Quick! What image do you see when you think of Weird Tales? Our bet is the featured image above — Margaret Brundage’s iconic portrait of “The Bat Woman,” a painting she created for the October 1933 number of “The Unique Magazine,” illustrating the first part of Edmond Hamilton’s 4-part serial, “The Vampire Master.”
Of course, Weird Tales had other great cover artists besides Brundage, including Hannes Bok, Lee Brown Coye, Virgil Finlay, Hugh Rankin, J. Allen St. John, C. C. Senf, and others. But what about the artists who labored to illustrate the interior pages of the magazine? Many of them doubled as cover artists, a job that paid better.
We hope you’ll join PulpFest 2023 on Saturday, August 5, at 7:50 pm for “Inside Weird Tales.” Artist and writer Sara Light-Waller will take a look at the interior artists and the techniques they used to illustrate the inside pages of “The Unique Magazine.” It’s part of our salute to the centennial of Weird Tales,
A professional journalist and illustrator with over thirty years of experience, Sara Light-Waller is an accomplished new-pulp fiction author/illustrator with three books out and more on the way. She is also the winner of the 2020 Cosmos Prize for her illustrated short story, “Battle at Neptune.” A huge pulp fan, Sara is especially fond of science fiction pulps. She is also a member of the PulpFest organizing committee and a regular contributor to our website and The Pulpster.
Regretfully, Sara will not be able to attend this year’s PulpFest. Her presentation, “Inside Weird Tales,” will be postponed for a future convention. We’ve added another auction preview session to fill the gap in our schedule.
The general public is welcome to attend our evening programming events free of charge. To learn more about our programming, please click the Schedule button at the top of this page.
For those who also want to enjoy our dealers’ room, you can join PulpFest by clicking the Registration button at the top of this page. And don’t forget to book a room at the DoubleTree. Currently, there are only a few rooms with king beds left at the convention rate. Click here for other options.
Our lead image was adapted by PulpFest advertising director William Lampkin from Lee Brown Coye’s “Weirdisms“ for March 1949, an illustrated article about wizards.
According to Terence E. Hanley, “‘Weirdisms’ was a regular feature in Weird Tales . . . from July 1947 to July 1951. Lee Brown Coye was the artist on all seventeen installments. . . ” The artist later drew six more “Weirdisms” for Stuart David Schiff’s Whispers.
Virgil Finlay contributed the interior art for Robert Bloch’s Egyptology horror classic, “The Opener of the Way,” first published in the October 1936 issue of Weird Tales. The story has been often anthologized.
For more on Weird Tales, please visit our YouTube Channel to view our video Weird Tales Celebrates 100 Years — created by PulpFest‘s Craig McDonald. While you’re there, please be sure to subscribe to the PulpFest Channel.
