Tuesday, January 6, 2015

WEIRD TALES (Sept. 1953)

Here are some highlights from the Sept. 1953 issue of WEIRD TALES (Vol. 45, #4), published by Short Stories, Inc.  This was the first digest-size issue of this long-running and important fantasy magazine.  There would be six more digest-size issues (Nov. 1953; Jan., March, May, July and Sept. 1954) before the magazine would be cancelled.  There was a paperback book revival in the 1960s (consisting of reprints), a magazine revival in the early 1970s (four issues at pulp size, slightly larger than the digests), a paperback revival in the early 1980s (with new stories), another short-lived magazine revival in the mid-1980s (that lasted two issues), and finally the magazine was permanently (one hopes) revived in 1988 and continues to be published to this day.

Anyway, I collect digest-size fiction magazines, so when I saw this issue of WEIRD TALES sitting on the shelf at a local used bookstore, I jumped at the chance to get it, since I've not owned one of the digest-size issues before.  The price was just right, too: only ten dollars.  It's a bit worn, as you can see from the scans (I've adjusted the contrasts to make the paper whiter-looking, so that it's easier to read on the screen), but nice enough for me.

Shown below are the front cover, front inside cover (about the authors), first page (Table of Contents), a few interior pages, the lettercol in its entirety (four pages at the end of the issue), the back inside cover (an ad for Arkham House), and the back cover.  As always, click the images to view them at a larger size.  Enjoy!









 


  





  
 


 




 















(As always, the material shown here is presumed to be in the public domain and posted here for historical and scholarly use.  If I am mistaken about the public domain status of any material shown here, I will gladly remove it.  Also, if you have any additional information or comments about the material shown here, please leave a comment to help increase our knowledge about the content and context of what has been posted.  Thanks!! )

Sunday, May 25, 2014

The Black Cat magazine (1895-1918)

For the convenience of anyone who would like to view copies of The Black Cat magazine online, I have compiled the following URLs which contain scans of the issue via the Google Books website. Simply follow the link provided and click on the main cover image there to begin reading.  (I did notice that not every year is available to view in full, though.  Some of the URLs only allowed limited word searches of the contents, but perhaps that will change in the future.)  Enjoy!



Vol. 1 (1895):

Vol. 2 (1896):

Vol. 3 (1897):

Vol. 4 (1898):

Vol. 5 (1899):

Vol. 6 (1900):

Vol. 7 (1901):

Vol. 8 (1902):

Vol. 9 (1903):

Vol. 10 (1904):

Vol. 11 (1905):

Vol. 12 (1906):

Vol. 13 (1907):

Vol. 14 (1908):

Vol. 15 (1909):

Vol. 16 (1910):

Vol. 17 (1911):

Vol. 18 (1912): Not available?

Vol. 19 (1913):

Vol. 20 (1914):

Vol. 21 (1915):

Vol. 22 (1916):

Vol. 23 (1917):

Vol. 24 (1918):

The above is more organized than the manner in which they are listed on the Google Books site. (I had to do a few searches just to find some of the years above, in fact.) I noticed that several issues of The Black Cat from the late 1890s are also viewable online at http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/005691732 – scanned from copies in the library of the University of Michigan.

Saturday, December 29, 2012

THRILLING WONDER STORIES (Dec. 1950)

Here are some highlights from the Dec. 1950 issue of THRILLING WONDER STORIES (Vol. 37, #2), published by Standard MagazinesThe Internet Speculative Database entry for this issue notes that Sam Merwin, Jr. was the mag's editor.  The editorial discusses the growing role of women in SF, an interesting topic given that this was way back in 1950!  This issue's lead story happens to have been written by a woman, Leigh Brackett, who was an author mentor to the young Ray Bradbury several years before.  The topic of women writers also comes up in the letters column, where a pre-pro Lin Carter writes, "And still our Women in Lit discussions grind on! Hot diggety!"  Pro writers Isaac Asimov and James Blish lead off this issue's lettercol.

Speaking of the lettercol, I zoomed in on the Asimov/Blish letters below, making them a little easier to read, but due to time (i.e, lack of it) I have left the other lettercol pages pretty much as-is.  Which is too bad, given that the mag used such tiny-tiny type for the letters, making it hard to read.  Also, the text often got close to the inner spine of the issue, making it hard to scan without wrecking the magazine.  So, my apologies in advance for how poorly the lettercol (which is jam-packed and runs 14 pages!) is reproduced below.

