Super Stuff in the Bronze Age: 2026

Another year has passed (why are they passing so quickly?) and it’s time again for a report on this year’s Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention, again held at the Westin Lombard, in the Chicago suburbs a couple of weekends ago. It was a busy weekend for pulp and comic fans, as Wondercon was also taking place on the West Coast.

The Westin Lombard

Since my first visit to the Windy City Pulp & Paper Con in 2009, I’ve always hugely enjoyed my annual attendance, as much for the conversations as perusing the dealer’s room. This year was the 25th anniversary of the con, and shows no sign of diminished attendance. I signed up for a 3-day pass, which at $35 was a far better deal than the upcoming hugely commercial C2E2 comic con at McCormack Place in downtown Chicago, which is charging $140 for a 3-day pass, with $81 for a single day.

So what does one get for $35 at the Windy City? In addition to receiving the annual convention book issued by Moon Dog press, (this year focused on Argosy magazine), the attendees receive access to the dealer’s room, artwork exhibitions, movies and movie serials featuring pulp heroes, an estate auction, and panels hosted by pulp experts.

The dealers' room comprises two massive ballrooms with the intermediate panel removed. I arrived around midday on Friday to find the room filled with attendees. I headed over to author and pulp historian Will Murray’s table for a long chat, and to pick up up some Doc Savage hardback editions of his Bantam paperback stories from the 1990s he had brought for me.

Will shared with me some information he’d researched on the proposed content for the Marvel Black & White Doc Savage magazine #9, prior to its cancellation in 1976. The full information will be appearing in the 100th issue of Bronze Gazette later this year, so no spoilers, I’m afraid.

Subsequently I moved to the Adventure House table and bought some 1970s Avenger and Shadow paperbacks to fill in a few gaps in my collection, replacing books I’d sold in 1989. Prices were in the $5-$10 range for decent copies.

By the close of the dealers' room on Friday, I had only scratched the surface of what was on view, only managing to go around the tables on the room's perimeter. Before the room closed for the day, I picked up four Deadly Hands of Kung Fu issues with Adams covers for $27 in total, and Savage Tales #16, from a dealer with the biggest collection of Marvel Black & Whites I’ve ever seen - bagged, boarded and excellent condition.

I resolved to attend again the following day (Saturday) , having spied a table full of Bronze Age comics priced at $5 each. A quick glance showed the stock was in great condition.

$5 Bronze Age comics, with Golden Age on display at back

Following a brief trip to McDonalds, I returned for the evening agenda of a panel discussing the history of Argosy magazine, followed by the presentation of Pulp writers awards for 2025.

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Saturday dawned, and I made the 40-minute drive back to the Westin for day 2, and to complete my tour of the dealers’ room.

It took me 3 hours to go to every table! I ended up buying a whole load of 1970s DCs to fill in gaps, priced at $5 for Bronze and $10 for silver age - amazing value for decent issues! On another table I bought 6 Silver-age comics priced at $5 each, or 3 for $10!

3 for $10!

Of course, there were lots of Golden Age comics for sale as well.

Fellow SuperStuff scribe Nigel Brown asked me to comment on what I noticed about the slabbing of pulps and comics, and the general attitude to it.

Slabbed pulps. Note Weird Tales #2 on sale - not slabbed!

Embiggen the photos to read the prices.

Certainly I saw more slabbed pulps here than ever before, although it probably only represented well less than 1% of what was for sale across all the dealers.

Anyway, I also had a long conversation with a couple who had a table purely of slabbed pulps. I was looking at slabbed pulps valued from $1000 to $95,000 and beyond. They said that slabbing is a relatively new thing for pulps and controversial. But CGC have developed a grading system, and Heritage have started a program of pulp-focused auctions of major collections. They said that the focus for slabbing was high-end, rare or key issuess. The attraction of selling through Heritage is that they get it graded and slabbed by CGC, and then the seller only has to pay for the grading and slabbing once it sells at auction.

I’ve included a couple of photos of some of what they had on the table, showing prices if you zoom in. The All-Story from 1912 was the first Edgar Rice Burroughs story, priced at $95,000.

Incredibly, the same table had a copy of Weird Tales #2 (April 1923) for sale, unslabbed (See photo above). That is the rarest issue, rarer than Weird Tales #1. I’m told it is unthinkable for something like that to be for sale at a UK event. I understand that another copy of Weird Tales #2 (graded by CGC at 8.0) is shortly to go up for auction at Heritage.

There were so many Weird Tales for sale - in fact, pretty much any pulp, obscure or not. Nonetheless, the overwhelming number of pulps on sale were in the lowly mylar or polypropylene bag. I’ve included a few photos of pulps up to auction on Friday evening.

Reflecting the sustained interest in pulps, there is an Overstreet price guide equivalent for pulps called Bookery’s Guide To Pulps, with the latest 4th edition just published. (See photo).

The one thing I did not see were copies of the Ballantine Cornell Woolrich paperbacks from 1982. I’m missing five of them.

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Observations:

More comics on sale than at previous cons, and the subject matter had extended beyond comics featuring purely pulp heroes (eg Conan, Kull, Doc Savage, Shadow, Avenger) or SF-anthology type comics (eg Strange Adventures, etc).
The quality of the comics on sale was excellent (say 7.x for Bronze Age), far better than I’ve seen at local recent marts held in village halls.
The pricing on the comics was hugely competitive ; one dealer selling any Bronze Age for $5 and any Silver Age for $10. Marvel Black & Whites in excellent nick for 50% discount. I’m not sure what is happening here. I think there is a bifurcation in the market at the top end of dealers where slabbed pre-1975 comics in 9.x condition are the major focus, and more realistic prices are offered for non-slabbed comics say in 8.x condition and below,

On the pulp side of things, there does seem to be a push towards slabbing of key issues, but the practice is controversial within the pulp community. On the other hand, with the brittleness of pulp paper , slabbing is probably the only way to preserve some of these artifacts.

On the vintage paperback front, prices are still very low for 1960s books, with some exceptions. There also was a large selection of vintage TV tie-in mass market paperbacks.

Finally, so what did I buy?