The Hour Of The Dragon

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Weird Tales, December 1935
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As much as I love Margaret Brundage (and I do love Margaret Brundage), her visualizations of Conan the Cimmerian are among the worst ever created.

For example, here is the passage of the story illustrated on this cover:

It was a girl who stood grasping the bars with her slender fingers. The dim glow behind her outlined her supple figure through the wisp of silk twisted about her loins, and shone vaguely on jeweled breast-plates. Her dark eyes gleamed in the shadows, her white limbs glistened softly, like alabaster. Her hair was a mass of dark foam, at the burnished luster of which the dim light only hinted.

Other than her hair being blonde instead of a mass of dark foam, that seems like a fair description of the girl Margaret painted here.

Now here is a description of Conan from later in the same chapter, after he has escaped his cell and is fighting a giant gray ape (it makes sense in context):

With full realization of the odds, Conan matched his speed of eye and hand and his muscular power against the brute might and ferocity of the man-eater. He must meet the brute breast to breast, strike a deathblow, and then trust to the ruggedness of his frame to survive the instant of manhandling that was certain to be his.

Some of his joints felt as if they had been dislocated, and blood dripped from scratches on his skin where the monster’s talons had ripped; his muscles and tendons had been savagely wrenched and twisted. If the beast had lived a second longer, it would surely have dismembered him. But the Cimmerian’s mighty strength had resisted, for the fleeting instant it had endured, the dying convulsion of the ape that would have torn a lesser man limb from limb.

Does that sound at all like the sickly-looking weakling on this cover?

The complete story can be read here. This entire issue can be read here.

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Original covers for Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories, published between 1933 and 1936

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All nine were painted by Margaret Brundage, who was the most popular of Weird Tales’ cover artists. She was known for her images depicting bondage and flagellation of women. Authors would insert unnecessary scenes depicting nude women being tortured or whipped to ensure their story got the cover of an issue.

The Heart of Siva

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Weird Tales - October 1932
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This is my 1,000 post here on Pulpcovers.com, and I think a Weird Tales cover by Margaret Brundage is the perfect way to mark this milestone. She is one of the quintessential artists who defined the look of the quintessential Pulp magazine. This entire issue can be downloaded here

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The Slithering Shadow

Held Against Her Will, Weird Tales pulp magazine cover thumbnail
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Held Against Her Will, Weird Tales pulp magazine cover
Weird Tales - September 1933
Weird Tales 1933-09 003
Weird Tales 1933-09 026
Weird Tales 1933-09 075

Fritz Leiber rated The Slithering Shadow (a.k.a. Xuthal of the Dusk) among the worst of the Conan stories, calling it “repetitious and childish, a self-vitiating brew of pseudo-science, stage illusions, and the ‘genuine’ supernatural.” However, that didn’t stop this original Margaret Brundage painting for selling for $42,000. This entire issue can be downloaded here

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