A recent acquisition I obtained is The Chillingly Weird Art of Matt Fox by Roger Hill. Published in hardback by TwoMorrows Publishing, it came out recently and focuses on the comicbook and pulp-magazine artwork of Marcy Matthew Fox (1906-88).
I mainly knew Fox by the handful of covers for Weird Tales done from 1944 to 1950.
Thanks to the research of Roger Hill, we know more about this artist. It’s unfortunately that no one did this before he passed away. We get a decent overview of Fox’s life. One aspect that struck me about his WT covers was they seemed very much “outsider” artwork, similar to the work of Basil Wolverton and Fletcher Hanks. We learn that he had no formal art education, but learned artwork on his own, as well as learning the printing trade. He spent most of his life in the field of commercial printing.
Fox did both interior art for several pulps, including Weird Tales, as well interior art for other pulps. All 11 WT covers are included here, as well as his WT interior art and a sampling (not sure if all) of his other pulp interior work. The cover of the book is an unused cover planned for Weird Tales. His work in the pulps ran from 1940 to ’51.
Following this, he did comicbook artwork for Atlas Comics, which later became Marvel Comics in the ’50s, leaving that field in the mid ’60s. We only get samples of these stories.
In addition, we get samples of other artwork he did at various status of his life. There is also a full listing of his artwork.
Overall this is an excellent volume on this overlooked Weird Tales artist. I’d recommend people get it as soon as possible as I think it’s already out of print with the publishers, though others may have copies.
