Thu 12 May 2022
WINDY CITY PULP CONVENTION 2022 REPORT, by Walker Martin.
Posted by Steve under Collecting , Conventions , Pulp Fiction[16] Comments
by Walker Martin
A few years ago, one of my best friends attended Pulpcon, despite knowing he had a terminal illness. Hardcore collectors will survive just about anything except death. My health problems lately have not involved a terminal illness, but I suffer from claustrophobia, and I had to undergo two cataract operations in April. Despite being disappointed in these procedures, I somehow managed to, go with four other collectors in our usual van.
Fortunately, this convention managed to cheer me up and here are my comments on the Windy City Pulp Convention. There have been over 20 of these shows and this was the 15th year at the Westin Hotel in Lombard, Illinois, which is about a half hour outside Chicago. Doug Ellis stated that there were about 500 attendees and 180 dealer tables.
No masks were required, but many collectors wore them just to be safe. As usual the dealer’s room was very busy and set up was allowed on Thursday evening from 8 pm to about 11 pm. There were thousands of books, pulps, vintage paperbacks, original art, new pulp novels, movies on DVDs and comics.
Some excellent books made their debut at the show. Ed Hulse of Murania Press had what looked like his biggest magazine on the pulps, Blood n Thunder 2022 Special Edition:336 pages, over 100,000 words, and over 100 illustrations. There are 10 essays in the book with the most important being the 120 pages devoted to the Doubleday Crime Club Golden Age, 1928-1940. Ed also had a preview copy of his new book, an updated edition of Wild West in Fiction and Film.
Matt Moring of Steeger Press had several new books for sale on Mike Chomko’s table: Unremembered Murder by Carroll John Daly, volume 7 of the Race Williams series, all from 1944-1955, The Major by L. Patrick Greene, volume 4, The Life of Pinky Jenkins by H. Bedford Jones, volume 3, and the best one of all, The Complete Exploits of the Notorious Sea Fox by James K. Waterman. This last collects several stories from Frontier in the 1920’s and deals with the infamous slave trade before the Civil War. Steeger Books has passed the 600 book mark I believe. Amazing and quite an accomplishment.
Also available was the new edition of the Windy City Pulp Stories, #21. 130 pages, all devoted to Fiction House. The best article was Will Murray’s “The Rise and Fall of Fiction House”. Also of note are articles dealing with Arthur J. Burks, the pulp magazine, Black Aces, and other Fiction House items of interest.
The art show had several original cover paintings and illustrations from Fiction House magazines and I was really impressed by the excellent display. Ed Hulse ran the usual film show which showed serials and B-movies during the day and after the evening auction.
Speaking of the auction, John Gunnison did his usual fine job as auctioneer. Friday night had 200 lots from the Robert Weinberg Estate and Saturday night had almost 200 lots from the Glenn Lord Estate. An entire set of Planet Stories was auctioned in several lots, many Weird Tales, including the Anniversary large issue from 1924 ($8000), and all sorts of correspondence. The Gent From Bear Creek by Robert Howard sold for several thousand.
There were the usual panels and I attended the Fiction House discussion given by Roger Hill. On Saturday night David Saunders did his usual excellent job discussing such Fiction House artists as George Gross, Allan Anderson, and Norman Saunders. I’m looking forward to his Pulpfest presentation on Nick Eggenhofer this August.
I’ve been collecting now for over 65 years and I don’t need much anymore, but I always find something. This year I’m rebuilding some of my sets such as All Western and Dime Detective. I found several copies of each that I need plus an Ace High from 1926 that I’ve been looking for.
One of the problems of collecting for a long time is that you start to run out of things to collect. Most of my wants are very odd and hard to find, such as the five Sea Stories I lack. There were 118 and I have 113, so it’s not too likely that I’ll find issues I need. Same thing with Western Story and Detective Story. I only need a few issues of each for complete sets, but I’ll probably never find them. But you never know. I never thought I’d find all 444 All Story either but I did.
Pulpfest is up next in August 4-7, 2022, in Pittsburgh. The 50th Anniversary of Pulpcon/Pulpfest! I never thought I’d see such a long run of conventions when I attended the first one in 1972. But here we are. See you there!
May 12th, 2022 at 9:54 pm
To Whoever Finds This:
Mike Doran here (what’s left of him, anyway …).
You may remember that I missed the 2021 show (health reasons), although I had sent in a membership form; the good folks were kind enough to send me a goodie bag, so all was well.
This year, things around home got a bit out of control, and I forgot to send the form.
The GFs did Email me a notice, telling me I could still buy in at the gate, and I fully intended to do just that.
