Windy City Pulp and Paper convention 2018 - photos

Visited Windy City Pulp and Paper for the fourth year running, and had a great time there. Some photos:

A few photos of the dealers' room:

Dealer's room at Windy City 2018, held in the Westin, Lombard

Dave Smith of Fantasy Illustrated had his usual array of high grade rare and unique items

Murania Press had a table

Adventure House had more tables and boxes, the wall of pulps was a little smaller this time

Weinberg Books had original art and books

Comics as well

I forget whose table this was

Another dealer offering books, art and fanzines

The art show and the art in the dealers' room, which is one of the main reasons to visit:

Anton Otto Fischer frontispiece for Skipper John of the Nimbus

The theme this year was aviation art:

Frederick Blakeslee cover for Fighting Aces, September 1941

Right: George Rozen cover for Sky Fighters, Spring 1949

Left: George Rozen cover for Sky Fighters, Winter 1947
Right: Rudolph Belarski cover for Aces, Winter 1939/40

Left: George Rozen cover for Sky Fighters, Winter 1948
Right: Rudolph Belarski cover for The Lone Eagle, April 1941

Art in the dealers' room:

Paperback, men's magazines and digest cover illustrations on sale

Left: Walter Baumhofer sports illustration
Right: William Reusswig pulp cover painting

More art from Grapefruit Moon Gallery

Henry J. Soulen painting

H.L. Parkhurst cover for one of the "spicy" pulps

Original illustration for Conan the Barbarian book by Robert E. Howard

Some unique and rare items in the dealers room and the auctions:

Short Stories 1914 July issue, with a Sax Rohmer story in it

Unusual photo collage cover for The Popular Magazine, January 1907

New Detective Magazine, February 1946
Moral of the story: You can't have your cake and eat it too.

Robert Bloch letter to Sam Peeples, one of two in the auction

Early issue of Illustrated Novelets, soon to become North-West Romances 

Amazing Stories issue containing the first Buck Rogers story and one instalment of the Skylark of Space serial

Black Aces, the rarely seen, short-lived competition for Black Mask from Fiction House 

The Orchidengaarten, first fantasy magazine

Other highlights

Auction material this year was from the collection of Glenn Lord, and was focused on Robert E. Howard's work. It was impressive to see Howard's lifetime body of work in Weird Tales, Action Stories, Fight Stories and Golden Fleece. I was informed by a reliable source that what we saw in the auction was the tip of the iceberg in a Texas size collection, so perhaps there will be more in future.

Talk: The secret origins of Weird Tales by John Locke - Great talk, new information on the early years of Weird Tales, the partnerships, the people and the feuds. Looking forward to the upcoming book which should have more details.

Book signing: Art of the pulps

Book signing, with all the contributors lined up to sign copies

I also met a lot of people, new to me this time were Howard Andrew Jones of Blackgate.com and John C. Hocking ; Malcolm Edwards and Andy Richards of Cold Tonnage Books from across the pond. And that's it till the next one. Thanks to Doug Ellis, John Gunnison and the rest of the organizers for doing an excellent job.