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!
LON CHANEY SR. (1883–1930) wasn’t merely a great actor; he was the first person in Hollywood to truly understand the emotional force that could be wrought by enhancing a human performance — his own — with weird visual tricks. The “Man of a Thousand Faces” almost singlehandedly invented effects make-up; as the Hunchback of Notre Dame and the Phantom of the Opera, he made monsters sympathetic. Ray Bradbury said it best: “He . . . acted out our psyches. He somehow got into the shadows inside our bodies; he was able to nail down some of our secret fears and put them on-screen.”
Readers wrote us in record numbers when we asked you who, in your book, are the weirdest of the weird: the most influentially strange authors and artists and talespinners of all kinds to work their magic on the world in the 85 years since 1923, when Weird Tales was born. We asked that you not limit your suggestions to just fiction writers, and you responded enthusiastically, naming hordes of filmmakers, songwriters, cartoonists, and more. We took your ideas, added a few of our own, called some top fantasy professionals to put in their two cents, and then dove into the long and arduous process of winnowing the list down to a mere 85 names.
Our 85th anniversary issue — featuring fiction by Michael Moorcock, Sarah Monette, and Tanith Lee, nonfiction by Cherie Priest, and Jeff VanderMeer’s interview with China Míeville, and is still available for purchase online — introduced the 85 Weirdest Storytellers individually. If one of your favorite weirdos didn’t make the list, you can share your weird and let us know! Our 90th anniversary isn’t that far away…
Meanwhile:
WEIRD TALES presents: The 85 Weirdest Storytellers 1923-2005
Kudos to them all: creative geniuses whose work, in whatever form and flavor, has shown an affinity of spirit with the brilliantly freaky storytelling that’s been the hallmark of Weird Tales since the magazine was born 85 years ago this very month.
(Don’t see one of your favorites here? Help us compile more weirdness! Go to the Share the Weird page and tell your fellow readers about the weird storytellers you love the most!)
The Uncanny Beauty Issue! “Secretario” by Catherynne M. Valente; Amal El-Mohtar presents Le Tarot de Gaga; Theodora Goss explores strange faces...and much more!
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