I'll pound you to a "Pulp" if you don't show off yours! 23 23

[OtherEric]

17 hours ago, Pat Calhoun said:

"I'm looking forward to reading it tonight.  It probably says something that it's included in a collection like this; Dyalhis isn't one of the Weird Tales legends like the other names on the cover are."

paging Eric - suspense mounting - how was she?

my memory is that this one isn't anywhere near 'The Sea Witch'...

 

It was really good, Pat.  And I see why it was in that collection... It's an excellent example of a supernatural romance that was fairly common in Weird Tales, but didn't show up as often from the more famous WT regulars.

[OtherEric]

Today's book.  Nothing major, but it was cheap.  And UNKNOWN is always fun

[RedFury]

Dyalhis was extremely popular with Weird Tales readers, despite limited output of only 8 stories.  I've only read "When the Green Star Waned' so far and found it rather pedestrian.  But when you consider it was published in 1925, before Amazing Stories even existed, I think you have to at least acknowledge it's an important early sci-fi story.

[Randall Dowling]

12 hours ago, RedFury said:

Dyalhis was extremely popular with Weird Tales readers, despite limited output of only 8 stories.  I've only read "When the Green Star Waned' so far and found it rather pedestrian.  But when you consider it was published in 1925, before Amazing Stories even existed, I think you have to at least acknowledge it's an important early sci-fi story.

This is really interesting.  Context always helps to understand relevance/importance.  I find most people that watch Citizen Kane shrug like “what’s the big deal?”.  But when you discuss the time period and what had (or had not) come before, a deeper appreciation is found.  Is it fair to say that H.G. Wells is the progenitor of science-fiction?  His work is only 20-30 years before this.  It reminds me how young this genre of storytelling is and, in fact, how young the modern era of widely distributed periodicals and books for storytelling is.

[RedFury]

I love this Conan cover, and I've had at least 5 copies over the last few years, always upgrading.  You get to a point where you think "that's it, that's the best I'll find", but then a book like this comes along.  This copy has a tiny little ding on the top edge, and a "W" stamped on the back cover.  Other than that, it's pristine.  Whoo-hoo!

Weird Tales, Sep 1924

The People of the Black Circle by Robert E. Howard

Cover by Margaret Brundage

[RedFury]

A few new Spicys for the pile

Spicy Adventure Stories, Jul 1936

Cover by Harry Lemon Parkhurst

Spicy Detective Stories, Dec 1938

Cover by H.J. Ward

[RedFury]

And an oddity, it's shaped like a pulp (squarebound, pulp-sized), but it's on heavy stock paper (the book is heavy), and it's a film fan magazine, not fiction.  But of course the real interesting thing is the incredible Charlie Chaplin cover.  It's from real early in his career.  Chaplin's first film was released in early 1914, and this magazine is dated July 1915.

Motion Picture Magazine, Jul 1915

[OtherEric]

28 minutes ago, RedFury said:

I love this Conan cover, and I've had at least 5 copies over the last few years, always upgrading.  You get to a point where you think "that's it, that's the best I'll find", but then a book like this comes along.  This copy has a tiny little ding on the top edge, and a "W" stamped on the back cover.  Other than that, it's pristine.  Whoo-hoo!

Weird Tales, Sep 1924

The People of the Black Circle by Robert E. Howard

Cover by Margaret Brundage

Nice!  Getting at least one of the Brundage Conan covers is definitely high on my want list right now 

[OtherEric]

In today.  1st issue; I wanted it for the unreprinted Harlan Ellison story.

[htp]

20 hours ago, RedFury said:

I love this Conan cover, and I've had at least 5 copies over the last few years, always upgrading.  You get to a point where you think "that's it, that's the best I'll find", but then a book like this comes along.  This copy has a tiny little ding on the top edge, and a "W" stamped on the back cover.  Other than that, it's pristine.  Whoo-hoo!

Weird Tales, Sep 1924

The People of the Black Circle by Robert E. Howard

Cover by Margaret Brundage

Awesome! This is probably my favourite Weird Tales cover.

[Robot Man]

Ran into a better copy of this one recently.

[OtherEric]

A couple more books with uncollected Harlan Ellison stories.  Note that one of these has the story "Assassin!", which is not to be confused with the story "The Assassin" which I posted the cover of not long ago. 

[Scrooge]

This feels as if it would have already been posted but just in case -

https://archive.org/details/pulpmagazinearchive?sort=titleSorter&and[]=firstTitle:W

if you want to read some Weird Tales issues and look around for other publications.

[OtherEric]

3 minutes ago, Scrooge said:

This feels as if it would have already been posted but just in case -

https://archive.org/details/pulpmagazinearchive?sort=titleSorter&and[]=firstTitle:W

if you want to read some Weird Tales issues and look around for other publications.

Always useful.  As near as I can tell, if you look around the internet (and archive.org is the best starting place) there are only a dozen issues of the original Weird Tales run that haven't been scanned and shared.

[OtherEric]

So, something a little different.  I just got in a lot of 11 issues of GALAXY from 1958 for dirt cheap.  An extra, coverless copy of the September issue was included.  Since it was already coverless, and I had a second, better, copy in the lot, I decided to take it apart to scan some of the interior images.  They're all by Wally Wood.

I'm also including a scan of the August issue cover, rather than the September, because it's by Wood as well.

[OtherEric]

[RedFury]

Wow, I've never seen those Wood images before.  They're great!  I especially like the moon one...reminds me of his Spirit work.

[RedFury]

Story time.

Two weeks ago I bought some original pulp-related art on Ebay, an illustration of the story Shambleau by C.L. Moore.  The listing made it sound like the art appeared in the original pulp, the November 1933 Weird Tales.  I was away on vacation without access to my collection, but I was skeptical that the art appeared there.  I didn't recognize it.  But I really liked the art and it appeared old so even though I wasn't sure what it was, I bought it anyway.

