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Is Weird Tales Dead… Again?

Is Weird Tales Dead… Again?

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Weird Tales 362-smallWeird Tales magazine, the oldest and most storied fantasy magazine in America, has died and returned numerous times in its near century-long history. And I’m beginning to wonder if it’s dead again.

Marvin Kaye took the editorial reins from Ann VanderMeer five years ago with much fanfare, but since then has produced only three issues — the last of which was two years ago. The magazine’s website has not been updated in well over two years. And worst of all, I’m now hearing reports from authors who sold work to the magazine that they’ve had stories returned with little or no explanation.

In fact, the lead story about Weird Tales these days is the complete lack of communication coming out of the editorial offices. At the Nebula Awards conference here in Chicago, which began yesterday, all mentions of the magazine have been accompanied by a shroud of gloom. And earlier today I received this from Black Gate author Joe Bonadonna, who sold a story to them several years ago:

Weird Tales is supposed to print one of my novellas on the online version of their Sword & Sorcery Special Edition — it’s too long for their print version. But it’s been 3.5 years since I heard from them, so who knows when that issue will be out? They are not very good at answering emails, and their website is terrible — no news on that either.

When a magazine essentially stops publishing, that’s bad news. When it fails to update its website for years, that worse. But when it goes dark for three years or more, it’s usually dead. So far, that yardstick has proven pretty reliable.

Weird Tales has been deader than this, and surged out of the grave before. I hope it does so again. But I’m beginning to doubt it.

New Treasures: The Unique Legacy of Weird Tales edited by Justin Everett and Jeffrey H. Shanks

New Treasures: The Unique Legacy of Weird Tales edited by Justin Everett and Jeffrey H. Shanks

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The Unique Legacy of Weird Tales-back-small The Unique Legacy of Weird Tales-small

I was extremely pleased to receive a review copy of Justin Everett and Jeffrey H. Shanks’ The Unique Legacy of Weird Tales, a fascinating collection of essays exploring the history and enormous impact of the most important fantasy magazine of all time.

While it’s primarily an academic volume (the first essay, by Jason Ray Carney, is titled “‘Something That Swayed as If in Unison’: The Artistic Authenticity of Weird Tales in the Interwar Periodical Culture of Modernism”) the book has plenty to offer casual fans. I’ve spent a few days with it now, dipping into various articles, and found it both educational and highly entertaining. This is a great volume for anyone who wants to understand why Weird Tales was so crucially important to the development of American fantasy, and the fan who’s just looking for recommendations on the best fantasy from the early Twentieth Century.

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Vintage Treasures: Weird Tales #1, edited by Lin Carter

Vintage Treasures: Weird Tales #1, edited by Lin Carter

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Weird Tales 1 paperback-smallIf you’ve hung around Black Gate for any length of time, you’ve heard us talk about Weird Tales, the greatest and most influential pulp fantasy magazine every published.

Weird Tales has died many times, and crawled out of the grave and shambled back to life just as often (if you’re a Weird Tales fan, you’ve heard countless zombie metaphors about your favorite magazine). When the pulp version of the magazine died in September 1954 after 279 issues, many believed it was for the final time. But it returned to life in the early 1970s, edited by Sam Moskowitz and published by Leo Margulies, and then perished again after four issues.

Bob Weinberg and Victor Dricks purchased the rights to the name from Margulies some time after that, and in December 1980 a brand new version appeared: Weird Tales #1, an original paperback anthology of horror and weird fantasy edited by none other than Lin Carter. On the inside front cover (under the heading The Eyrie, the name of the old editorial column in the pulp magazine) Carter introduced his anthology to a new generation of fantasy readers:

WEIRD TALES was the first and most famous of all the fantasy-fiction pulp magazines. It featured tales of the strange, the marvelous, and the supernatural by the finest authors of the macabre and the fantastic, old and new, from its first issue in 1923 until its 279th and last consecutive issue in 1954.

Now it is back, with all new stories — and even such an exciting find as “Scarlet Tears,” a recently discovered and never before published novelette by Robert E. Howard.

Over the years many great writers were published in the pages of WEIRD TALES, and now a great tradition is being continued into its second half-century.

“Scarlet Tears,” a Robert E. Howard story featuring his private detective Brent Kirby, never sold in his lifetime, and it’s not hard to see why (Kirby, a brawler who leads with his fists, doesn’t actually do much “detecting.”) Nonetheless, this kind of star billing for a Robert E. Howard trunk story gives you some indication just how much his reputation had grown since his death 44 years earlier.

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Doug Draa on Weird Tales and Keeping the Brand Alive: The Paperback Years

Doug Draa on Weird Tales and Keeping the Brand Alive: The Paperback Years

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Creeps by Night-smallLong before Doug Draa became an occasional blogger for Black Gate, I was a reader of his blog, Uncle Doug’s Bunker of Horror, which we’ve celebrated before. I especially enjoyed his habit of using any excuse whatsoever — and I do mean any excuse — to post luscious high-res images of countless beautiful old paperbacks. Reading Uncle Doug’s Bunker was like browsing a superb used bookstore (without any money).

