I count a dozen ghost covers for Weird Tales. Most of these images are conventional to the point of cliché. The exception is the last, by Virgil Finlay, illustrating one of few poems to make it to the cover of "The Unique Magazine."
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Weird Tales, November 1923. Cover story: "The Closed Room" by Maybelle McCalment. Cover art by Washburn, the only Weird Tales cover by an otherwise unknown artist. Cover art by R.M. Mally. |
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| Weird Tales, January 1924. Cover story: None (?). Cover art by R.M. Mally. |
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| Weird Tales, April 1924. Cover story: "The Spirit Lover" by Harry Houdini. Cover art by R.M. Mally. I don't want to give away too much, but he only looks like a ghost. |
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| Weird Tales, June 1927. Cover story: "A Suitor from the Shades" by Greye La Spina. Cover art by C.C. Senf. There aren't many Weird Tales covers less scary than this one. The female figure is well done, though, as can be expected of Senf. |
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| Weird Tales, November 1940. Cover story: "The Last Waltz" by Seabury Quinn. Cover art by Margaret Brundage. A non-typical cover by Margaret Brundage. |
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| Weird Tales, July 1943. Cover story: "His Last Appearance" by H. Bedford-Jones. Cover art by Edgar Franklin Wittmack. The man looks a little like Ernie Pyle. |
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| Weird Tales, May 1945, Canadian edition. Cover story: "Bon Voyage, Michele" by Seabury Quinn. Cover art by Unknown. This image also appears in my posting "Woman and Wolf." |
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| Weird Tales, September 1945. Cover story: "The Skull of the Marquis de Sade" by Robert Bloch. Cover art by Peter Kuhlhoff. I assume the headless figure is a ghost, although he looks pretty solid. |
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| Weird Tales, May 1948. Cover story: None (?). Cover art by Matt Fox. How fortunate that Weird Tales discovered Matt Fox during the 1940s. If only he could have found more work in pulps and comics. |
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| Weird Tales, September 1950. Cover story: "Legal Rites" by Isaac Asimov and James MacCreagh (Frederik Pohl). Cover art by Bill Wayne. The man on the right looks like it he could be the co-author, Isaac Asimov. And are those newspaper comics in the lower right corner? |
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| Weird Tales, March 1951. Cover story: "A Black Solitude" by H. Russell Wakefield. Cover art by Bill Wayne. These two covers are Bill Wayne's only covers for Weird Tales. |
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| Weird Tales, September 1952. Cover poem: "Hallowe'en in a Suburb" by H.P. Lovecraft. Cover art by Virgil Finlay, his last original cover in the original run of Weird Tales. |
Text and captions copyright 2014, 2023 Terence E. Hanley
hello; we still find the name Washburn for the illustration of the cover weird tales 11 1923 but do we know where this name comes from? who first cited it? because nothing on the internet, nothing in the 2 or 3 books I have on Weird Tales (Weinberg, John Locke) and those on the history of the pulps / illustrators
ReplyDeleteIsn't this an error that was repeated each time without checking?
in his book on the covers of Weird Tales at Girasol, Neil Mechem says "Mailly's signature are in #5, for 6 and 7 no signature but style is Mailly, and for 8 through 13 are with logo's Mailly RLM or RTM
In the jaffrey-Cook' collector's index to weird tales' issue 8 is incorrectly attributed to artist Washburn; Mailly's signature is just barely visible in a digital scan, in the upper right"
Has anyone who has a copy in perfect condition checked the presence of this logo/signature on #8? a collector friend saw nothing on his copy and we see nothing on the internet scans (but these are scans of copies in average condition...)
hello terence
Deletei receved your message in my @ too , i answer with scans from David Saunders: the artist cover is R.M.Mally
my little post on facebook
https://www.facebook.com/groups/pulpsmagazines/permalink/1063225801286581/?mibextid=oMANbw