As I’ve mentioned before I first discovered the stories from the pulps — and the pulps themselves — during junior high.
For the longest time, there were only two or three friends who shared my enthusiasm for the pulps: Charles Corder, my friend since first grade; Curtis Collins, a high-school classmate who worked at a local comic book store; and Darryl (I’ve forgotten his last name), who we met through the store. That was about it, except occasionally for a friend who had a mild interest in one or two specific pulp characters.
After college, we all went different ways as we journeyed into adulthood and “real life.” Throughout the ’80s, I was pretty much a lone pulp fan who kept his eyes out for any pulp-related reprints or studies that might show up in the local bookstore’s “Books in Print” catalog — which once discovered would be promptly order. That’s how I discovered the Crime Club’s reprints of The Shadow, and pulp scholar Robert Sampson‘s various books published by the Popular Press.
(I completely missed out on pulp fanzines during this time. Sadly, I never saw one or heard of any. Same thing with pulp conventions.)
Once I got online in the early 1990s, I started finding many other pulp fans through AOL’s and Usenet’s pulp groups, and eventually through the World Wide Web.
Online I started hearing about PulpCon and, by the late ’90s, of the Arizona Doc Con. I was fortunate enough to move to the Phoenix area just a couple of weeks before Doc Con VII in 2004, and I jumped at the chance to attend.
Finally, here were around a dozen others — in person — who loved the pulps as much as I did.
A couple of years later, in 2006, I attended my first PulpCon and met even more pulp fans, many of whom I had encountered online through various pulp groups and websites.
We moved from Phoenix, back to Florida, about 15 months ago. That meant that I wasn’t able to attend last year’s Doc Con (my first miss in eight years). Unfortunately, I won’t be able to join the gang again this coming weekend as they gather for Doc Con XVI and celebrate 80 years of the Man of Bronze.
I’ve had a chance to get back to Phoenix a couple of times since we moved, and to meet up with some of the Arizona Fans of Bronze briefly for meals. And I drove down to Clearwater, Fla., to have lunch with Scotty Phillips and one of the Arizona gang, Courtney Rogers, who was visiting Scotty.
It’s one thing to enjoy the pulps by reading their stories and about them on your own. But it’s something else to meet, talk and bond with other pulp fans.
If you can get to the Phoenix area for Friday through Sunday, Oct. 18-20, I’d highly recommend that you do. Those are the dates for this year’s Doc Con. You’ll meet a great group of fans of Doc Savage — and the pulps.
If that’s out of the question, check out some of the other upcoming pulp shows listed on the Pulp Events calendar (which is on the right side of most pages at ThePulp.Net). Or next spring’s Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention or next summer’s PulpFest (I’m going to do my best to get there next year).
Pulp gatherings are a great thing. And meeting fellow pulp fans is the biggest benefit of any of the events. (I’d like to get a pulp gathering going in the Southeast.)
Best wishes to all of those who do make it to this year’s Doc Con. It sounds as though it will be a memorable event (again).
I’d love to hear from anyone else who’d care to share their experiences or thoughts on pulp gatherings in the comments section below.
