I have previously posted on Robert Weinberg and his excellent pulp reprint series Pulp Classics, which mainly focused on the hero pulps.
About midway doing that series, he launched another, shorter-lived one: the Weird Menace series that ran six issues. I recently was able to obtain five issues of that series, so cover them here.
- The Corpse Factory (1977)
- Satan’s Roadhouse
- The Chair Where Terror Sat
- Devils in the Dark (1979)
- Slaves of Blood Wolves
- Dance of the Skeletons (1980)
Obviously, the series focused on “weird menace,” a genre that was mainly done by Popular Publications in pulps like Dime Mystery Magazine, Terror Tales, and Horror Stories, as well as magazines by other publishers. Sometimes called the “shudder pulps,” these stories usually featured a hero going up against a sadistic villain, with graphic scenes of torture and brutality.
Grand Guignol theater is considered the main inspiration for these pulp magazines, and Dime Mystery is counted as the first of the weird menace pulps in 1933. Thrilling Publications came out with Thrilling Mystery, and Martin Goodman‘s Red Circle pulp line also included weird menace material.
Censorship killed off the genre in the early 1940s. Personally, this isn’t a genre I’m big on, but know that there has been renewed interest in recent years about it.
Here’s a look at the volumes I have:
• Weird Menace #1: The Corpse Factory has five stories. Arthur Leo Zagat‘s “The Corpse Factory” from Dime Mystery is the main story. Zaget is probably better known for the Red Finger series, and the Tomorrow series recently reprinted by Altus Press. We also get “Beauty Born in Hell” by Mindret Lord from Horror Stories; “House of Horrible Laughter” by Ray Cummings from Dime Mystery; “The Canyon of Missing Brides” by Arthur J. Burks from Terror Tales; and “Goddess of Evil Revelry” by Frederick C. Davis from Dime Mystery. Burks wrote the Dorus Noel series and many other works. Davis created Moon Man, Ravenwood, and Mark Hazzard for Ace. Cummings is a major figure in early pulp SF, and probably best know for “The Girl in the Golden Atom.”
• Weird Menace #2: Satan’s Roadhouse had four stories. The main story is by Carl Jacobi from Dime Mystery. Jacobi is probably better known for his works in Weird Tales. Other works were “Mistress of the Black God” by Gabrielle Wilson (wife of Ray Cummings) from Horror Stories; and “Festival of the Bloodless Dead” by Frederick C. Davis and “Satan’s Mistress” by Hugh B. Cave, both from Dime Mystery. Cave was a very prolific pulp author, so hopefully people are aware of him.
• Weird Menace #3: The Chair Where Terror Sat features the The title story by Arthur J. Burks from Horror Stories, as is “Death Unmasks at Midnight” by Nat Schachner. From Dime Mystery, we get “Satan Calls His Children” by Arthur Leo Zagat and “Brides of the Dust Demon” by Paul Ernst. Ernst is best known as the creator of The Avenger.
• Weird Menace #4: Devils in the Dark brought a few changes to the series. Up to this point, the covers were a montage of four weird menace pulp covers (one each from Dime Mystery, Terror Tales, Horror Stories, and Thrilling Mystery). Going forward, covers would be black-and-white artwork by Steven Fabian. All stories were reprinted by permission, and the ones from Davis were by his permission. But he had passed away, and so this issue would have the last story by him. The title story is by Hugh Cave from Dime Mystery, as is “The Coming of the Mad Ones” by Frederick C. Davis. “Models for Madness” by Wyatt Blassingame from Terror Tales. Blassingame is a major weird menace author and has had several collections of his works from Ramble House and others.
• Weird Menace #5: Slaves of the Blood-Wolves includes the title story by Arthur J. Burks from Terror Tales, as is “Satan Sends a Woman” by Wyatt Blassingame. From Dime Mystery we get “The Red Eye of Rin-Po-Che” by Norvell W. Page and “Girl of the Goat-God” by Arthur Leo Zagat. Norvell Page is best known as the main author of The Spider, who turned the character into the form best known. Interestingly, The Spider became a pulp hero in a weird menace world.
• Weird Menace #6: The Dance of the Skeletons features the title story by Norvell W. Page from Dime Mystery and is very important. It’s considered the first weird menace story! “Tiger Pit” by Arthur J. Burks is from Thrilling Mystery, the only story from that pulp in this series. “Daughter of the Plague” by Hugh B. Cave is from Terror Tales.
The series ended with #6. No idea if more were planned.
Wildside Press has reprinted four of the six: #1, 3-5. Not sure why they haven’t reprinted #2 or 6 unless they didn’t have copies to do so. I will probably get their reprint of #5 to complete my set.
If you are interested in weird menace stories, check out this series as not all the stories in these volumes have been reprinted in more recent works.
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