A rundown of pulp shows for 2016

Updated: April 28, 2016.

The first pulp show of the year is less than two weeks away.

Pulp AdventureCon kicks things off on Saturday, Feb. 20, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and will probably close out the pulp show year on Saturday, Nov. 5, in New Jersey. But in between there are plenty of pulp shows, conventions and events for you to get involved.

In addition to the events listed below, the Gotham Pulp Collectors Club meets the third Saturday of each month at a Manhattan library. The meetings are free, and usually last a few hours before members often adjourning to a nearby spot for coffee and more pulp talk. Check the group’s website for details.

Here in Tallahassee, Fla., we’ve organized a chapter of the Southern Pulpsters group. While we haven’t set regular meetings, we try to get together every couple of months for dinner and to talk about pulps (and popular culture). The group has grown to about eight members over the past year.

So, even if you can’t make it to one of the events below, you can set up your own pulp get-together with a little initiative. If you need encouragement or help, let me know.

On with the shows

Please see individual show websites for fees and specific venue information.

• Western Heroes of Pulp Fiction: Dime Novel to Pop Culture, Tuscon, Ariz., through Sunday, Feb. 14, 2016. This exhibit of original western artwork at the Tucson Museum of Art has been running since October.
• Pulp Adventurecon, Fort Lauderdale, Fla., from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 20. Special guests at the second-annual Florida show will be Dan Philips, son of pulp fictioneer Judson P. Philips, and actor John Martino, who appeared in The Godfather. I’ll be at Adventurecon, as will Michael Brown, who blogs here as The Pulp Super-Fan. Please stop by ThePulp.Net table and say hello.
• Los Angeles Vintage Paperback Show, Glendale, Calif., from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday, April 3. This show, which moved a few years ago from an older hotel in Mission Hills to the Glendale Civic Auditorium, features a long list of guests who will be signing their books, and offers a chance to look for pulps and pulp reprints among tables and tables of books.
• Michigan Antiquarian Book and Paper Show, Lansing, Mich., from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., Sunday, April 3. This is the 63rd edition of this Midwest show.
• Jack Williamson Lectureship, Portales, N.M., April 5-9. Not a pulp show, this annual lecture series celebrates pulp sf fictioneer Jack Williamson and his legacy, and features readings, guest lectures (author Victor Milan this year), and workshops at Eastern New Mexico University where Williamson taught for many years.
• Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention, Lombard, Ill., April 22-24. This year’s con, in a suburb of Chicago, will be the 16th, and as usual it focuses on the dealers’ room. There will also be an art show, featuring pulp and pulp-related original artwork; a nightly film festival; a convention suite for socializing; and, ending the weekend, a five-hour block devoted to New Pulp.
• H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival, San Pedro, Calif., April 29-May 1. Guests include H.P. Lovecraft documentarian Frank Woodward and mythos author Cody Goodfellow. (See below for a second HPL Film Festival.)
• Fantastic Pulps Show & Sale, Toronto, Ont., 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, May 7. This marks 20 years that Girasol Collectibles has produced the Canadian pulp show.
• Robert E. Howard Days, Cross Plains, Texas, June 10-11. The Guest of Honor will be Michael Scott Myers, screenwriter of the Robert E. Howard bio-pic The Whole Wide World.
• PulpFest 2016, Columbus, Ohio, July 21-24. In addition to a large dealers’ room, PulpFest features evenings of pulp-related panels, guests and presentations, a new gaming track for those who enjoy role-playing games, and New Pulp readings during the day. This year’s Guest of Honor will be Ted White, Hugo Award-winning sf author and former editor of Amazing Stories and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. PulpFest also shares the weekend with its partner convention, FarmerCon, which celebrates sf author Philip José Farmer. (Disclosure: I am new to the PulpFest board this year, and edit the con’s magazine, The Pulpster.)
• Burroughs Bibliophiles’ Dum-Dum 2016, Morris, Ill., Aug. 4-6. Guests of Honor at the convention celebrating the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs will be author and editor Mike Resnick and editor and designer Robert Garcia.
• H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival, Portland, Ore., Oct. 7-9. Guests at the year’s second HPL Film Festival will include Guest of Honor and author Charles Stross, author Richard Lupoff, and Lovecraft expert S.T. Joshi.
• Doc Con XIX, Glendale, Ariz., Nov. 4-6, 2016. Now that the Arizona Cardinals football team has finalized its fall schedule, the dates for the annual get-together for fans of Doc Savage, the Man of Bronze, have also been finalized. (The convention hotel, in a suburb of Phoenix, is near the Cardinals’ stadium, and the Arizona Fans of Bronze schedule the con on an off-weekend.)
• Pulp Adventurecon, Bordentown, N.J., Saturday, Nov. 5. More than likely, the year’s second Adventurecon will be wrapping up the pulp convention season in November. Check out the show’s website for more details, including potential guests, as the date approaches.

You can always check on upcoming shows at ThePulp.Net‘s Pulp Events page. That listing is updated regularly.