I got home and checked the November 1933 Weird Tales and as I suspected, it wasn't in there.  Then I checked the 1953 Gnome Press collection Shambleau and Other Tales, but it wasn't in there either.  I even checked the 1981 Donald M. Grant collection Scarlet Dream.  Not in there either.

I asked a noted pulp art collector about it, and he said he was aware of it but didn't know what it was.  His best guess was it had appeared in a fanzine in the 1930s.

I resigned myself to having a cool, yet-to-be identified piece of artwork for a classic C.L. Moore Weird Tales story.

And then yesterday this post by Bobby Derie appeared on the Robert E. Howard blog On an Underwood No. 5.
Conan and Jirel: Robert E. Howard and C. L. Moore Part One by Bobby Derie

Midway through the post was a picture of the artwork I had just purchased, and this line:

"...Moore sent Barlow one of her drawings for “Shambleau”—Wright having requested a drawing or two to accompany her stories, much as he had for the artist-writer Clark Ashton Smith around the same time—and Barlow showed it to Lovecraft, who was visiting his young friend in Florida at the time."

It appeared the artwork was actually the work of C.L. Moore herself!  I asked Bobby for more information in the blog comments and received this:

"Moore did a few drawings to accompany some of her stories, a couple of which were used by Weird Tales as illustrations (much as they did with Clark Ashton Smith). That particular drawing is (probably) the one which Moore sent to R. H. Barlow in '34.

"Miss Moore is also an artist of ability—last month she sent Barlow a drawing of Shambleau which displays phenomenal power. Some of her later W T work will be illustrated by herself—Wright having accepted several sketches."
- H. P. Lovecraft to Duane W. Rimel, 17 Jun 1934, LFB 184-185

The above quoted letter from Lovecraft is dated Jun 17, 1934, and he mentions "last month she sent Barlow a drawing of Shambleau", so that would have been May 1934. 

On the back of the artwork, written in pencil, is the date "May 16, 1934".  Wow!

I think that might as close to confirmation as we'll get.  I now feel pretty confident saying this Shambleau artwork was drawn by author C.L. Moore herself, sent to Robert Barlow in Florida, where he showed it to the visiting H.P. Lovecraft in May 1934.  Awesome!

So here's the artwork.  As you can see, it is signed in the lower right "C. Moore".  But until the confirming details were uncovered I wasn't sure if that was Moore signing her work (it had crossed my mind) or a fanzine artist attributing story credit to Moore.  Glad to know it's by her!

And the back cover with the date.

[Knightsofold]

11 minutes ago, RedFury said:

Story time.

Two weeks ago I bought some original pulp-related art on Ebay, an illustration of the story Shambleau by C.L. Moore.  The listing made it sound like the art appeared in the original pulp, the November 1933 Weird Tales.  I was away on vacation without access to my collection, but I was skeptical that the art appeared there.  I didn't recognize it.  But I really liked the art and it appeared old so even though I wasn't sure what it was, I bought it anyway.

I got home and checked the November 1933 Weird Tales and as I suspected, it wasn't in there.  Then I checked the 1953 Gnome Press collection Shambleau and Other Tales, but it wasn't in there either.  I even checked the 1981 Donald M. Grant collection Scarlet Dream.  Not in there either.

I asked a noted pulp art collector about it, and he said he was aware of it but didn't know what it was.  His best guess was it had appeared in a fanzine in the 1930s.

I resigned myself to having a cool, yet-to-be identified piece of artwork for a classic C.L. Moore Weird Tales story.

And then yesterday this post by Bobby Derie appeared on the Robert E. Howard blog On an Underwood No. 5.
Conan and Jirel: Robert E. Howard and C. L. Moore Part One by Bobby Derie

Midway through the post was a picture of the artwork I had just purchased, and this line:

"...Moore sent Barlow one of her drawings for “Shambleau”—Wright having requested a drawing or two to accompany her stories, much as he had for the artist-writer Clark Ashton Smith around the same time—and Barlow showed it to Lovecraft, who was visiting his young friend in Florida at the time."

It appeared the artwork was actually the work of C.L. Moore herself!  I asked Bobby for more information in the blog comments and received this:

"Moore did a few drawings to accompany some of her stories, a couple of which were used by Weird Tales as illustrations (much as they did with Clark Ashton Smith). That particular drawing is (probably) the one which Moore sent to R. H. Barlow in '34.

"Miss Moore is also an artist of ability—last month she sent Barlow a drawing of Shambleau which displays phenomenal power. Some of her later W T work will be illustrated by herself—Wright having accepted several sketches."
- H. P. Lovecraft to Duane W. Rimel, 17 Jun 1934, LFB 184-185

The above quoted letter from Lovecraft is dated Jun 17, 1934, and he mentions "last month she sent Barlow a drawing of Shambleau", so that would have been May 1934. 

On the back of the artwork, written in pencil, is the date "May 16, 1934".  Wow!

I think that might as close to confirmation as we'll get.  I now feel pretty confident saying this Shambleau artwork was drawn by author C.L. Moore herself, sent to Robert Barlow in Florida, where he showed it to the visiting H.P. Lovecraft in May 1934.  Awesome!

So here's the artwork.  As you can see, it is signed in the lower right "C. Moore".  But until the confirming details were uncovered I wasn't sure if that was Moore signing her work (it had crossed my mind) or a fanzine artist attributing story credit to Moore.  Glad to know it's by her!

And the back cover with the date.

Great work finding all that info.  Very cool Lovecraft connection.  

[Pat Calhoun]

Wow! Congrats Todd - not just a major find and buy but an awesome addition to our history of the GA.