The March/April 85th anniversary issue of Weird Tales features our big list of “The 85 Weirdest Storytellers of the Past 85 Years.” We’re breaking it down online, too: one honoree per day, in no particular order, for 85 days!

WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS (1912–1997) was just another scion of the ruling class who shot his wife (and paint cans against canvases), did an enormous amount of drugs, appeared in both On the Road and a Nike commercial, declared that language was a virus from outer space, taught at a city college, wrote novels by typing up pages and then cutting them to ribbons, outlived virtually everyone he knew, and retired to Kansas a fine old-money gentleman. You know — one of those types.