Blood on the Covers

The last entry in our series, Murder in the Cheap Seats, saw us prowling around in back alleys exploring crime and detective stories. Hardened detectives chasing crooks, killers, and femme fatales were a common trend and were very popular. Not all pulp stories, however, worked the streets. Occasionally, these tales would venture into darker places, graveyards, crypts, and other shadowy locations where horrors lurked.

Horror pulps were a different thrill for readers: chilling tales of supernatural menaces and other terrors that stretched the imagination to terrify audiences. Magazines like Weird Tales showcased the early works of H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard. On the other hand, magazines like Terror Tales going straight for the proverbial jugular. The villains in those stories were sadistic and terrifying, and the covers were vibrantly colored; designed specifically to shock readers.

If detective pulps were about crimes in the city, horror pulps were about fear in the shadows; both gave readers exactly what they craved, often for just a dime.

The History of Horror Pulps

Horror pulps started, as far as I can tell, with the Penny Dreadfuls in the UK. These books were basically dime novels packed with stories about crime and supernatural monstrosities to horrify readers.

These horror magazines featured the likes of H.P. Lovecraft (that’s something we discussed last time), H.G. Wells, and M.R. James. We know who Lovecraft is, of course, and Wells is best-known for War of the Worlds. M.R. James wrote a couple of different books including a ghost story called Count Magnus.

Much like the detective pulps we discussed before, horror pulps were popular throughout the 1920s to the 1940s. Of course, then the Second World War broke out and all hell broke loose. The war led to a serious paper shortage, and pulp magazines began to lose popularity.

While early horror pulps struggled, they did develop cult followings after a while.

8 Common Storylines in Horror Pulps

Last time we discussed some rules about detective fiction, but horror pulp magazines don’t really have an established ruleset. With that in mind, I thought we should look into some common storylines.

1 - Mad Scientists & Diabolical Doctors

These storylines followed scientists and doctors conducting horrific, unethical experiments. The victims of these experiments would often be strapped down on gurneys facing nasty, weird torture devices. It wasn’t always mad scientists and doctors, occasionally inventors and hypnotists would be the baddies, but they almost always had grisly comeuppance in the end.

2 - Damsels in Distress

This is, I think, one of the most well-known tropes in fiction and pulp magazines were no exception. The plotlines typically had a female character in a precarious/dangerous situation and being rescued by a muscular and/or attractive man. Threats to the damsel varied from sadistic cultists to supernatural entities. These books had covers that often featured a half-naked woman restrained and screaming…that’s clearly eye-catching.

3 - Cults and Forbidden Rituals

These were…interesting. They typically followed secret cults that messed around with dark magic, summoning demons and gods. Depictions of hooded figures in underground lairs chanting were commonplace, and the stories would often end with the cult leader often being exposed as a fraud or a nutcase.

4 - Supernatural Entities

These types of stories are kind of like Scooby Doo episodes. Some sort of supernatural creature (i.e. vampires, werewolves, zombies, etc.) is lurking around crypts and other such places. The Scooby Doo comparison is set by the common trend of a twist ending which saw one of two endings either, the monster was, in fact, human (like in Scooby Doo) or the human becomes the monster (Something like a Jekyll and Hyde situation).

5 - Revenge from Beyond the Grave

I think the title of this genre says pretty much everything. These stories focused on murder victims and wronged innocents coming back from beyond the grave to exact revenge on those who wronged them.

These stories were very popular in the Weird Tales magazine.

6 - Masked Maniac or Sadistic Killer

Ah, another staple of the horror pulp genre. A masked man with a disfigured face or weird-looking mask terrorizing people. The villain is typically revealed to be mortal in the end, although, his deeds are terrifying and real.

7 - Exotic, Foreign Horrors

These stories were typically borrowed from adventure pulps and injected supernatural thrills. Settings were exotic and foreign locales, and stories featured everything from lost temples to cursed idols, and jungles of death. They fed readers’ appetite for exotic, mysterious, and macabre settings.

8 - Twisted Love and/or Jealousy

Spurned lovers and/or deranged suitors who turn violent when they don’t get their way. These stories focused on obsession, and they often ended in poetic justice. Karma really does bite!

Some Horror Pulps to Scare Ya!

So, like we did last time, let’s look at a few different horror pulps to scare the daylights out of you.

1 - Weird Tales (1923 - 1954) + Revivals

Weird Tales was founded in late 1922 by J.C. Henneberger and J.M. Lansinger, and published by Rural Publications. The first issue was published in early 1923, but it wasn’t long before the magazine was in financial trouble. Henneberger sold his stake in the publication to co-founder J.M. Lansinger. In 1924, Farnsworth Wright, took over from Edwin Baird as editor of Weird Tales.

This magazine was the home of many of today’s popular authors including H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard. Weird Tales was known for its gothic tone and the stories were often in the vein of cosmic horror, involving lost civilizations and supernatural happenings - often of the vengeful sort. It should come as no surprise that this magazine also inspired the likes of Stephen King and other modern writers…you know, suddenly Mr. King’s tendency for weirdness makes a lot of sense.

2 - Terror Tales (1934 - 1941) + Horror Stories (1935 - 1941)

Terror Tales and her sister publication - Horror Stories - both dealt in tales of the supernatural and were quite popular until they had to cease printing. Why did they cease printing? Well…World War II was going on and when the U.S. got involved in the war in 1941 after the attack on Pearl Harbor, there was a paper shortage which affected several pulp magazines at the time.

Terror Tales’ issues often featured damsels in distress, with sadistic villains. The stories were often lurid, and unapologetically grotesque which led to moral panic and censorship. On the other hand, Horror Stories focused on pure sensationalism, they pushed crime and horror content to the absolute maximum limit that they were allowed. Additionally, Horror Stories cemented the sex and sadism aspect of the genre showcasing cover art that was extreme - often too extreme - even for pulp magazines.

Sadly, both are out of print now making them highly sought-after by collectors of these sorts of books. Issues of the Horror Stories magazine are particularly valuable as, from what I understand, there’s only one piece of original cover art left. I wasn’t able to find out what happened to make that a thing, but imagine owning that book with the sole surviving original cover art…that’s cool.

3 - Strange Tales (1931 - 1933)

Strange Tales was a pulp magazine that was published by Clayton Publications. It ran from 1931 to 1933 and was one of the mainstays of the genre serving as a rival of sorts to Weird Tales which, by then had been around for eight years. Tonally, Strange Tales was known for atmospheric, supernatural stories. These stories were frequently packed with cosmic dread, sorcery, and ancient curses.

Like Terror Tales, copies of Strange Tales are highly sought-after, and while you could find PDF versions on the Internet Archive - much like with other out-of-print pulp mags nowadays - hard copies are hard to get.

In Conclusion

Horror pulps were popular at their heyday, and while they’ve seen something of a decline, they can still be enjoyed.