Skulls and Skeletons on the Cover of Weird Tales

You can make a case that the literature of fear is based on a fear of death.* The ghosts and monsters of literature are usually one of two kinds: 1) the undead, or 2) the predator, which threatens death. The undead are represented by ghosts, vampires, zombies, and even Frankenstein's monster, all of whom have returned from the grave. The simplest way of showing the undead is to show the human skull or skeleton--an effective way of invoking fear and dread. I have counted seventeen covers of Weird Tales with skulls and skeletons. Ben in Seattle--see the comment at the end of this posting--has found two more, and I have added them now, December 3, 2018, four years almost to the day after my original entry. In some of these covers, the skull is a motif. In others, it or the skeleton is a kind of monster. 

*In his essay "Supernatural Horror in Literature," H.P. Lovecraft famously wrote that "the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown." I won't quibble: fear of death and fear of the unknown may be the same thing.

Weird Tales, November 1929. Cover story: "The Gray Killer" by Everil Worrell. Cover art by C.C. Senf.

Weird Tales, August 1932. Cover story: "Bride of the Peacock" by E. Hoffman Price. Cover art by T. Wyatt Nelson. The monster here isn't quite a skeleton, but he's skeletal enough to qualify in this category.

Weird Tales, November 1933. Cover story: None. Cover art by Margaret Brundage.

Weird Tales, February 1937. Cover story: "The Globe of Memories" by Seabury Quinn. Cover art by Virgil Finlay. The male figure is almost certainly a self-portrait of the artist. The woman doesn't seem to be very afraid at all.

Weird Tales, December 1935. Cover story: "The Hour of the Dragon" by Robert E. Howard. Cover art by Margaret Brundage. As Ben in Seattle points out in his comment, the skull here seems to be gnawing on Conan's shinbone. The reason has not yet been explained by science.

Weird Tales, March 1938. Cover story: "Incense of Abomination" by Seabury Quinn. Cover art by Margaret Brundage. The skull reminds me of a smoking monkey on the Fourth of July. By the way, the opposite end of the tendril of smoke is a hand--a reaching hand--thus this cover also belongs in the category "Reaching Hands," from April 15, 2014.

Weird Tales, October 1939. Cover story: None (?). Cover art by Harold S. De Lay. According to Jaffery and Cook's index, there isn't a cover story for this issue of Weird Tales. Can anyone say different? (There are more question marks below.)

Weird Tales, November 1941. Cover story: "The Book of the Dead" by Frank Gruber. Cover art by Hannes Bok. There may not have been a Weird Tales cover that captured the spirit of its age more than this one.

Weird Tales, September 1942, Canadian edition. Cover story: Unknown. Cover art by Unknown.

Weird Tales, July 1944. Cover story: "Death's Bookkeeper" by Seabury Quinn. Cover art by A.R. Tilburne. The title echoes that of Frank Gruber's story from three years before. Bok's image is clearly more powerful and compelling.

Weird Tales, January 1945, Canadian edition. Cover story: "The Shadow Folk" (?) by Edmond Hamilton. Cover art by Unknown.

Weird Tales, November 1945. Cover story: "The Cranberry Goblet" by Harold Lawler. Cover art by Lee Brown Coye.

Weird Tales, January 1946. Cover story: "Kurban" (?) by Seabury Quinn. Cover art by A.R. Tilburne.

Weird Tales, March 1948. Cover story: None. Cover art by Lee Brown Coye.

Weird Tales, September 1949. Cover story: "One Foot and the Grave" (?) by Theodore Sturgeon. Cover art by Michael Labonski. Cubism and surrealism come to Weird Tales.

Weird Tales, January 1951. Cover story: "The Hand of Saint Ury" by Gordon MacCreagh. Cover art by Charles A. Kennedy. I have included this image here not so much for the hand as for the skulls that form the woman's pupils. A late addition, December 3, 2018.

Weird Tales, September 1951. Cover story: "Gimlet Eye Gunn" by H. Bedford-Jones. Cover art by Lee Brown Coye.

Weird Tales, November 1952. Cover story: None (?). Cover art by Anthony di Giannurio.

Weird Tales, March 1954. Cover story: None (?). Cover art by Evan Singer, his one and only cover for the magazine.

Here is a bonus, suggested by Ben in Seattle, Virgil Finlay's illustration for "Loot of the Vampire" by Thorp McClusky, from Weird Tales, July 1936, page 61.

Updated December 3, 2018. Thanks to Ben in Seattle for suggestions.
Text and captions copyright 2014, 2023 Terence E. Hanley