Leo Margulies published and Sam Moskowitz edited the fiftieth-anniversary issue of Weird Tales in the summer of 1973. Two more issues followed before the end of the year. The last of the four Margulies/Moskowitz issues was dated Summer 1974. Margulies was still credited as publisher. I wonder whether that issue was laid out and planned for publication in Spring 1974 before some kind of delay set in. Maybe that delay was for financial reasons, or maybe it was for legal reasons. (See the following paragraph for a possible explanation.) Maybe Weird Tales was reliving its difficulties of exactly fifty years before when there was so much uncertainty as to its future. Whatever might have happened, there would be no more "Unique Magazine" for the rest of the 1970s.
Also in 1974, Robert Weinberg edited and published WT50: A Tribute to Weird Tales. If you have never it, WT50 is a perfect-bound book of about 5-1/2 x 8-3/8 inches and 135 numbered pages. Inside are essays, five short stories, and artwork, all in black and white. Robert Weinberg introduced his book with an essay entitled "Why WT50?" And although it came along in the fifty-first year of Weird Tales, I think we can accept the title as accurate and expressive of Mr. Weinberg's intent. And the fact that he was publisher and holder of the copyright for this small book suggests pretty strongly that he took possession of the Weird Tales property either in late 1973 or during 1974. I should point out that he reused and adapted some of his material for The Weird Tales Story, published in 1977.
I haven't been writing at quite the pace I had hoped for during 2024. Merely by coincidence, this short article about the fiftieth anniversary of Weird Tales is my fiftieth of the year. I have another of my patented super-long articles coming up next, so be on the lookout for that and be sure to set aside some time for it.
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| WT50: A Tribute to Weird Tales, edited by Robert Weinberg and published in 1974, with cover art by John Mayer. |
Text copyright 2024 Terence E. Hanley
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