“Chilling Sports?” Never heard of it!
It was 1923 when two very disparate pulp magazines debuted. Pulps were barely 25 years old. They’d just started specializing eight years prior with magazines devoted to detective fiction and later, western and love stories.
Weird Tales was the first periodical to be devoted to the fantasy and science fiction genres. Its Chicago-based publishers envisioned their pulp to be “a magazine where anything might find a home.” They subtitled it “The Unique Magazine.”
In reality, the early issues of the pulp were filled with ghost stories, the choice of Edwin Baird, the magazine’s first editor. Far more interested in his company’s Real Detective and Mystery Stories, Baird had little interest in fantasy and science fiction. The magazine would not come into its own until Farnsworth Wright became the editor in late 1924.
Under Wright, Weird Tales would become known for its fantasy and supernatural fiction, publishing the work of H. P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, and Clark Ashton Smith. Other notable writers that Wright published were Robert Bloch, E. Hoffmann Price, Carl Jacobi, Henry Kuttner, Frank Belknap Long, C. L. Moore, Seabury Quinn, Manly Wade Wellman, and Henry S. Whitehead. The magazine would also become noted for its artists. Hannes Bok, Margaret Brundage, J. Allen St. John, and Virgil Finlay all contributed tremendously to the fantasy art field through their work for “The Unique Magazine.”
In addition to publishing some of the best fantasy and supernatural fiction of the twentieth century, Weird Tales also featured science fiction. With Edmond “World-Wrecker” Hamilton leading the way, writers such as Ray Cummings, Austin Hall, Otis Adelbert Kline, C. L. Moore, Donald Wandrei, and Jack Williamson weaved tales of alien invasions, death rays, evolution run wild, interplanetary expeditions, lost races, mad science, parallel worlds, and more. H. P. Lovecraft would also spin his own style of science fiction in his tales of cosmic horror.
About six months after The Rural Publishing Corporation released Weird Tales, New York-based Street & Smith Corporation debuted the first pulp magazine devoted to sports. Selling for 15¢, Sport Story Magazine featured stories about baseball, basketball, boxing, football, hockey, horse racing, polo, rowing, tennis, track, wrestling, and more. Although it wasn’t until the 1928 introduction of Fight Stories that another sports pulp emerged, within another ten years there were about two dozen sports pulps on the market. Ace Sports, Best Sports, Complete Sports, Dime Sports Magazine, Football Stories, Popular Sports, Sports Novels, Sports Winners, Thrilling Sports . . . or maybe that should be Chilling Sports???
So there’s your answer. A century ago, a financially struggling publisher birthed a magazine devoted to Chilling stories, while a powerhouse from New York launched a pulp devoted to Sports fiction.
Whether you’ll be thrilled or chilled, we hope you’ll join us from August 3 – 6 at the beautiful DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Pittsburgh – Cranberry for PulpFest 2023. We’ll be celebrating the centennials of the two pulps that gave selective readers Chilling Sports! Join us in 2023 for a salute to 100 years of Weird Tales and Sports Stories.
But that’s not all! We’ll also be saluting the great heroes of 1932 – 1933. PulpFest 2023 will honor the 90th anniversaries of Conan of Cimmeria, Doc Savage, and The Spider. And to top things off, next year will also be the centennial of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc., as well as the popular author’s “Moon Trilogy.” Meaning that plans are afoot for another ERBFest to go along with FarmerCon XVIII. That’s three conventions for the price of one!
Only in Mars, Pennsylvania at PulpFest 2023.
The first issue of Weird Tales, dated March 1923 with a cover illustration by Richard Ruh Epperly, is best remembered for publishing Anthony M. Rud’s “Ooze,” a story concerning a giant amoeba. Epperly was a student of the Art Institute of Chicago. Following service in World War I, he worked as a commercial artist. He later continued his studies in Paris. He settled in Oak Park, Illinois where he was very active in the local art community. Today he is represented in many private and public collections.
The first issue of Sport Story Magazine was dated September 8, 1923. The cover art is most likely by Freeland A. Carter who studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. A successful book and magazine artist, he began to contribute to Street & Smith’s Sport Story Magazine as a cover artist and interior illustrator throughout the pulp’s early years. His work was usually signed only with his initials, “F.A.C.”
Our Chilling Sports image was adapted by William Lampkin from The Phantom Detective for January 1934, with cover by Rafael M. DeSoto, and Thrilling Sports for Winter 1947, with cover by Rudolph Belarski. Additional artwork is by Mark Wheatley.
P. J. Monahan painted the cover art for the May 5, 1923 issue of Argosy All-Story Weekly.
