Monday, October 30, 2006

Batty For Weird Tales


For some people Halloween is all year long. For people who like scary stories every issue of Weird Tales was the best of the best nearly every month.

Weird Tales was a pulp magazine published between 1923 and 1954. It never had a big circulation. It's subject matter was too specialized, but it had its fans then and now.

The magazine has such a reputation even now that you can hardly find an anthology of horror stories, fantasy or the bizarre, that doesn't include a story from the 31 year run of Weird Tales. Of the seven authors listed on the cover of the May, 1932 issue, the first six have been heavily anthologized for decades.

I'm showing you some covers that have bats on them. A bat is a horror symbol that doesn't really fit that creature's gentle nature. But for centuries people have made a connection to vampires, and that lore is still strong.

Click on the pictures for full-size images.

Two of the covers are by Margaret Brundage, who painted some of the sexiest covers ever for pulp magazines. The girl with the bat-mask is very chic. I'd like to meet her at a Halloween party, if I didn't think she'd bite my neck.

The earlier cover from May, 1932 is by an artist I'm not familiar with, and not nearly as accomplished as Brundage. But I like the bat.

Happy Halloween! El Postino

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