I’m on the last leg of my drive to PulpFest 2025 near Pittsburgh today. I’ll get in around lunchtime, then start setting up the presentation room and getting settled into Doc Con alley in the dealers’ room.
This year’s PulpFest officially kicks off on Thursday. As I’ve done in past years, I plan on posting photos to ThePulp.Net’s Instagram feed throughout the summer’s pulp convention.
I’m excited about this year’s PulpFest because it marks the return of Doc Con. For 20 years, Rob Smalley, Jay Ryan, Paul Cook, and Courtney Rogers organized and hosted the original Doc Savage convention in the Phoenix area. It started small but grew in the final few years to bring together around 50 fans of bronze and included special guests such as actor Ron Ely, writer David Avallone, and artists Bob Larkin and Joe DeVito.
With the blessing of those Arizona fans of bronze, Doc Con is back after eight years, this time alongside PulpFest, and its other associated conventions ERBFest and FarmerCon.
The Doc Con revival germinated in one of the after-hours gatherings in the lobby of DoubleTree hotel at PulpFest last year. Several of us had attended the Arizona Doc Cons over the years, and others were disappointed that they had missed them. There was enough interest and energy to pitch the idea of bringing back Doc Con to the PulpFest committee — as long as the Arizona fans gave their approval.
PulpFest and the Arizona fans of bronze both agreed, so Doc Con 2025 reboots the annual gatherings.
I hope that some of the Arizona gang will be able to join us in Pittsburgh this year. Also, I hope that many of you — whether you’re curious about the pulps, whether you are a diehard pulp collector, or a fan of Doc Savage, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Philip Jose Farmer, or another pulp character or fictioneer — will join us at PulpFest.
If you can’t attend, please follow ThePulp.Net’s Instagram or Facebook feeds, or tune into the next installments of Pulp Tales (I promise to get them posted more quickly this year) for coverage of PulpFest, Doc Con, ERBFest, and FarmerCon.
And if you do make it to PulpFest, please say hi.
