This post is brought to you by The Devil’s Defile: Weird Tales From Devil’s Gulch, edited by G. W. Thomas. The Weird West was never weirder in this shared world anthology set in a town haunted by ghosts and worse. “If Music Be the Food of Love” by M. D. Jackson gets things rolling with a man seeking a lost macabre masterpiece. “Dark Raven” by T. Neil Thomas follows hanging Judge Galbraith to a haunted house where he will win (or lose?) a bet. “The Black Lake” by Jack Mackenzie has a quest for the location of this terrible body of water. “The Ghost Gun” by G. W. Thomas is a portfolio of tales featuring Deputy Sheriff Brett Hope as he fills the Ghost Gun with monster bullets, knowing that one day he will have to face Death himself. This collection of interconnected tales features illustrations and cover by M. D. Jackson.
Strange Tales of Mystery and Terror was a short-lived competitor of Weird Tales that ran from September 1931 to January 1933. Seven issues were published by editor, Harry Bates, who also ran Clayton’s Astounding Stories of Super-Science since 1930. Unlike Weird Tales, the Clayton chain paid 2 cents a word and on acceptance. With such rates, it wasn’t hard for Bates to poach Weird Tales writers like Clark Ashton Smith, Robert Bloch, Robert E. Howard, Henry S. Whitehead, August Derleth, Paul Ernst, Bassett Morgan, Hugh B. Cave and many others. Better paid writers like Seabury Quinn, with his Jules de Grandin stories, did not appear.
Since Strange Tales appeared in the early 1930s, it was fortunate to grab some of the Cthulhu Mythos stories written by H. P. Lovecraft’s circle. These tales are not central works like most of Lovecraft’s stories, the early Bloch or Henry Kuttner. These all appeared in the “Unique Magazine”. The five tales are Cthulhu Mythos either through obvious references or by being related to other more important pieces. Not all are minor league stories as one story in Bates’ magazine was the first appearance of a Cthulhu Mythos deity. H. P. Lovecraft’s name is missing, but it isn’t as you will see.
“The Return of the Sorcerer” (Strange Tales, September 1931) by Clark Ashton Smith tells of a desperate man who hires on as secretary to the sorcerer, John Carnaby. Carnaby’s brother, who usually assists him, has gone on a long journey. The Necronomicon has a guest appearance in this tale as the narrator is hired to translate it from the original Arabic. The newcomer translates two passages from the book on the power of dead sorcerers and a charm against them. Carnaby claims his interest is academic but the translator suspects something else. He glimpses some strange object in the dark hallway and knows it is not rats. The severed limbs of Carnaby’s brother, Hellman, come for revenge, holding the narrator until it is complete.
This story was filmed for television on Night Gallery, September 24, 1972, forty one years after it appeared in print. It starred Vincent Price as John Carnaby, Tisha Sterling and Bill Bixby. (Unfortunately, not available on Youtube.)
The story was given an adaptation by Richard Corben in 1993. For more on Clark Ashton Smith comic book adaptations, go here.
“The Door to Saturn” (Strange Tales, January 1932) by Clark Ashton Smith is one of the Eibon stories, usually set in the ancient times of Hyperborea. This tale begins there but Eibon escapes through an enchanted mirror to the planet Saturn, or Cyranash. He is pursued by the zealot Morghi. The two team up once on Saturn because the planet is very strange. Eibon talks to the ancient god he worships, getting a gift of knowledge. The two sorcerers team up and explore different races, looking for the one to give their knowledge to. The story is largely a travelogue with different unpronounceable names. As a heroic fantasy story, it is filled with plenty of color but little action.
“The Trap” (Strange Tales, March 1932) by Henry S. Whitehead and H. P.Lovecraft (as Henry S. Whitehead) was written during a visit by HPL to Whitehead’s home in May 1931. The idea for this tale, reportedly Lovecraft’s, would receive fuller exploration in “The Dreams in the Witch-House” (Weird Tales, July 1933). A man buys an antique mirror that swallows up a young boy, Robert Grandison. The narrator finds the boy inside the mirror world, though he has been transposed, his heart now on the right side. The young man is rescued and the mystical section of the mirror, known as Loki’s Glass is removed, destroying the gateway. Elements of this story can be seen earlier in H. G. Wells’ “The Plattner Story” (The New Review, April 1896) and Algnernon Blackwood’s “A Victim of Higher Space” (The Occult Review, December 1914).
