Weird Tales

The 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!

Like the two genres to which so many of their films pay homage, it’s the dialogue — snappy, rapid-fire, off-kilter — that strings together the dark screwball comedy noirs of the COEN BROTHERS. From Gabriel Byrne’s smart talk in Miller’s Crossing to the yah-sure-yer-darn-tootin of Fargo, the words take center stage. Well, words and White Russians and wood chippers and hair jelly and hula hoops and extortion and blackmail and kidnapping. Always with the kidnapping.

The 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!

Our “same planet, different worlds” award for weirdness must go to THEODOR “DR. SEUSS” GEISEL (1904-1991). His tales charm all but the grumpiest readers, but beneath those happy faces, bright colors and wacky inventions lay social commentary torn straight from the hundreds of cartoons he drew for the WWII leftist newspaper PM. Still unconvinced? Seuss taught kids to read and brought anapestic tetrameter to the masses. If that’s not weird, we’re not sure what is.

The 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!

Stage magic has traditionally relied upon the audience submitting to the magician’s illusive version of reality. PENN & TELLER somehow succeed in breaking the illusion at the same time that they cultivate a deeper one, explaining the physics and statistics of the tricks even as they seem to overcome those earthly limitations. How does Teller make the rose bleed? How does Penn shoot a nail gun at his head and not die? And how has Teller refrained from speaking onstage for more than 25 years now?

The 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!

Think JIM HENSON (1936-1990) and you think Muppets — yet there’s so much more to the man’s genius. His experimental filmmaking ranged from Time Piece to The Cube. Though his interest in puppetry started as a way to get on television, he stayed with it because of the stories it allowed him to tell, and the weirdness from his film work shone maniacally through. Even with the Muppets. Like those dancing tubes with eyeballs in “Java.” (Wait for it.) And hey, what exactly is Gonzo, anyway?

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!

Apparently, we were all in danger of never finding out what avant-garde comedy looked like. Quoth ANDY KAUFMAN (1949-1984): “Here I come to save the day!” He didn’t do stand-up, he did put-on, dragging both intentional and unknowing audiences into his bizarre narratives. (Okay, so some of those audience members were plants, but still.) From the Inter-Gender Wrestling Championship of the World to the spinning nervous breakdown of the crying Rotowhirl rider, Kaufman’s pranks constituted sophisticatedly strange world-building.