WEIRD TALES, MARCH 1938 (PART 1)

WEIRD TALES
Vol. 31 No. 3
March 1938
Popular Fiction Publishing Company
Editor: Farnsworth Wright
Cover: Margaret Brundage
Pages: 130

Okay, raise your hand if you've heard of the famous pulp horror magazine, WEIRD TALES? All of you? Good. Now, raise your hand if you've ever actually read an issue. I thought so -- not as many of you.

This is for all you horror fans and would-be Monsterologists that have never experienced the pleasure of having the opportunity or taking the time (or having the inclination) to read an issue of the world's "unique magazine".

This particular issue, on sale the year before Universal's SON OF FRANKENTSTEIN was released, is filled, cover-to-cover, with thrilling fiction. Where else could you find a line-up of talent listed together on the same contents page as Seabury Quinn, Robert E. Howard, Jack Williamson, Henry Kuttner, H.P. Lovecraft and E. Hoffman Price?

The issue has a bit of a "tribute" theme to it, as there is a posthumous tale by the recently deceased Lovecraft, as well as a memorial of him in verse by Francis Flagg (no relation to Fannie). There is also a poem included by Robert E. Howard, who had died not two years before.

A word of warning before you begin: If you are unfamiliar with "pulp writing", it is linear, word-heavy (for a higher paycheck to the person writing the story), plot-driven, and sometimes archaic. There are also the occasional references to society as it was back in those days that are deemed inappropriate by today's "politically correct" pallbearers of history. For example, in Quinn's story, "Incense of Abomination", the inspector sent to investigate several murders notices the scent of perfume at each of the crime scenes and wonders if the male victims could be "pansies".

Despite all the above, pulp fiction has only grown in popularity over the last decade or so. And before you go all medieval on it, give it a try for the next three days as the WEIRD TALES March 1938 issue is presented in its entirety here at MONSTER MAGAZINE WORLD.