“People of the Dark” (Strange Tales, June 1932) by Robert E. Howard is one of several tales in which he paired contemporary time with a flash back to ancient days. In this case Brent relives his life as Conan of the Reavers (not that barbarian guy) and his encounter with the People of the Dark, degenerate Serpent Men also known as “The Worms of the Earth” (Weird Tales, November 1932). The story is book ended by sections in the modern world where the narrator has lost his love to another man. The portions about Conan are Sword & Sorcery of the best kind. (Conan’s battle mirrors King Kull’s battle against the Serpent Men in “The Shadow Kingdom”(Weird Tales, August 1929). H. P. Lovecraft brought the Serpent Men into the Mythos by mentioning Bran (Mak Morn) in some of his tales.
“People of the Dark” is perhaps the only Sword & Sorcery tale to appear in Strange Tales (though you can make a case for “The Door to Saturn” too.) Sword & Sorcery was birthed from Weird Tales but it would not be restricted to that magazine, which would, in fact, reject most heroic fantasy by 1940. This story received a black & white adaptation from Marvel Comics in Savage Sword of Conan #6, June 1975 with script by Roy Thomas and art by Alex Nino. A color version appeared in Marvel Treasury #19, January 1978. It is one of my all-time favorites.
“The Thing That Walked on the Wind” (Strange Tales, January 1933) by August W. Derleth is the first of three stories about the Mythos being Ithaqua. It is a Strange Northern. Derleth borrows directly from Algernon Blackwood’s “The Wendigo” (The Lost Valley and Other Stories, 1910) for this tale, bringing that inspiring tale more directly into the Cthulhu Mythos. Constable Robert Norris, a Mountie, is sent to the remote village of Navissa Camp, Manitoba, where reportedly everyone has disappeared. His investigation brings him face-to-face with Ithaqua, the wind-walker, a gigantic humanoid figure with burning red eyes. The chain of the plot continues in the next two stories which will appear in Weird Tales after Strange Tales folds..
Conclusion
Strange Tales published a number of great stories not related to the Mythos including “The Wolves of Darkness” by Jack Williamson, the two Dr. Muncing occult detective stories by Gordon MacCreagh, “The Cairn on the Headland” by Robert E. Howard, “Murgunstrumm” and “Stragella” by Hugh B. Cave, “Duel of the Sorcerers” by Paul Ernst and “The Hunters From Beyond” by Clark Ashton Smith plus many others. Harry Bates skimmed the cream off of Weird Tales as well as other publications with his generous rates. Not surprising some of the writers in Strange Tales also appeared at Astounding Stories: including Edmond Hamilton, Jack Williamson, Arthur J. Burks, Paul Ernst, S. P. Meeks and Hugh B. Cave. Sadly for us, but perhaps good for Weird Tales, the entire Clayton chain went out of business in 1933. Farnsworth Wright accepted all the defectors back without punishment (how could he turn his back on this ton of talent?) and their work went on at WT for seven more years under his management. This included more Cthulhu Mythos stories. Strange Tales was the second competitor after Ghost Stories (a narrowly focused Horror magazine that published Frank Belknap Long, Everil Worrell, Hugh B.Cave and a few other WT writers), but not the last as the Shudder Pulps, John W. Campbell’s Unknown and others are coming in the late 1930s.
Mythos Horror & Ghostbreakers at RAGE m a c h i n e
That Marvel adaption of People of the Dark blew my mind when I discovered it in my youth. The interlacing timelines, psychedelically mirrored by the interlacing artwork, the sheer strangeness of kicking off a story in a sword & sorcery magazine with a guy with a gun. It has to be one of the best things Marvel ever did.
I think for me it was how different it looked from John Buscema’s work which dominated the comics.