Weird Tales is a title which conjurs all manner of dark and bizarre images. It served exceedingly well for decades as the source for strange fiction which punctured the expectations of the general public and appealed to those of us with a hankering for peculiar and odd folk and their doings.
Lovecraft and Howard are the two giant names most associated with the title, but many are the writers and artists which have appeared in the pages. The title lasted in its original incarnation from 1923 to 1954, then later in the 70's another four issues appeared. The covers pictured here are from the first of two 1980's revivals, this one helmed by Lin Carter. The first three books appeared in 1981 and the final one in 1983.
With the magazine format finding trouble, marketing these types of paperbacks was an experiment tried a few times. Zebra was an imprint which offered up quite a bit of material which first appeared in the pages of Weird Tales so it makes sense they'd offer up this approach.
The first three covers are by Tom Barber. The fourth has been identified as by Doug Beekman. Girls and bulls seemed to be a favorite theme.
Weird Tales would return again later in the decade, this time under the editorial auspices of George Scithers. It would find some success and in fact continues to the present day. Here is a link.
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that last one, that's by Doug Beekman. the bottom of the picture is cut off above his signature ( bottom left, just above the roots of the tree ).
ReplyDeleteThanks much for the correction. I suspected it wasn't by Barber,but my sources identified it was indeed by him. I'll make the necessary change.
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