Tag Archives: Robert E. Howard

The Garden of Adompha

A mad king comes across a nude beauty in his insane flesh-garden. Virgil Finlay's cover illustration for "The Garden of Adompha."

Virgil Finlay was busy on this the April 1938 issue of Weird Tales The cover painting appears to illustrate Clark Ashton Smith’s “The Garden of Adompha,” one I had not previously read and which my attention was drawn by twitter user Perry Ruh:

You can read the story in the Internet Archive’s copy of the issue or, if the yellowed woodpulp is too much of a strain on the eyes, you can also read the transcribed version at Wikisourse.

Finlay was also busy on this this issue with interior illustrations, like this one for Seabury Quinn’s story “The Temple Dancer.”

An exotic oriental dancer created by Virgil Finlay in illustration of Seabury Quinn's story "The Temple Dancer."
“Butea-Jan, sole surviving candidate of the ordeal, must prove her fitness to be married to the god she served.”

It was a heck of an issue, containing not just these stories but others by Robert Bloch, Jack Williamson, Max Brod and Nathaniel Hawthorne (the last two reprints, obviously) and poems by both H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard! It is available to read and download at the Internet Archive.

Red menace

A C.C. Senf cover for Weird Tales, July 1928. A redhead is meanced by a man in a red costume.

Another early (July 1928) Weird Tales cover, this one by C.C. Senf. The issue is a good one for fans of the H.P. Lovecraft circle, as it contains stories by August Derleth and Frank Belknap Long, Jr. as well as a poem (!) by Robert E. Howard. It also contains a reprint of a famous story by Arthur Machen, “The Bowmen.” And of course, it has interesting interior art, of which the most memorably weird is this head-of-story piece by sometime Weird Tales cover artist Hugh Rankin.

A story illustration by Hugh Rankin for Bertram Russell's "The Bat-Men of Thorium," which appeared in the July 1928 issue of Weird Tales.
“Stranger kisses have never been given.”

I confess I am at a bit of a loss to understand what is going on here. Doesn’t this dude understand that kissing is more fun if you take your diving helmet off first? Perhaps all that Thorium has corroded his bat-intellect.

This issue of Weird Tales is available to read and download at the Internet Archive.

“Stop squirming and be sacrificed, young lady!”

“You know how tiring it is for me to keep my left arm strategically positioned in the viewer’s line of sight like this?” Margaret Brundage illustrating Robert E. Howard on the July 1936 cover of Weird Tales. Virgil Finlay’s pencil was also busy, providing a noble profile and a pair of shapely buttocks for C.L. Moore’s story “Lost Paradise.”

“From a world like a jewel we come.”

This issue of Weird Tales is available to read and download at the Internet Archive.

Daughter of Irma Vep

This early (October 1933) Margaret Brundage Weird Tales cover might be among he most iconic images. Jayem Wilcox provides some interesting (and perhaps unfortunate) interior illustration to Robert E. Howard’s story “The Pool of the Black One.”


“Across the grassy level a giant black was striding, carrying a squirming captive under one arm.”

This issue of Weird Tales is available for reading and download at the Internet Archive.

Hero versus snake

Margaret Brundage illustrates one of Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories on the August 1934 cover of Weird Tales. In the interior. H.R. Hammond provides an undead woman (as I read it) for Hugh B. Cave’s story “The Isle of Dark Magic.”

“Before him the statue was in motion and the blue flame in the dish became a wavering, living tongue of fire.”

This issue of Weird Tales is available to read and download at the Internet Archive.

I’m guessing she’s the loot

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.

“And that cursed skull danced with her, rattling and clashing on the sand.”

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.

Some tropical menace

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.”

“Only for brief instants could it drive her spirit into the void and animate her form.”

This issue of Weird Tales is available to read or download from the Internet Archive.

Short and clingy lingerie is de rigueur when worshipping the Black God

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.

“He heard Yasmina scream.”

This issue of Weird Tales is available to read and download at the Internet Archive.