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Weird Tales

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Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch peer review

I've listed this article for peer review because I'd like to take it to FAC, and I'd appreciate some extra eyes on it. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 19:49, 6 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Bruce1ee
I'd like to look at this in more detail, but for now I have two points:
  • Is there any reasson why there aren't any spaces between the initials of some of the names? For example "J.C. Henneberger", and "H.P. Lovecraft" (I see that the latter is even piped to "H. P. Lovecraft").
    I was under the impression that no spaces between initials in running text was standard format, while the articles themselves would have spaces between initials. A quick search seems to indicate that this was a figment of my imagination. I'm sure I learned it at some date in the past, but I guess it's not house style here. I'll go through and change everything to have spaces; probably tonight or tomorrow. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:14, 12 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Done; I think I've caught them all. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:51, 14 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • There are a lot of 1930s and 40s covers, but nothing beyond 1952. A cover from the 2000s would be nice, just to compare the artwork. Even a single fair-use image would be nice.
    I wanted to add one, but I didn't think a cover would pass the fair use requirements. If you think it would I'll grab a cover from philsp.com and add it. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:14, 12 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    I asked Josh (below) and his feeling is that the fair use requirements wouldn't be met unless I had critical commentary, which unfortunately I don't. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 02:18, 15 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

—Bruce1eetalk 12:57, 12 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for taking a look! One specific question I would like to get feedback on is the article's length. It's very long, but it's not really structured in a way that is susceptible to summary style. I could cut it in half: Weird Tales (original magazine) and Weird Tales (post-1954 magazines), but that seems a bit clunky. If you have any thoughts on this I'd appreciate it. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:14, 12 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It is long, I'm busy working through it right now, but I don't think it should be split, rather trimmed a bit if necessary – I'll let you know once I get to the end :) —Bruce1eetalk 14:39, 12 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Lead
  • "Weird Tales is an American ...": Is the magazine still being published? The last issue was Spring 2014.
    Hard to say. It's over two years since the last issue, so things aren't looking good. I prefer to use "was" when the magazine is definitely defunct, but I've had other editors change it to "is" even when the magazine hasn't been published for sixty years, so it might be as well to leave this as is. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:51, 14 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Fair enough. —Bruce1eetalk 07:09, 15 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • "pulp magazine first published in March 1923 by Rural Publications, founded by J.C. Henneberger and J.M. Lansinger.": a magazine is founded before it is first published, so how about "pulp magazine founded by J.C. Henneberger and J.M. Lansinger, and first published in March 1923 by Rural Publications."
    Done, except that I cut the mention of Rural; since the new word order mentions Henneberger and Lansinger (who were Rural) first, the reader doesn't get anything more from having the publisher's name in the lead. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:51, 14 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • "... despite occasional reverses ...": what does "reverses" mean?
    Changed to "financial setbacks". Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:51, 14 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • "In 1954 Weird Tales ceased publication, but since then numerous attempts have been made to relaunch the magazine ...": shouldn't that be "... were made to relaunch ...".
    To my ear "have been made" sounds better, but I'm having a hard time saying why. I think it's because the magazine could be relaunched again; "were made" sounds more as though there won't be any future attempts. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:51, 14 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Background
Popular Fiction Publishing
  • "... though payment to authors was still being substantially delayed two years later.": still being delayed? I don't see any earlier mention of payments to authors being delayed (unless I missed it, which is quite possible :).
    I was hoping this was implied, but I guess it's not. When a magazine runs into financial problems, as WT did at the end of 1930, one of the first things they do is slow down payments to authors, to conserve cash. The fact that payments were still being delayed to authors in 1933 implies they're still having problems. From the source (a letter from Hugh Cave to Carl Jacobi): "If you haven't been paid yet for "Revelations in Black" don't worry about it. Wright's bank has been under the 5% withdrawal limit since the month he should have paid me for "Cult of the White Ape". I haven't had a cent from him in a dog's age. Don't know when the condition will improve." The letter is dated 17 June 1933; Cave's story "Cult of the White Ape" appeared in February 1933, which means he sent it to Wright in late 1932. Would quoting some of this in a note help, or does it need to be clearer earlier in the paragraph? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:51, 14 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    What if you were to leave out "still being" and simply say "payment to authors was substantially delayed ..."; alternatively perhaps you should be made clearer earlier, but that's up to you. —Bruce1eetalk 07:09, 15 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    I took out "still" and did a little more rewording. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:21, 15 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    I think that's fine like that. —Bruce1eetalk 10:59, 15 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • "... control of Weird Tales. Weird Tales advertised ...": to avoid repetition, how about "The magazine advertised ...".
    Done. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:51, 14 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • "... but this failed to increase sales, so in September 1939 ...": I think this sentence is too long; it could split: "... but this failed to increase sales. In September 1939 ...".
    Yes; done. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:51, 14 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • "... the price was cut to fifteen cents ...": I think this is the first mention of what the magazine cost; what did it originally cost?
    Changed to "cut from 25 cents to 15 cents"; the "bibliographic details" section provides the price history, so I think no more is needed up top.
Edwin Baird
Farnsworth Wright
Bibliographic details
  • Much of the first section is already covered in the Publication history sections; can this not be put into tables as has been done in the Issue tables earlier.
    I'll put the editor list in a table once I've gone through the rest of your comments. I'm hesitant to make the change for the rest of the section, though; the first part of the section would have very little text left, which I think would look ugly. Do you think it's necessary? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:51, 14 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    The editor list has been converted to a table; let me know if you think more of the section needs to be converted. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:13, 14 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Collectability
General
  • Weird Tales' / Weird Tales's: the article should use one or the other, not both
