Chicks dig aquatic monsters

Cover of Terror Tales, January-February 1940.

As with many other shudder pulp covers, I’ve blogged the January-February 1940 cove of this one before, but thanks to the Internet Archive, I can now peek under the cover to see what of interest might lie therein. I turns out that in this issue there was not one but two stories of aquatic monsters that lure comely young women to various kinds of watery doom. Here are my cross page composites for (1) “Girls Who Lust for Death” by “Russell Gray” (a pseudonym for Bruno Fischer, 1908-1992).

Splash pages for "Girls Who Lust for Death" by Russell Gray in Terror Tales.

And “Pray That She Stays with the Dead” by “Donald Dale,” a pseudonym for Mary Dale Buckner, a writer about whom I have been able to find out very little, although it is possible to buy a contemporary collection of her stories.

Illustration splash for "Pray that She Stays with the Dead," a story by Mary Dale Buckner for Terror Tales.

There are no artist attributions, sadly.

This issue of Terror Tales is available to read or download at the Internet Archive.