It was Classicon 32, a show featuring old pulp magazines, stories and period artwork that was as much about commerce as it was about celebrating the creativity of a bygone age. The event was held Saturday at University Quality Inn, 3121 E. Grand River Ave.

“The people who are collecting and reading (pulps) are looking for just a fun read,” said Mike Conran, a vendor at Classicon who has been collecting pulps for 45 years. “It’s pure escapism. It gets you away from your regular routine.”

Conran collects all pulps, from “The Spider” to “Doc Savage,” but specializes in Edgar Rice Burroughs’ “Tarzan” — high-flying jungle adventures centering on the King of the Jungle.

Conran said he first got a taste of Tarzan when he received the pulp paperbacks as a child.

Intrigued that the stories were much different than the movies based on them, he continued to read and collect.

“The bug just sort of bit me,” he said. “Over the years, it started expanding. It always expands to the to the other stuff, the pulps of the ’30s and ’40s.”

Part of the appeal of pulps, Conran said, was not only the sheer imagination that went into the stories but the fact that the writing style (where nearly every chapter ended in some kind of cliff-hanger and the stories dealt with fantastical locations and situations) is no longer around.

“I think (the style) is more missing than it is there,” Conran said. “I find that sometimes authors today get a little too graphic in their telling of things. They don’t leave anything to the imagination.”

Some collectors, like Lansing resident Bob Barber, keep coming to events like Classicon not only to appreciate the pulps but also because of their value.

“(The value) keeps going up and up,” Barber said. “It’s now to a point where a book that cost 25 cents back then goes for $25 now.”

When going to shows like Classicon, Barber looks for items and books with distinctive cover artwork.

“I like the old, what they’d call ‘smut fronts,’” he said, referring to a style of cover that generally showed sexy women in peril, or causing trouble. “Stuff that’s got unique graphics on the front of the printing.”

Even for those who don’t collect pulps, the show had an immediate appeal: the artwork.

“I really like the artwork,” said Daniel Wilson, a Lansing Community College student and employee of Curious Book Shop, 307 E. Grand River Ave., which created the event. “I love most of the pulp covers,” Wilson said. “I’ve never laughed at the covers more than any other piece of illustration. It’s something I’ve never been exposed to before, and now that I have been, I’m probably going to be doing this for a long time.”

A particular favorite of Wilson’s, who has been an employee at Curious Book Shop for five weeks, was a cover of “G-8 and His Battle Aces,” a pulp magazine featuring the adventures of a World War I pilot and spy who battles the German army and its bizarre assortment of supernatural allies. The cover depicts a pilot in his plane being attacked by what appears to be a giant jungle cat.

“Who wouldn’t want a leopard man thrown out of a plane at them? That’s a helluva story to tell the kids,” Wilson said.