Revision [293]
This is an old revision of StrangeStories made by TpnEditor on 2006-04-26 00:19:36.
Strange Stories
A short-lived fantasy and horror-fiction companion to ThrillingWonderStories Thrilling Wonder Stories and the rest of the ThrillingPublications Thrilling Group, it featured many of the same contributors as the other BetterPublications Better Publications magazines and WeirdTales Weird Tales. Despite publishing some interesting fiction, such as WellmanManlyWade Manly Wade Wellmanís ìThe Changelingî in the first issue, it is not well-remembered today.
Background
Strange Stories
Publisher: BetterPublications Better Publications
Publication range: February 1939-February 1941
Edited anonymously by WeisingerMort Mort Weisinger, SS featured a mix of fiction rather similar to that of WeirdTales Weird Tales, with a slightly less gothic sensibility than WeirdTales Weird and lacking the HeroicFantasyGenre heroic fantasy component stressed in the other magazines. In the first issue, February 1939, along with a long editorial column attributed to Mephistopheles, there were stories by such WeirdTales WT and ThrillingPublications Thrilling Group veterans as BlochRobert Robert Bloch (two stories, one as by ìTarleton Fiskeî), KuttnerHenry Henry Kuttner (two stories, one as by ìKeith Hammond,î which playfully drew not only on Lovecraftian CthulhuMythos Cthulhu Mythos motifs but specifically on Blochís own contributions to that Mythos, notably the ìforbiddenî book The Mysteries of the Worm), KlineOtisAdelbert Otis Adelbert Kline, FarleyRalphMilne Ralph Milne Farley and DerlethAugust August Derleth and SchorerMark Mark Schorer.
Wellmanís ìThe Changelingî is perhaps the best-remembered story from that first issue, and one of the few from the magazineís run of thirteen bimonthly issues to be cited by historian Mike Ashley as rising above the general run of competence.
QuinnSeabury Seabury Quinn, RussellEricFrank Eric Frank Russell, BrackettLeigh Leigh Brackett and PriceEHoffman E. Hoffmann Price were among the other notable contributors to the magazine; Ashley has noted that Weisingerís moving on from the ThrillingPublications Thrilling pulp line to edit Superman comics was coincident with, and probably resulted in, the folding of SS with the February 1941 issue.
