grading. There is a 10-page center section of color pictures of pulps, nine to a page. I found it interesting that some pulps get one cover, but some get two or three.

Wrapping things up, we get several pages with listings of authors and artists, and a bibliography. As usual, I took a look to see if there are other books I should get. The guide is rounded out with several full-page ads from auction houses and dealers.

Overall, I thought it is a good reference work. I’m sure we’ll not see an annual publication like with Overstreet, and would have liked more reference articles, but thought it a nice volume. It will go on my reference shelf. Check it out.