As Doug has become busier with other projects, including becoming an Online Editor for Weird Tales, he’s been less and less able to keep up his blog. So I was delighted to see that he’s now started to post at the Weird Tales site. His recent articles include “The 15 most entertaining Horror Films from the 1980s,” “Four Decades of the Lovecraftian Aesthetic in Paperback,” “Lin Carter’s Weird Tales” and more fun stuff like that (see a complete archive here.)

On May 25, Doug posted one of his best recent articles, continuing his series on 90 Years of Weird: Keeping the Brand Alive: The Paperback Years. Doug surveys three decades of paperback anthologies reprinting WT fiction, from the death of the pulp magazine in September 1954 through its rebirth in 1988, generously illustrated with nearly three-dozen high-res scans. Here’s a quick snippet:

Lin Carter has a special place among the ranks of Weird Tales preservationists and revivalists. During the late 1960s and early 70s he edited and reprinted many H. P. Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith collections as part of his Adult Fantasy Series published by Ballantine. Mr. Carter never failed to sing praises to Weird Tales from the roof tops in his numerous introductions to the collections in this series. At the beginning of the 1980s Mr. Carter even went as far as to revive Weird Tales in paperback format for four issues. This incarnation wasn’t a darling of the critics, but I found it to be enjoyable and true to the original vision of the magazine… Thank you Mr. Carter, I drink to your Shade!

See the complete article here.

Vintage Treasures: Weird Tales #290

Vintage Treasures: Weird Tales #290

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Weird Tales 290-smallI’m still unpacking all the treasures I brought home from the 2014 Windy City Pulp & Paper show in April. Although, as my wife Alice points out, things would go a little faster if I didn’t fondle everything for 20 minutes.

I found the artifact at right buried in a box of magazines and fanzines from the 70s and 80s I acquired at the show. It’s the 290th issue of Weird Tales, covered dated Spring 1988 — the Sixty-Fifth Anniversary issue, a landmark, and one of my favorite issues of perhaps the most famous fantasy magazine of all time.

Issue 290 was the first issue of Weird Tales from Terminus Publishing, under editors George H. Scithers, John Gregory Betancourt, and Darrell Schweitzer. It’s special to me because the Terminus era was my favorite incarnation of Weird Tales.

I suppose some folks will find that odd. Certainly the early pulp era of the Grand Old Lady of fantasy was its most fertile and famous period — the late 20s to mid-thirties, when it routinely published groundbreaking work by Robert E, Howard, H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, Edmond Hamilton, and many, many others. Those issue are highly prized by collectors and key copies in good condition from that era routinely command hundreds of dollars.

But the Terminus years, which began in my mid-20s, marked the resurgence of Weird Tales as a vibrant, important and thoroughly modern fantasy magazine, publishing short fiction by the top fantasy writers of the time. It was also the first time I was able to enjoy it as a contemporary publication, rather than a highly collectible relic of a distant era, and I appreciated that very much. I had a subscription, and looked forward to each issue eagerly.

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Weird Tales 362 on Sale Soon!

Weird Tales 362 on Sale Soon!

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Weird Tales 362-smallOur roving correspondent — and new Online Editor for Weird Tales magazine — Douglas Draa reports on the latest issue of the world’s oldest (and arguably greatest) fantasy magazine.

Weird Tales magazine and Nth Dimension Media are pleased to announce the pending publication of the Spring 2014 issue of Weird Tales magazine. Continuing the successful concept of themed issues, #362 is our unsettling, but entertaining, Undead issue.

And as always, there is also a sizable amount of un-themed fiction included in this issue. Issue #362 contains a mixture of themed and un-themed weird fiction and poetry along with sprinkling of non-fiction. Some of the Contributors to Issue #362 “Undead Issue,” along with many other talented writers, are Ron Goulart, Ramsey Campbell, Brian Lumley, Darrell Schweitzer, Jane Yolen, M. R. James & Helen Grant, and James Aquilone.

This issue also contains an exclusive interview with Joyce Carol Oates, and a new short story written for Weird Tales by Minimum Wage comic book artist, Bob Fingerman, whose work influenced Walking Dead creator, Robert Kirkman. The front cover art is by Danielle Tunstall with a Richard Matheson tribute painting on the rear cover by Jeff Wong.

This is the third issue produced by Nth Dimension Media, under new editor Marvin Kaye. We’re told the issue has gone to the printers and will be on newsstands (and in subscribers mailboxes) in the very near future. We have an electronic reviewer’s copy in our hot little hands and we’ll be reporting on it shortly.

