20 ‘Weird Tales’ Covers: Iconic Visions of Horror and Fantasy

The pulp magazine Weird Tales began publishing in 1923, and is still publishing, albeit sporadically, to this day. Unquestionably, Weird Tales’ glory years stretched from the late ’20s to the late ’30s. In 1928, H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos first saw the light of day with the publication of “Call of Cthulhu” in the pages of Weird Tales; Lovecraft was a regular through his death in 1937 and beyond thanks to a trove of unpublished work. Robert E. Howard published Conan stories in Weird Tales during the same period (and committed suicide the year before Lovecraft died).

In addition to the imaginative stories that entertained fantasy and horror fans, there were the covers, which cemented its reputation as much as any writer. Weird Tales cover art was a gateway to the storytelling — conspicuously weird, often seductive covers enticing the reader to shell out a few coins for some (hopefully quite) weird tales.

The top dog of Weird Tales cover artists was, interestingly for the time, a woman: Margaret Brundage. Her tense scenes of suspense defined the Weird Tales look. She famously included nude or nearly-nude women on many of her covers (it was editorial policy to have a certain number of nude scenes in the issue’s stories); Brundage’s damsels were often in immediate physical distress or under the influence of a mysterious entity. Skulls, statues, and violent hooded villains were common.

Brundage wasn’t the only artist contributing Weird Tales covers, although she did enjoy a run of consecutive covers from mid-’33 to mid-’36. In contrast to Brundage’s tableaux, J.Allen St. John (who also designed the iconic logo) painted covers full of action. Hannes Bok brought weirdness, as did Matt Fox. Weird Tales became the first magazine to publish Virgil Finlay, arguably the best pulp artist of all time, in 1935, and he soon became a regular cover artist as well.

The Weird Tales cover was, in a way, the Heavy Metal cover of its day, promising eerie, otherworldly adventures and chills, with plenty of sex appeal. Take a look at these 20 classic examples:

‍

‍

‍

Thanks to Heritage Auctions for most of the scans shown here.

For more on Margaret Brundage, check out the recent book from Vanguard publishing The Alluring Art of Margaret Brundage: Queen of Pulp Pin-Up Art.

About Heavy Metal

First published in 1977, Heavy Metal Magazine, the world’s foremost illustrated magazine, explores fantastic and surrealistic worlds, alternate realities, science fiction and horror, in the past, present, and future. Writers and illustrators from around the world take you to places you never dreamed existed. Heavy Metal Magazine was the first publisher to bring European legends like Mœbius, Philippe Caza, Guido Crepax, Philippe Druillet, Tanino Liberatore, Milo Manara, Enki Bilal, and Pepe Moreno to the U.S. while showcasing non-mainstream American superstars like Richard Corben, Berni Wrightson, Arthur Suydam, Vaughn Bode and Frank Frazetta. The magazine continues to showcase amazing new talent along with established creators. Heavy Metal Magazine features serialized and standalone stories, artist galleries, short stories in prose and interviews. Recent creators have featured Grant Morrison, Stephen King, Kelley Jones, Bart Sears, Tim Seeley and Kevin Eastman. With new issues on the horizon, Heavy Metal promises to boldly go where no magazine has gone before. Explore ancient secrets, forgotten worlds and savage futures…experience Heavy Metal.

Join us at www.heavymetal.com‍

On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MyHeavyMetal/‍

On X: @HeavyMetalInk‍

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heavymetal

‍About Heavy Metal (film)

Heavy Metal is a 1981 Canadian adult animated science fantasy anthology film directed by Gerald Potterton (in his director debut) and produced by Ivan Reitman and Leonard Mogel, who also was the publisher of Heavy Metal magazine, which was the basis for the film. It starred the voices of Rodger Bumpass, Jackie Burroughs, John Candy, Joe Flaherty, Don Francks, Martin Lavut, Marilyn Lightstone, Eugene Levy, Alice Playten, Harold Ramis, Percy Rodriguez, Susan Roman, Richard Romanus, August Schellenberg, John Vernon, and Zal Yanovsky. The screenplay was written by Daniel Goldberg and Len Blum.

The film is an anthology of various science-fiction and fantasy stories tied together by a single theme of an evil force that is "the sum of all evils". It was adapted from Heavy Metal magazine and original stories in the same spirit. Like the magazine, the film features a great deal of graphic violence, sexuality, and nudity. Its production was expedited by having several animation houses working simultaneously on different segments.

Its soundtrack was packaged by music manager Irving Azoff and included several popular rock bands and artists, including Black Sabbath, Blue Öyster Cult, Sammy Hagar, Don Felder, Cheap Trick, DEVO, Journey, and Nazareth, among others.

‍

‍