Convention Report: PULPADVENTURE CON 2014.


   PulpAdventurecon has been held in Bordentown NJ every November for quite a few years now. Hosted by Rich Harvey, it’s an annual gathering point for collectors and dealers of pulp magazines, vintage paperbacks, DVDs of old movies and TV series, artwork and in general anything old made of paper. It’s been a few years since I’ve been able to get away for one, but it’s where I’ve been this past weekend.

   It’s a one-day show, but I drove down the Friday before with my friend Paul Herman, where along the way we met Gary Lovisi and his wife Lucille in Morristown NJ, plus LA paperback collector extraordinaire Tom Lesser, who’d flown in just for the occasion.

   After the five of us had scoured The Old Book Shop clean of anything of value, Paul and I went to Walker Martin’s home in Trenton, where we also met Ed Hulse, Nick Certo, Digges LaTouche, Scott Hartshorn, and Matt Moring. After several hours of chatting and catching up, we watched a western movie together, sans Digges, who had to leave early.

   The movie was a George O’Brien epic called Mystery Ranch, of which IMDb has to say: “An undercover ranger investigates a deranged rancher who acts as a law unto himself, finding a girl held as a prisoner until she agrees to marry the madman.” You may find me reviewing it here on this blog sometime soon.

   Paul and I left after dinner for the Ramada Inn where the convention was to be held the next day, and luckily Paul was able to unload his car and set up his wares for sale early. I say “luckily”as it rained poured most of the next day.

   I didn’t take any photos that came out well on Friday, but here are some I took on Saturday. I’ll welcome any errors in identification and name spelling, and make the necessary corrections later.

   This first photo will show you the general layout of the room. There may have been 30 dealers, maybe less, and perhaps 100 walk-in buyers, or slightly more. When this photo was taken, around noon, two hours after the dealers’ room was open, it was filled with people. There was no program, nor were there any invited guests.


   In this photo, from left to right, are Walker Martin, Nick Certo, a dealer from somewhere north of New York City, and Paul Herman. Paul may be telling the others about the cache that got away.


   About 30% of the wares offered were pulps, another 30% paperbacks, 30% also for DVDs, with the remaining 10% split between hardcovers and original artwork or prints. John Gunnison brought the most pulps for sale, as you can see by the wall behind his tables. I believe that is Cowboy Tony, a dealer from New Hampshire, looking in the boxes, but I am not sure.


   In this photo Gary Lovisi is talking to Paul Herman. Gary took this year off after putting on the New York City paperback show for 30 25 years, but there is a possibility he will give it a go again next year.


   I don’t know who that is that Scott Hartshorn is talking to on the left. Originally a native of the area, Scott drove up for this show from Florida. He is also a lot younger than I am.


   This is Walker Martin, close up and personal. He is about to show me his latest purchase. You can tell from his smile that he’s happy to be its new owner.


   And this is it, an interior black and white piece of art by John Fleming Gould, I believe, whose son had a table at the show with several other of his father’s works of art for sale. I will let Walker tell you more about his purchase in the comments.


   This is not a good shot of him, but the gentleman squatting down sorting through boxes of books on the floor is Tom Lesser, who has put on a paperback show in the Los Angeles area for the past umpteen years. It is rare to find Tom in positions other than this, but there is a better one of him coming. I went through this same boxes later, but I found nothing left of value. I also found it very difficult to stand again.


   This is Cowboy Tony behind his tables. I think he’s wondering if he remembered everything that he meant to bring to sell.


   This is Paul negotiating a deal with someone, but I don’t recognize whose table it is. The second person in the background to the left of Paul is Ed Hulse, who otherwise seems to have managed not being in any of my other photos.


   The tall young fellow in the photo below is Matt Moring, who is the head honcho at Altus Press and responsible for bring out tons of books reprinting stories from the pulps. The big news is that he has just obtained the rights to publish stories from most of the Munsey and Popular Publications magazines, which is really, really bad news for my checking account.

   Behind Matt at his table in the blue sweater is Martin Grams, who besides being responsible for the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention every year, also sells movies and old TV series on DVD at smaller shows such as this one. He also is very hard on my checking account, so I try to stay away from his table. I didn’t succeed, though.


   This is Gary Lovisi and Tom Lesser, soon before they headed back north to New York City in the rain. That looks like Paul Herman in the background on the telephone, probably telling his wife he wouldn’t be back home until around 11:30. Which he was. I had my car parked there waiting for me, so it took me only another 30 minutes to reach home again myself.