Airship27

PULPFEST 2017

  • On 1 Aug | '2017

Greeting Loyal Airmen. Last weekend the Air Chief and his Chief Engineer packed up the old Airship 27 and flew off to Pittsburgh, PA for this year’s Pulpfest. As we promised all you Loyal Airmen, we actually did take LOTS of pictures, as did many of our colleagues and now we’re only too happy to share 30 of them with you on this rather special Flight Log. So sit back and enjoy.

ONETWO

As ever, once we reached the convention hotel, we carefully unpacked all our boxes of books and proceeded to the main hall where Rob began setting up our two tables. As usual, that means it is time for the Air Chief to get out of his way. You would be amazed at just how efficiently he’s gotten in getting everything up in record time.

THREE

Took this shot from across the room, as you can see our two 8 foot tall Airship 27 banners rising up two either side…make it impossible for any con goers to miss us at the show.

FOUR

And here we are all set up and ready to rock and roll.  Honestly, Rob and the Air Chief do love doing these shows. They are so much fun.

FIVE

And we couldn’t have been any happier to learn that our Con Neighbor (the vendors set up to our right side) were none other than our two pals, Jim Beard & John Bruening with their still new publishing outfit Flinch Books. Really, if you’ve not seen their books, Google that name. They are doing really good pulp titles and it was a blast sharing the weekend with them.

SIXSEVEN

At one point we took a walk through the hall to get some pictures of just a little of the original artwork from the pulps that we find at these shows. Honestly both in illustrations and cover paintings, these are some of the most beautiful art pieces ever produced in this country. Gorgeous art was the hallmark of the classic pulps.

EIGHTNINE

You can also find some really beautiful facsimile reprints like those in the rack to the left above produced by John Gunnison and his High Adventure Press. Then as ever we find new and fun things popping up like the folks from Monster Bash, who had all manner of horror DVDs, tee-shirts and toys. Fun stuff for sure.

TENELEVEN

And yet more gorgeous original paintings above left. But of course the real treat of going to these pulp shows is to hook up with our friends and colleagues like the ever affable writer/editor/publisher Win Scott Eckert of Meteor House seen above autographing lots of copies of his newest book. Meteor House has been doing a stellar job of keeping alive the works of the late sci-i author, Philip Jose Farmer.

TWELVE

After having been correspondence buddies for many years, it was a real thrill to finally meet award winning artist Mark Wheatley, here we are above clowning around. Mark was recently voted into the Comic Book Hall of Fame and it was richly deserved.

THIRTEENFOURTEEN

Other first timers at the show were teacher/writer Micah Harris above holding the Ravenwood novel he wrote for Airship 27 several years ago. Then we had the pure joy of meeting Brenda & Wayne Carey.  Wayne is another writer to Airship 27 and we’ll soon be publishing his amazing Alan Quatermain novel. He’s a little shy, whereas Brenda was really outgoing and fit right in with our wacky crew.

FIFTEEN

And yet more great New Pulp writers with John Simcoe and our own dear Deborah Brown. John bought a copy of Deb’s book and had her sign it for him.

SIXTEEN

And here’s the Air Chief and writer Fred Adams Jr. really hamming it up with the official poster for this year’s con. Fred was instrumental in organizing two book store signings in the Pittsburgh area during the weekend to help drum up support for the con and let the local citizens know it was in fact in town. He’s such a great writer.

SEVENTEEN

Two new faces at the show this year were horror writer Joab Styieglitz (to the left) and his pal Mike. Rob and the Air Chief spent an hour with them one night in the courtesy room talking old movies and TV. We hope to have Joab do some work for Airship 27 in the future. He was also kind enough to leave us with one of his novels before leaving.

EIGHTEEN

Chet Reams is gracious, likeable young fan we’ve been Facebook pals with for a while now and it was great to finally meet him in person. His personal treasure during the weekend was getting Bela Lugosi’s horror flick WHITE ZOMBIE on Blu-Ray.

NINETEEN

The Air Chief, Wayne Carey & Deborah Brown, who somehow managed to get another fellow writer to buy one of her books. Go Deb!!

TWENTY-ONE

The Air Chief with writer/martial arts expert Frank Schildiner, who has written lots of things for Airship 27 and has a new Secret Agent X tale in the works.

TWENTY-TWO

On the second day of the show three of pals stopped by to check out what was new on the Airship 27 tables. Left to right you have Jay Sweet, Mark Halegua and Steven Hager. Jay is one of our proof readers and Mark a diehard Yankees fan from New York who never misses a chance to dis our beloved Red Sox.

TWENTY-THREE

Now if you think the Air Chief simply sits around and has fun at these shows, you’d be only partly correct. You see, all of us love to pitch in and help with the programs. On Thursday night, we did a ten minute reading from our Domino Lady story, “Claws of the Cat,” that appeared in an anthology from Moonstone Books. William Lampkin snapped this pix of the Air Chief setting up his audience for the scene he was about to read.

TWENTY-FIVE

On Saturday afternoon, as he has done since the con began, the Air Chief moderated the New Pulp Panel. This year’s five panelist from left to right were Michael Maynard, Charles Millhouse, Fred Adams Jr, John Bruening and Wayne Carey. The gentlemen to the front on the right is our dear friend Dr. Art Sippo and of course that’s the Air Chief on the left getting his writers ready to start the show. We had, as ever a nice audience who truly appreciated the panel.

TWENTY-SIX

At 18, Michael Maynard is the youngest writer we’ve ever had on a New Pulp Panel. His father is veteran writer William Maynard, and he was in the audience and naturally very, very proud of his son.

TWENTY-SEVEN

Writer Charles Millhouse lives near Columbus and all the years he was writing his Captain Hawkins adventures, he never knew there was a pulp convention nearby. So the year we move to Pittsburgh, he finally discovers Pulpfest. It was a joy to have him join us at last and be a part of this panel.

TWENTY-EIGHT

This was also Wayne Carey’s first panel and he was a great addition to the cast.

TWENTY-NINE

After the panel, a fan in the audience came up to get Charles’ autograph. Another fun part of these conventions, meeting our fans.

TWENTY-FOURTWENTY

Final pictures in our album, the Air Chief introducing the New Pulp Panel and he and Wayne Care standing before the Auction Banner in the lobby.

THIRTY

As ever the show came and went too fast. But like previous years, we’ve so many new wonderful memories.  And we did miss those of our pulp family were unable to attend this year. We hope this little report and these pictures inspire many of you Loyal Airmen to one day come and join us. You’ll be truly glad you did.

Ron – Over & Out!

 

 

 

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