There was less murder and fiendishness on the cover of Weird Tales in the 1940s and '50s. That might be because the editor was a woman. Maybe she didn't want any more of that menacing and threatening of women. As you can see, none of the following four covers fits easily into this category, at least at first glance. I have read The Damp Man series, though, and I can tell you that the title character is the very definition of a fiend.
![]() |
| Weird Tales, January 1942. Cover story: None. Cover art by Gretta. This cover, by Joseph C. Gretter, is kind of a throwback to the 1920s or '30s. This was a time of transition in Weird Tales. Gretter, an artist of those decades (though he later assisted on Riley's Believe It or Not!), seems to have been a fill-in artist, and this was his only cover for "The Unique Magazine." |
![]() |
| Weird Tales, March 1944, Canadian edition. Cover story [?]: "The Valley of the Assassins" by Edmond Hamilton. Cover art by an unknown artist. I'm not so sure about putting this cover in the category of fiends and murderers. The man on the right kind of looks like one of the undead. Or maybe he's a sorcerer of some kind. Anyway, here it is. You'll see this cover again. |
![]() |
| Weird Tales, May 1949. Cover story: "The Damp Man Again" by Allison V. Harding. Cover art by John Giunta. That's the Damp Man himself, a real creep and a fiend. |
![]() |
| Weird Tales, March 1950. Cover story: "Home to Mother" by Manly Wade Wellman. Cover art by Lee Brown Coye. The figure on this cover looks like he could be a murderer or fiend, but he could be just another one of Coye's decrepit souls. |
Now it's on to Human Sacrifice and Executions.
Text and captions copyright 2017 Terence E. Hanley