I first saw the front cover of this issue (illustrated by Earle Bergey) in the first volume of Jim Steranko's History of Comics (the chapter devoted to the pulps), never thinking that I'd own the issue myself one day, nor how cheaply I would acquire it (five bucks or thereabouts, if memory serves).  At 164 big pages (including the covers) for only 25 cents, this is a grand example of why the pulps were so popular.

As always, click the images to view them at a larger size.  Enjoy!



















































Thursday, December 27, 2012

FAMOUS FANTASTIC MYSTERIES (March 1951)

     Here are some highlights from the March 1951 issue of FAMOUS FANTASTIC MYSTERIES (Vol. 12, #3), edited by Mary Gnaedinger and published by Popular Publications.  This was the second issue of F.F.F. (for short) to be in digest size format after many years of existence as a pulp.  The digest experiment would be short-lived, as the mag would resume a pulp format a couple issues later, before its eventual cancellation in June 1953.

     Although some readers disliked the new digest size (see the next issue's lettercol), my own view is that it was a marked improvement in the mag's appearance, giving it a classier look.  In fact, the smaller size was actually a little bigger than the compact digest size common to the period -- around the same size as current digests like Asimov's.  Like Asimov's (currently), this issue of F.F.F. contained no interior illustrations whatsoever, although they would return with the next issue.  The inside covers aided this classy library look, wallpapered with the mushroom-like Popular logo. 

     Today it's perhaps hard to understand the appeal of a mag like F.F.F., consisting as it did mostly of reprints.  But when you read the letter pages, you appreciate the niche that the mag filled, as many fans longed to read classic horror and fantasy tales which they'd heard about but had no access to, since it was harder to find old magazines (back issues of Weird Tales, for example) then than it would be now.  For those readers wanting to assemble a library of the best in weird fiction, F.F.F. made it easy -- just buy the mag each month!

     There were only four stories in this particular issue, with the lead novel "The Threshold of Fear" (from 1925) taking up the first 88 pages.  The Internet Speculative Fiction Database entry for this issue reveals that C. H. Liddell, author of this issue's story "Golden Apple," was really C. L. Moore and Henry Kuttner.

     I've reproduced the first pages of each story in this issue, leaving the colors unadjusted so that you can see the tan tone of the paper (which I think helps the old-fashioned look) and the inside covers poking through at the edges like endpapers.  For the lettercol, I've converted the pages to plain white to make them perhaps more readable on the screen.  But you tell me: would you prefer me to leave the scans unaltered (and thus tan-colored like these pages) or continue to convert them to white (as with the lettercol pages shown here)?  Just let me know!

     As always, click the images to view them at larger size...

































(As always, the material shown here is presumed to be in the public domain and posted here for historical and scholarly use.  If I am mistaken about the public domain status of any material shown here, I will gladly remove it.  Also, if you have any additional information or comments about the material shown here, please leave a comment to help increase our knowledge about the content and context of what has been posted.  Thanks!! )

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

SUPER SCIENCE STORIES (Nov. 1950)

     Here are some highlights from the November 1950 issue of SUPER SCIENCE STORIES (Vol. 7, #3), published by Fictioneers, Inc., a division of Popular Publications.  The "Fandom's Corner" column by James V. Taurasi contains reviews of a bunch of SF fanzines of the day, as well as news that Australian SF fandom "has all but collapsed."  Taurasi mentions that fan Lee Hoffman "offers to write for any fan magazine," referring to Lee as "him" (when, in fact, Lee was a female fan; she began publishing the notable fanzine Quandry in August 1950).   

     Virgil Finlay provides the interior illo for Poul Anderson's cover-featured novel this issue, "Flight to Forever."  Frank R. Paul (best known to comics fans as the illustrator of the cover of Marvel Comics #1 in 1939) drew the illos for the stories "The Soul Makers" and "Doom Ship" in this issue.  The author of the story "Sunken Universe," credited to one Arthur Merlyn (ha!), was in fact James Blish.  (The story, according to the Internet Speculative Fiction Database, had originally appeared in the May 1942 issue.)

     Finally, in this issue's long lettercol, one reader asks if other readers have heard the new SF radio drama series Dimension X and 2000 Plus, while another reader notes that the year 2000 itself is "not so far off when you come to think of it."

     As always, click the images to view them at a larger size...





 








 







 


 
 






 
 




 




 








 




(As always, the material shown here is presumed to be in the public domain and posted here for historical and scholarly use.  If I am mistaken about the public domain status of any material shown here, I will gladly remove it.  Also, if you have any additional information or comments about the material shown here, please leave a comment to help increase our knowledge about the content and context of what has been posted.  Thanks!! )