Weird Tales.

Above you see the January 1950 issue of Weird Tales, cover art by Charles A. Kennedy.

As it happens, Golden Age Comic Book Stories posted a vast gallery of Weird Tales covers only yesterday, but that in no way distracts from my reveling in the fact that this particular scan was done by me, from my own copy of the magazine, which belongs to me, because I bought it, for a fiver, at the UK Paperback & Pulp Bookfair, which I went to today.

Being largely ignorant of the market in vintage periodicals, I’d always assumed original copies of WT must be untouchable collectors items, but this one seller there had a whole stack of ‘em. Naturally prices varied wildly, based on era, cover art and the authors represented within – issues from the ‘20s and ‘30s were considerably more expensive, and if you’re looking for one with a first-run H.P. Lovecraft story then lookout buddy. But even the priciest issues were, well… cheaper than I would have expected.

The whole fair was actually quite a strange experience for me – it’s the first one I’ve been to, and the first time I’ve become aware that a, er, ‘collector’s scene’ for the kind of goofy pulps I enjoy tracking down even exists in this country. It was a fairly small affair, but those who were present seemed to be a knowledgeable and dedicated bunch, and, speaking as someone who’s spent a lot of time skulking around record fairs over the years, it was quite nice to see how relatively cheap even the most hallowed items on offer were. I mean, clearly those older WT issues were completely out of my price range, but compared to the kind of slavering mania inspired by, say, garage or Northern Soul 45s of equivalent cult potency, we’re still talking peanuts.

Needless to say, I bought a ton of neat stuff, most of it eminently affordable, some of which I’ll share with you over the coming months. But all the same, I don’t know if I’ll make a habit of going to these fairs. Flicking through boxes of full of books, any one of which would have me exclaiming “FUCK YEAH” if I'd stumbled across it in a charity shop, was an odd feeling. Having these books filtered out of their natural surroundings and specifically sold to me by dealers who specialise in that kind of thing can't help but take the fun out of it, I feel.

This one guy there, who seemed like a nice fellow, was selling off his own personal collection, and it was honestly the best collection of sleaze/beatnik pulps I’ve ever encountered – all those classic WTF covers we’ve seen on the internet, live in the flesh. He had Jazzman In Nudetown. I touched it. Twenty five quid. (Again, I would have expected it to go for a lot more.) I had to bite my tongue though and stick to my ‘pay no more than £5 for a book I don’t intend to read all the way through’ principle. I walked away. It felt good.

Anyway, here are some scans of the wonderful interior illustrations from that Weird Tales issue, rendered about as good as I can get ‘em without damaging the binding.