Fanzine focus: ‘The Weird Tales Collector’

I recently picked up a complete set of a sadly short-lived fanzine, Robert Weinberg’s The Weird Tales Collector.

This fanzine ran six issues from 1977 to 1980. All are 5.5- by 8.5-inches, 32 pages long, and saddle-stitched. The focus is on Weird Tales and related pulps. I have no idea if any of the works here were reprinted elsewhere or what happened to the planned articles for the next issue, as they were planning to continue.

From Nos. 1-5, we get an index of the contents of Weird Tales from the beginning until 1974. In No. 6, they ran an index for Strange Stories, with an author index as well. Now, these are not the reasons to get these issues, as we have the indexes at Galactic Central.

What I found most interesting and enjoyable were the other articles and interviews in these issues. I found some great gems among them. I’ll point out the ones I found most important.

#1 (1977): We get a trio of pieces on Edmond Hamilton, who had recently passed away. We get a memoir by E. Hoffmann Price and a piece from Robert Weinberg. There is also an index of Hamilton’s works in Weird Tales. We also get a short piece on author Everil Worrell by her daughter. Worrell wrote a little under 20 stories for Weird Tales. S.T. Joshi has done a recent collection of her works as The Hollow Moon and Others (2024), which I hope to review soon.

#2 (1977): We get another selection of articles, several of which were reprinted from the 1930s. Weinberg provides an article on WT cover artist Margaret Brundage, based on meeting her. We get an article on Amelia Reynolds Long, based on some interviews with her, along with a bibliography of her works in WT and other SF pulps. I’m not aware of any current reprints of her works. We get a trio of reprints from the 1930s. One is a short piece on being an editor from Farnsworth Wright. Edmond Hamilton has a short piece on himself. And Ray Palmer writes about August Derleth.

#3 (1978): From U.K. researcher on SF, Mike Ashley, we get an article on the “Not at Night” U.K. book series, which reprinted stories from WT. A former WT author, Malcolm Ferguson, provides a fun little nonfiction piece. And Forrest J Ackerman provides a write-up of his visit with Margaret Brundage.

#4 (1978): Mike Ashley writes on U.K. author of weird fiction Harold S. W. Chibbett, who had recently passed away. He includes a bibliography of Chibbett’s works. We get some reprints. One is a letter from the weird-fiction author Henry S. Whitehead, which appeared in Adventure in the 1920s. The other collects notes from the column “Weird Whispering” that appeared in the classic fanzine The Fantasy Fan.

#5 (1979): This time we get a long piece from Robert Sampson on Jules de Grandin, which would appear in his Yesterday’s Faces series of books. This is accompanied by some new artwork by Stephen E. Fabian. In the first of what was planned as a regular column by Robert A.W. Lowndes, it reprints readers’ choices from “The Eyrie” from WT. The second one appeared in the next issue.

#6 (1980): We get an interview with Mary Elizabeth Counselman, along with a bibliography of her work in WT. Both Armchair Fiction and Sarnath Press (S.T. Joshi) have done collections of her works. Another article is on E. Hoffmann Price’s work in WT. I remember seeing the small portraits of Jules de Grandin and his friend Dr. Trowbridge by Virgil Finlay, but I wasn’t aware of their source. They were from WT, and in a short article, we find out who they were based on.

If you are interested in pulp weird fiction, this is one to look for, especially as I’m not aware of these articles being available elsewhere. Too bad this didn’t last longer.