Random Notes by W. C, Jr.
What a break for the Washington Weird Tales Club! Seabury Quinn, who reads the fashion magazines so his heroines may be clothed stylishly, is shipping the furniture from Brooklyn to Washington. . . . As if to compensate for the Old Marster's absence from the skyscraper city, Earl Peirce, Jr., and Bruce Bryan may migrate to NYC, taking up writing as a regular profession. . . . H. P. Lovccraft's Psychopompos, "a tale in rime," was one of his earliest efforts, dating from 1917. . . . Virgil Finlay seldom uses models, but refers occasionally to photographs to get the right effect in picturing various textures. Virgil was born in Rochester, New York, twenty-three years ago. His first attempt at drawing occurred at the tender age of three, when the magnificently limned equine of his imagination was labeled "doggy" by his mother. He attended several grammar schools in and about Rochester; and his first real claim to fame was established when block-print caricatures of his teachers were reproduced in the John Marshall High School paper. He studied at Mechanics Institute classes and the gallery in Rochester. He has exhibited in oils, pen and ink, pencil, and block-print, and also works in tempera, transparent water color, charcoal, wood-cut, stone, chalk, and clay — preferring pen and ink to them all. Virgil is a quiet young man, unmarried, with a serious face that often lights up with a broad smile. Athletics in earlier years won him a fourteen-inch bicep and stubby, powerful fingers. He often spends two or three days on a single drawing for Weird Tales, beginning work around noon and ceasing only when dawn tinges the night sky. A dreamless sleep then shuts him from the material world until noon again, when he repeats the process. He has a keen sense of humor. And the way he plays practical jokes on his fellow Weirdists! For instance: Clifford Ball once stated in a letter to the Eyrie, previous to publication of his first story, that the ridiculous theme of a woman's being captured and carried off by a giant ape was passé. With this in mind, Virgil selected that particular scene in illustrating Ball's Thief of Forthe! . . . What is perhaps his most famous drawing, the strange, dark illustration for Robert Bloch's The Faceless God, was the result of a dilemma: In the story there was little action which could be portrayed graphically,
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A strange story is this—the story of a stage magician whose investigations of spirit séances precipitated him into the midst of an astounding situation. It is a tale of terror and sudden death, a tale of the hideous, stark horror that struck during a séance, a tale of the frightful thing that laired in the Devil's Croft.
in the January issue of WEIRD TALES on sale December 1st To avoid missing your copy, clip and mail this coupon today for SPECIAL SUBSCRIPTION OFFER (You Save 25c) WEIRD TALES Enclosed find $1.00, for which send me the next five issues of WEIRD TALES, to begin with the January issue. (Special offer void unless remittance is accompanied by coupon.) Name Address City State. |
