And metal garments are more conductive than cloth, so that young lady is definitely in an uncomfortable situation in Margaret Brundage’s illustration of the February 1934 cover of Weird Tales. Hugh Rankin makes an appearance in the interior with an almost ethereally-beautiful illustration for E. Hoffman Price’s story “Tarbis of the Lake.”
This issue of Weird Tales is available to read and download at the Internet Archive.
A classic trope well done by Margaret Brundage on the cover of the June 1936 Weird Tales.
In the interior art, Howard S. De Lay (1876-1950) brings the sexy in his illustration of Robert E. Howard’s “Black Canaan,” a story published in the same month as Howard ended his own life.
I don’t think De Lay’s art has been featured here before, but he was a relatively prolific pulp and comics artist. This specialty blog has a short biographical article on him.
This issue of Weird Tales is available to read and download at the Internet Archive.
Never one to be outdone in the tying-up-pretty-girls department, Margaret Brundage ties one to wheel on the June 1938 cover of Weird Tales to illustrate Seabury Quinn’s “Suicide Chapel.” Virgil Finlay has an interior illustration to the same story which shows off greater emotional intensity.
Our heroine’s antagonist is meant to be a giant ape. by the way.
This issue of Weird Tales is available to read and download at the Internet Archive.
Why go exploring a tropical island in your clingy nightgown? You’ll attract racial menace that way, as Margaret Brundage illustrates on this June 1934 cover of Weird Tales.
The interior art for this issue is less spectacular than others, though there is an interesting piece by the mysterious H.R. Hammond at the head of another early Robert E. Howard story, “The Haunter of the Ring.”
This issue of Weird Tales is available to read or download from the Internet Archive.
Some more orientalism on the cover of the November 1937 Weird Tales by Margaret Brundage. Virgil Finlay did a lot of interior illustration on this issue as well. The interior illustration he did for Seabury Quinn’s “Living Buddhess” cover story has perhaps not aged well, and not just in the sense that the paper on which it was printed did not age well.
This issue of Weird Tales is available to read or download at the Internet Archive.
The “strange tale of the future” Margaret Brundage was illustrating for this May 1938 issue of Weird Tales appears to be Seabury Quinn’s “Goetterdaemmerung.” (In 1938 umlauts were scarce, apparently.) Virgil Finlay did a lot of interior work on this issue, including this illustration for the title story:
Finaly also illustrated what looks to my eyes like a bit of the old ultraviolence about to happen for Edmond Hamilton’s “The Isle of the Sleeper.”
This issue of Weird Tales is available to read and download at the Internet Archive.
I’m pretty sure that Margaret Brundage is illustrating Edmond Hamilton’s story here. In interior art Jack Binder definitely is, and boy-howdy does the illustration have a made science feel.
Jack Blinder does extra duty on this issue baking some cheescake to illustrate another of C.L. Moore’s Jirel stories.
This isse of Weird Tales is available to read and download at the Internet Archive.
Between approaching Mr. Creepy behind and the Flames of the Pit below, our scantily-clad heroine’s future isn’t looking all that bright. Advice to pretty women: do not inhabit a Margaret Brundage Weird Tales cover painting like this one from May 1937.
This issue gives us another more-explicit-than-expected Virgil Finlay illustration, this one for Clifford Ball’s novelette Duar the Accursed.
This issue of Weird Tales is available to read and download at the Internet Archive.
C.L. Moore drew the long straw and got her story “The Black God’s Kiss” illustrated by Margaret Brundage on the October 1934 cover of Weird Tales. The site Galactic Central has a version of the cover in an alternate and brighter color scheme.
This issue also has one of Robert E. Howard’s early Conan stories, “The People of the Black Circle,” complete with an interior illustration by our friend Hugh Rankin.
This issue of Weird Tales is available to read and download at the Internet Archive.
A dramatic cover of a girl in peril by Margaret Brundage for the February 1936 Weird Tales. Vampirism or mad science or both? I can’t account for the curious spelling “eery” on this cover, but I do suspect that Brundage’s illustration is an ancestor of a whole trove of interesting fetish art.
As she so often did, C.L. Moore has a story in this issue, “Yvala.” “Yvala was a gloriously beautiful woman — Lilith, Circe, and Helen combined into one — yet she was cruel and dangerous as a flame from hell.” (There’s always a catch…) Vincent Napoli did his best within the limits of his medium to bring her to life.
Atoms of the soul are an interesting concept.
This issue of Weird Tales is available to read or download from the Internet Archive.