Usually you do your analysis after you have covered your topic. This time I'm going to do the analysis first.
Weird Tales #367, the Cosmic Horror Issue, published in 2023, contains 96 pages in its interior. There are fifteen written works in all. These include nine short stories, three essays, and three poems.
For now I'm going to include the front and back covers and the inside front and back covers in the page count. That makes 100 pages in all.
Of those 100 pages, 9 pages are full-page advertisements, two for Weird Tales merchandise and seven for books and magazines.
Of the remaining 91 pages, 11 pages are full-page illustrations (including the front cover), and about 4-5/8 pages are made up of partial-page illustrations.
Of the remaining 75-3/8 pages (approximately), about 1 page is blank, these blank areas being at the bottoms of several pages. This does not include pages with poetry.
The table of contents and indicia make up another 1 page.
So, about 26-5/8 pages, or more than one-fourth of the magazine, does not include any text. If you take away 7 pages of poems, which are printed using large typefaces on illustrative backgrounds, then 66-3/8 pages are left for works in prose, or almost exactly two-thirds of the magazine.
I don't have word counts for any of the stories or essays, but I can tell you that they are printed in pretty large fonts with wide spacing between lines. It looks like most of the text in prose is printed in about a 9-point font. However, the last story, "Call of the Void--L'appel du Vide" by Carol Gyzander, is printed in about an 11-point font. To me that looks like an attempt to fill out the remaining page count with what would otherwise have been a shorter story.
In terms of paper and printing, Weird Tales #367 is a very well-made magazine. The cover stock and interior paper stock are high in quality and suitably heavy. I believe copies of this magazine will last a long time. The main title logo on the cover has been reworked slightly, but only to digitize it, I think. It looks basically perfect, and I can't complain about it at all. The typefaces used on the cover and in the interior are good and attractive. Most of the illustration looks digital, but it isn't overly dark, as if it had been soaked in coffee before being reproduced, which is what so much digital art looks like to me. (Witness most U.S. postage stamps now, which have become pretty terrible.) But when it gets down to it, the reader is not really getting very much for his or her money here. I think any reader can recognize that and accept the proposed bargain: lay down your $14 and you'll get an issue of Weird Tales in print. I accepted that bargain, except that Weird Tales the business sent me just one copy for the price of two. So no good bargain for me. Shame on them.
Again, I don't have any word counts available, but I suspect the total of nine stories and three essays would probably have filled about two-thirds and possibly only about one-half of an issue of the Weird Tales of the past, even of the not-very-distant past. Consider that in your purchasing plans. And remember, don't buy from Weird Tales unless you want to risk being cheated. Find your copy elsewhere if you can.
To be continued . . .
Original text copyright 2024 Terence E. Hanley
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