In the meantime, here’s a peek at the complete table of contents.

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Weird Tales 361 Now on Sale

Weird Tales 361 Now on Sale

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Weird Tales 361-smallThe latest issue of the world’s oldest — and arguably greatest — fantasy magazine is now on sale.

Weird Tales #361 is the special demented Fairy Tale issue, with fiction by Peter S. Beagle, Tanith Lee, Jane Yolen, Morgan Llywelyn, and many others.

There’s also articles from Darrell Schweitzer (“Ninety Years of Weird Tales“), an interview with J. David Spurlock on the artwork of Margaret Brundage, and “An Inside Look at Weird Tales,” a step-by-step look at the evolving cover concept for this issue, by editor John Harlacher and artist Jeff Wong.

It’s always a delight to see a new issue of Weird Tales, especially one as jam-packed as this. This fat issue contains no less than 19 stories and four poems, alongside several feature interviews, book reviews, and copious interior art.

The PDF review copy we received is beautifully laid out and easy to navigate and read. This is the second issue produced by Nth Dimension Media, under new editor Marvin Kaye.

Here’s the complete Table of Contents:

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Weird Tales 360 Arrives This Week

Weird Tales 360 Arrives This Week

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weird-tales-360-smallWeird Tales 360,  the first issue helmed by new editor Marvin Kaye, is scheduled to ship this Friday, October 19.

It’s an auspicious and entirely appropriate number, I think. After changing direction several times over the last few years, Weird Tales has now turned 360-degrees and returned to where it started: publishing classic weird fiction.

The theme of the first Kaye issue is “The Elder Gods,” and the table of contents makes it clear that he is whole-heartedly embracing the Lovecraftian fiction that helped make Weird Tales one of the most sought-after magazines of the pulp era:

FICTION: THE ELDER GODS

  • “The Long Last Night” by Brian Lumley
  • “Momma Durtt” by Michael Shea
  • “The Darkness at Table Rock Road” by Michael Reyes
  • “The Runners Beyond the Wall” by Darrell Schweitzer
  • “Drain” by Matthew Jackson
  • “The Thing in the Cellar” by William Blake-Smith
  • “Found in a Bus Shelter at 3:00 am, Under a Mostly Empty Sky” by Stephen Gracia

FICTION: UNTHEMED

  • “To Be a Star” by Parke Godwin
  • “The Empty City” by Jessica Amanda Salmonson
  • “Abbey at the Edge of the Earth” by Collin B. Greenwood
  • “Alien Abduction” by M. A. Brines

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Weird Tales Pulls Novel Excerpt Following Fan Uproar

Weird Tales Pulls Novel Excerpt Following Fan Uproar

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weird-tales-359aIt’s been an interesting day for Weird Tales, the oldest genre magazine on the market.

It began with the abrupt resignation of Ann VanderMeer as a senior contributing editor, “due to major artistic and philosophical differences with the existing editors.” As reported here last year, VanderMeer was replaced as editor by Marvin Kaye as the magazine transitioned to new Publisher Nth Dimension Media, run by John Harlacher. While Ann commented that her resignation “has been in the works for several months, ever since I was removed as the editor-in-chief,” it was apparently hastened by Kaye’s decision to publish an excerpt from Victoria Foyt’s novel,  Saving the Pearls: Revealing Eden. The “Pearls” in the title refer to whites, who find themselves a persecuted minority after an ecological disaster. In praising the book, Kaye wrote:

Weird Tales seldom prints SF, but this story is a compelling view of a world that didn’t listen to the warnings of ecologists, and a world that has developed a reverse racism: blacks dominating and detesting not just whites, but latinos and albinos, the few that still survive of the latter are hunted down and slaughtered.

[Kaye’s post, and the comments it generated, have since been removed from the WT site; a Google webcache of the page is here.]

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Weird Tales Closes to Submissions

Weird Tales Closes to Submissions

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weird-tales-359aHoly cats! That was fast. The editors of Weird Tales magazine have announced it is closing to submissions on Tuesday, June 5th.

Now, Black Gate magazine is in no position to throw stones about being closed to submissions. We’ve been closed since roughly the Napoleonic era. But still… didn’t Weird Tales just announce it was open?

Let me check. Yup, it did.

[If you’re too lazy to click on that link, you can just scroll down the page to the announcement four days ago.]

All right, we’re done being snarky. And we will note that the magazine is only closing to fiction submissions — artists and disheveled arcane researchers, your contributions are still valued. [Okay. We’ve still got a little snark left.] Here’s the official announcement:

Heads up that at noon eastern time on Tuesday June 5th we will be closing for fiction submissions. We will still be looking at art and nonfiction proposals.

There’s still time to finish your submission and get it in the mail by Monday morning. Stock up on coffee, turn off the phone, and channel Clark Aston Smith. Fame and Fortune await you.

But act fast.