EXCEPT –
– basically, same problem as last year (not as bad, really, but three hours + on public transit is nothing to sneeze at, and so I missed 2022 too (or also).
So, I appeal to the Windy City Pulp people if they might see fit to send a form, to which I can reply with a check, to get this year’s goodies.
It has to be snail mail, by the way; internet payment methods are beyond my ken.
You still have my address, and I am very much still here.
My apologies and advance thanks, and I will bend every effort to get to the 2023 Pulpcon (and this time I WILL NOT misplace the coupon!).
May 12th, 2022 at 10:18 pm
Mike, I’m lucky to have membership in a van full of collectors, otherwise I’d have missed the convention also. Better luck next year!
May 13th, 2022 at 1:42 am
I missed the show again myself, Mike, not by forgetting about it, but simply by the bad luck of bad timing. It’s been far too long since I’ve gotten to either Windy City or PulpFest, alas, alas!
May 13th, 2022 at 1:51 am
But here’s a question for you, Walker. You say
“One of the problems of collecting for a long time is that you start to run out of things to collect.”
and I understand completely.
But is there one book or magazine or anything worth collecting that you’ve always wanted but were never able to obtain?
A similar question: What one item have you sold or traded off that you’ve always regretted?
May 13th, 2022 at 6:45 am
For the most part I’ve been able to find just about everything I’ve wanted, in the USA. But I’ve always regretted not trying harder to obtain the British fiction magazines like Hutchinson’s Adventure, Mystery, Detective titles. Also the fiction magazines covered in Mike Ashley’s big book on the UK pulps and magazines. These magazines are very rare because I believe they had smaller circulations than the US magazines plus the paper drives of WW 2 destroyed so many British periodicals. Strangely enough I’ve managed to find the UK literary magazines that I wanted like London Mercury, The Criterion, Horizon, etc.
I’ve regretted trading off my sets of Cavalier and Peoples. I now want to read some of the issues but at the time I thought I was finished with them.
We never regret the books and magazines that we buy but we certainly regret the ones that we traded off or did not buy when we had the chance to get them.
May 13th, 2022 at 7:08 am
Walker’s statement above should be displayed in a banner as the motto of every pulpfest in the future: “We never regret the books we buy; only the ones we didn’t when we had the chance.”
May 13th, 2022 at 9:59 am
Tony, over the years I’ve never had nightmares or woke up in a cold sweat because I spent money on books. But I have had terrible dreams about the deals that I did not make, the books I did not buy or the rare sets of magazines that I stupidly rejected. You can always get more money but often you cannot find the rare books and pulps once you have passed them by.
I guess that’s why book collectors are a rare breed and getting rarer. Too often we choose to pay bills on mundane items while our collections suffer from neglect. I try to avoid these mistakes but sometimes I put the bills first and often regret it later.
I know, I know, any logical and sane person would say “nonsense” but they are not book collectors.
May 13th, 2022 at 4:05 pm
Well said, as usual, Walker. I hope you can find some of those missing issues to round out your runs.
May 13th, 2022 at 5:19 pm
Thanks Howard. Some of my best friends are fellow collectors and they may contact me concerning the missing issues.
May 14th, 2022 at 10:32 am
Congrats on your perfect attendance record, Walker. And congrats to the Jonahs who made the trip in the Great White Whale. Was it full when you guys headed back?
Miss you all.
May 14th, 2022 at 10:55 am
Actually we had a little room left when we started back to NJ. The van was a 14 seater and held all of Paul’s stock and all the books that the rest of us bought.
Maybe you can attend Pulpfest’s 50th anniversary show? You can’t miss it!
May 14th, 2022 at 11:37 am
Thanks for the summary Walker. As usual it was a great show. Although I have almost everything I need I always find great material there.
To me the best part of the show is to take the time and see everyone face to face from all over the country. I am always amazed at the depth of knowledge of the members of the community. I don’t always get time to relax and read blogs or talk with collectors on the phone so i really enjoy spending a weekend immersed in Popular fiction.
May 14th, 2022 at 11:59 am
Rich, it was nice seeing you again and I hope to see you at the big 50th anniversary blowout, otherwise known as Pulpfest. Collectors are my favorite type of people.
May 21st, 2022 at 6:05 pm
Walker, I’m so glad you posted this to the group. I always enjoy reading your reports. I hope you’ve recovered from surgery!
Jack
May 21st, 2022 at 7:14 pm
[…] WANT LIST. Walker Martin has posted his “Windy City Pulp Convention 2022 Report†at […]
May 21st, 2022 at 7:53 pm
Thanks Jack, I always enjoy attending the conventions and then writing the report. This one was harder because of the surgery. Hopefully I’m recovering ok.