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!
Oh, ALAN MOORE (1953- ), how do we love thee? Let us count the ways. 1. V for Vendetta. 2. Watchmen. 3. Promethea. 4. Lost Girls. 5. D.R. & Quinch. 6. Voice of the Fire. 7. All those “Future Shocks” for 2000 A.D. back in the ’80s. 8. The simple fact that he’s held the title of Most Revered and Respected Creator in Comics (By Pros & Fans Alike), de facto, for more than two decades. Need we say more? Okay: 9. Devotee of Glycon, a snake-deity-slash-sock-puppet that probably never existed. 10. Performance art involving same. There: a veritable decameron of strangeness.
What’s new: While Moore has disowned all the Hollywoodizations of his work, it will nonetheless be of interest to many that the trailer for the film adaptation of Watchmen, the seminal “deconstructing superheroes” graphic novel, has just been unveiled today.
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!
GABRIEL GARCIA MARQUEZ’s (1927– ) brand of writing, dubbed magic realism, serves as a lyrical reminder that in some cultures ghosts, spirits and unseen forces are just part of everyday life. The Colombian author’s One Hundred Years of Solitude introduced the world to a romantic mysticism that could only be made convincing by prose of incomparable precision. Visiting with Marquez for the 468 pages it takes to finish Solitude should be a requirement for all those wishing to explore their own capacity for wonder.
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!)
You’ve seen haunted-house stories before — but you’ve never seen anything like Matthew Pridham’s remarkable novella “Renovations,” where nobody is more terrified than the house itself! That’s just the tip of the iceberg this issue: we’ve got interviews with novelists James Morrow (The Last Witchfinder) and Melissa Marr (Wicked Lovely); stories about autistic magic, seductive fox women, bone-generating innards, and suspiciously aggressive fish; an Arabian stop on the Lovecraft tour; and much more!
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!
BASIC WEIRD: One-year subscription: $20! DELUXE WEIRD: One year, plus a cosmically horrific Lovecraftian bonus: $30! GIFT OFFER: Give your friends the present of Weird Tales! TRIAL PACK: A three-issue sampler: just $12!
