OtherEric

The January 1939 Weird Tales has the first publication of "Medusa's Coil" by Lovecraft and Zealia Bishop.

In today, courtesy of @Raze:

Please do! I don't want to dive too deep into the maze that is UK undergrounds, but I would like to finish the Brainstorm run someday.

They really are. I think the Argosies are ultimately from that collection I was grabbing at the LCS last year, no idea where the Star Detective turned up. Always fun to see the Goodman pulps, I've only got a handful.

Found at the local store today. I just love the Avons from this era;

In this week. The Star Detective was a find at my local store, the Argosies were a gift from a friend:

November 1938 Weird Tales, with "The Nameless City". First professional publication of the story I'm aware of, although it had appeared twice before in an amateur magazine and a fanzine. I'm somewhat surprised it took this long to get a mass market release, as it's a fairly key story in terms of introducing Mythos concepts. Even by my low standards, I would like to upgrade this one... it's been trimmed pretty drastically. Was still super happy to get it when I did, it was one of my earliest pulps with Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard (who has a poem in the issue.)

This is about the extent of my UK underground/small press items. I've actually got all 5 issues of Near Myths, but the #1 is the only one with a scan handy. Have never seen a copy of Brainstorm Comix #1, I've seen a few copies of the last issue but not at prices I really want to pay.

The September 1938 issue of Weird Tales. Has a poem by Lovecraft, "The Wood"

February 1938 Weird Tales. Under the stunning Finlay cover are two Lovecraft stories. The first is the revision of "The Diary of Alonzo Typer" for William Lumley. Other than a few poems in The Fantasy Fan, I believe this is his only published credit, at least in the SF/ fantasy realm. Speaking of The Fantasy Fan, this issue also has the first professional publication of a story that first appeared over there, "From Beyond". While I don't have a lot of the issues, Weird Tales was really going all-in on Lovecraft after his passing. From July 1937 to December 1939, there are only two issues without something by Lovecraft; although in many cases they were reprints or poems.

This features the first appearance in Weird Tales of "Polaris". The story had been printed at least three times before, in the December 1920 The Philosopher, the May 1926 National Amateur, and the February 1934 Fantasy Fan. But I believe all three of those were amateur magazines or fanzines, making this the first professional publication of the story. If anybody knows otherwise I would love to be corrected. I actually bought this issue mainly for the stunning Finlay cover, it may be my favorite Weird Tales cover.

Please tell him "Hello" back from us.

November 1937 Weird Tales. This one features a reprint of "Hypnos", which originally appeared in the famous May-June-July 1924 Weird Tales.

I would argue that a bad Gil Kane cover is still better than 3/4 of the covers out there... but yeah, the layout is all sorts of awkward even if the actual drawing is decent.

Not a mistake, but it brings to mind Strange Tales #179 with the "Approved by the Cosmic Code Authority" seal.

Baker to Baker (including the back cover since he didn't do the front.)

And right back to Authentic.

I'm guessing it's because Cthulhu is just a mind-blowingly great image. And Call has one of the all-time classic opening lines to any story, not just Lovecraft. Otherwise, I'm not sure. Shadow Out of Time seems to be very much a love it or hate it story, the love it crowd is definitely the larger group... but the people who don't like it REALLY don't like it.

Woman in red and man in white to woman in red and white:

Just realized my copy of this was a Mark Jewelers:

Actually, the story in #23 was originally intended for #22. But the artwork got lost in the mail, so they reprinted the story from #1 in #22. But it was apparently too late to change the cover on #22. Not surprised they didn't put too much effort into the #23 cover at that point, particularly since the #22 cover was stunning. (Covers swiped from GCD to illustrate the point.)

And here we have the October 1937 Weird Tales, with the first publication... but not the first printing... of "The Shunned House". The story was actually printed in a very limited edition almost a decade earlier, but other than a very few copies that went to the people creating it, it was not actually distributed at that time. Eventually Arkham House wound up getting the unbound pages and releasing them several years later.

July 1937 Weird Tales, with a poem by Lovecraft: "To Virgil Finlay, Upon his Drawing for Robert Bloch's Tale, "The Faceless God"" I'm including the poem and the drawing for reference; both taken from scans found online. I don't actually have the issue where the illustration first appeared.

MyComicShop, 99% of the time. They're famous for undergrading their raws by a point or so. (I know, it was a rhetorical question. But I couldn't resist.)

The blurb has to be deliberate. The question is, is it there to hide art that was too risqué or to make buyers think it was more risqué than it really was?