Weird Tales, March 1923: Main Title Logo

The first issue of Weird Tales was dated March 1923. What many fans forget is that "The Unique Magazine" had a companion title that had begun in print nearly six months before. It was called Detective Tales, and the first issue had a cover date of October 1, 1922. Edwin Baird was the editor of both magazines, which were published by Rural Publishing Corp., a then-new company started by J.C. Henneberger and John M. Lansinger.

There were five issues of Detective Tales leading up to March 1923. Their numbers and dates:

• Volume 1, Number 1--October 1, 1922
• Volume 1, Number 2--October 16, 1922
• Volume 1, Number 3--November 1, 1922
• Volume 1, Number 4--Nov. 16/Dec. 15, 1922
• Volume 2, Number 1--February 1923

Detective Tales started out in its first issue with eleven stories, plus eight nonfiction pieces, plus two editorial pages. I believe the first four issues (i.e., all of the issues comprising Volume 1) had forty-eight pages each. By February, the magazine had expanded to 192 pages and had begun calling itself "America's Biggest All-Fiction Magazine." The issue of March 1923 was Volume 2, Number 2. It, too, contained 192 pages. There were twenty-two stories in that issue, plus an editor's page called "A Chat with the Chief."*

Richard R. Epperly created the cover illustration for the first issue of Weird Tales. He also created the cover illustration for the March 1923 issue of Detective Tales. These two covers appear below, side by side. As you can see, both covers were printed using a two-color process, and the color scheme on both is the same, orange and black. However, Epperly's illustration for Detective Tales is a line drawing, whereas his illustration for Weird Tales is done in half tones. I'm not sure of the medium, but it looks like watercolor.

The designs are similar. Both have, on the left, a plaque-like design (or cartouche) containing cover blurbs. These were no doubt typeset. Above are the main title logos and subtitles for each of the two magazines. The main title logos appear to have been hand lettered, while the subtitles and other information (date, place of printing, price) were all typeset.

Richard Epperly was a commercial artist. I haven't yet read very much about his career, but I assume he took a course of study in cartooning, illustration, lettering, commercial art, and/or advertising art. His hand-lettered main title logos for Detective Tales and Weird Tales are essentially the same in terms of their design and technique.

I have a book called Speedball Text Book, prepared by Ross F. George. Mine is the 16th edition, which is dated 1952, but I doubt there were many changes from earlier editions. I think the first edition is from the early 1930s, or not long after Epperly created the cover designs you see below.  In any case, Epperly's lettering is similar to what George called Round Gothic with an F-B-1 Speedball pen point (p. 13) or Condensed Poster Gothic using an A-1 point (p. 41). Maybe Epperly modeled his lettering after one of these or a similar display face, or maybe he created his own style of lettering based on his art training.

Again, we should probably consider Detective Tales a companion magazine to Weird Tales. That's how I'm going to look at it. As such, it's deserving of study. I'll look into Detective Tales soon. But first, I have more on the first cover and the first issue of Weird Tales.

*Thanks to The FictionMags Index for its list of issues and contents of Detective Tales magazine.

Text copyright 2023 Terence E. Hanley