Sarg

I have this as well. I think it's Fox's best cover.

There is no indication in her interviews that Brundage dealt with any of those things with Weird Tales' editor and business manager.

If not for the (slight) wear at the bottom, I would swear this was a recent reprint.

I will never get over the fact that this magazine was printed and then sold on newsstands across America in the 1930s.

The chance of it not being arson, given the current climate, seems slight.

George Rozen Baumhofer Saunders Belarski St. John

Never saw that one before. What year?

Fine! Weird Tales was factory trimmed by this point, right?

Thanks for that info. I guess with no census, we cannot really construct an educated guess on how many copies still exist.

I'm well aware that my opinion is in the minority. I'm not an advocate of the "everybody on the field gets a trophy" school of philosophy, which -- needless to say -- is heresy these days. Many comic/pulp artists of great artistic ability sell for very little at auction, because they didn't draw or paint nude women or space aliens. Value is based on demand, not artistic ability.

What? No black slouch hat?

Nice! Is it accurate to say that a lot of the early issues are pretty scarce? And at what point do issues stop being scarce?

Great cover. I've never seen it before. Too bad about the "a" written on her face.

I thought the doc was OK but the second half had some foreboding quotes about people not reading anymore, much less collecting books. One thing I noticed, these dealers sold a lot more than books (prints, manuscripts, letters, postcards), but I didn't see any comic books anywhere among their wares.

Nope. Based on her own words, not personal conjecture. "Wright told me that the nude covers did better (i.e., sold more) than those that did not feature nudes. He said my covers sold the magazine better than the covers by St.John. I would sumbit several sketches to Wright and (business manager) Sprenger and they always wanted the ones with the scantiest-clad girls. I drew what they wanted." -- Brundage to Robert Weinberg, quoted in The Alluring Art of Margaret Brundage (2013), pg. 16). "We had one issue that sold out. It was the story of a very vicious female, getting ahold of the heroine and tying her up and beating her ... (at editorial conferences) I would submit about three different pencil sketches ... they chose the scene, I didn't. Having read the story, the thought of flagellation never entered my head." (Brundage to R. Alain Everts, ibid pg. 29).

Pastels are not paint. Pastel artists call themselves that, not painters.

Baumhofer's color palette always heightens the mood and drama.

I was looking over eBay today, and noticed that only two 1920s issues of Black Mask were being offered as BIN. Are 1920s Black Masks considered scarce? By contrast, tons of 1930s issues are on offer.

Such a great, bizarre cover. i've admired it for years without ever noticing the shrunken heads...

I believe Lovecraft was making that point about WT covers in general during the Depression era, not specifically Brundage's Conan covers. (And she was a pastel artist, by the way -- not a painter.) I'd say quite a few of Brundage's covers could be described as exponents of "sadistic voyeurism" actually. This was, of course, at Wright's direction, not her personal choice. Lovecraft was complaining about nudity being used to sell literature -- i.e., sensationalism -- not "women in peril" per se.

I think you are spot on. Comic books are too expensive to collect. Whereas, you can still buy classic pulp issues for very affordable prices. I think the huge popularity of Lovecraft is also exposing a lot of young people to pulps, an exposure they otherwise may not have had. So, there is also a satisfying literary dimension to pulps that comic book collecting lacks.

Rozen covers plus John Richard Flanagan interior illos on the first three Wu Fangs is peak artistic excellence for the pulp era.

Great cover! It reminds one of Brundage's Weird Tales covers, except her woman would have had a lot less clothes on.

The Red Shadow cover is absolutely brilliant!