    Done, I think. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:51, 14 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • What would be nice is if the cover images could be tied to the article text via their captions. For example a cover referring to "The cover art during Baird's tenure was dull", or the cover of an editor's first issue, or Brundage's nudes.
    I'm not quite sure what you mean; can you give me an example? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:13, 14 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    For example, are there any covers illustrating the statement "The cover art during Baird's tenure was dull"? If there are, then the caption would explain what it is illustrating, and so refer the reader back to the article text. Also any covers that are the first under a new editor could state this fact in the caption. I hope I'm explaining myself properly. —Bruce1eetalk 07:09, 15 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    I do include an image of the first issue included. Wright's first issue is copyrighted, and McIlwraith's (here) is not a very good cover. The later issues are all copyrighted. I like the idea of using specific commentary, but unfortunately a lot of the commentary is general. A couple of specific Brundage covers are discussed in the sources, but they're copyrighted so I can't include them. I did change one of Brundage captions to mention the nudes. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:36, 15 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks. —Bruce1eetalk 10:59, 15 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
These are all my comments for now (I haven't checked any of the sources). It's an interesting article illustrating Weird Tales' turbulent history, but it is long. Perhaps some of the less notable stories featured in the various issues could be removed from the Content and reception sections. —Bruce1eetalk 15:31, 13 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Bruce1ee: Thank you very much for the review. I've responded to all your points and I've left one or two questions above. I'm going to hold off on trying to trim the article till I've gone through Josh's review below. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:13, 14 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Mike Christie: It's a pleasure. I've responded to your queries above – good luck with article. —Bruce1eetalk 07:09, 15 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Comments from JM
  • I'd avoid the repetition of "good deal" in the lead.
    Done. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:41, 14 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • "College Humor and Magazine of Fun, formed Rural Publishing Corporation" Are these notable? Don't be scared of redlinks! I see that there are also dozens of other small publishing companies mentioned; again, redlinks for those notable wouldn't be a bad thing.
    I don't think the three you mention are, or at least I can't find enough evidence that they are to make me confident it's worth redlinking them. "College Humor" in particular is hard to search for. I'll have another scan as I go through, but I did try to remember to do this as I wrote the article, so I may have already linked most of what's linkable. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:41, 14 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Weird Tales advertised in the early science fiction pulps, usually highlighting one of the more science-fictional stories, by an author such as Edmond Hamilton who was popular in the science fiction magazines" This doesn't quite work. "How about "Weird Tales advertised in the early science fiction pulps, usually highlighting one of the magazine's more science-fictional stories. Such stories would likely have been by an author such as Edmond Hamilton, who was popular in the science fiction magazines."?
    I split the sentence as you suggested, but the source says it was "usually" Hamilton whose stories were advertised, so I rephrased a little to retain that sense. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:41, 14 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Given that we have articles on Weird Tales (anthology series), the individual books in the series, the magazines' editors, etc., I wonder if a navbox might be appropriate?
    Actually I've proposed that that article be merged into this one, since I don't think there's much independent notability, but I like the idea of a navbox. Editors are easy; I guess authors and artists would be worth having. Where would the anthology series go? Perhaps we'd have a "Magazine" section with two entries: this one and that one. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:41, 14 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • You appear to have missed at least some issues from your tables (the ones I noted were the early '80s issues, but there may be more); was this a deliberate choice?
    Yes -- the missing ones aren't really susceptible to diagramming. The four Lin Carter issues are difficult because there were two of the same date in 1981, and then after the third issue there's a gap year. The two Bellerophon issues appeared one in 1984 and one in 1985, so the table would be rather low-density information. Do you think it's worth it? It would add four more rows, and two black lines, to the table that currently starts with 1988. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:41, 14 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    My intuition (and that's all it is!) is that if you're including the tables, you should probably include all issues; the gaps themselves strike me as important information which the tables could help hit home. The counter-worry, though, is that the tables would look bad on certain screen sizes. It wouldn't be a dealbreaker for me either way. Josh Milburn (talk) 21:47, 14 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Done. It looks better than I was afraid it would; thanks for the nudge. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 02:19, 15 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, I like it; I note that you're still missing the issues from the '70s. Josh Milburn (talk) 12:08, 15 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Oops. Fixed. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:25, 15 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think the name Worlds of Fantasy & Horror belongs in the lead. Alternatively, this could be something you could split out, but I don't know how much material you would get out of it.
    I don't think it should be split; all the coverage of it is only as a part of the Weird Tales run. Added a mention to the lead. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:41, 14 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • "overall Weird Tales run" Italics?
    Oops. Fixed. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:41, 14 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • "In June 2013, Kaye returned to writers material he had previously accepted for publication, saying "This is a measure to reduce our huge fiction inventory."" I don't understand this sentence. Is there meant to be an apostrophe? I think it should be rewritten.
    Perhaps it should be cut; it's one of the few sentences left from before I started work on the article. Kaye had accepted submitted stories from various writers, but hadn't paid for them since they hadn't yet been published. Once he ran into publishing difficulties it presumably became apparent to him that he'd acquired too much material and wasn't going to be able to publish it all any time soon, so he returned some or all of those stories to the writers. Is this worth keeping? If we're looking to trim, I think this could go. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:41, 14 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Seems like information potentially worth including, but I think the sentence would have to be rewritten if it is kept. Josh Milburn (talk) 21:50, 14 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    I thought about it some more and decided to cut it. If it gets covered in the next volume of Mike Ashley's history of sf magazines, I'll put something back in. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 02:24, 15 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Just a little thing; Dagon (short story) doesn't mention Weird Tales at all, saying that the story was published somewhere called The Vagrant. I assume everything claimed here and there is accurate?
    As far as I can see, yes; Vagrant was an amateur publication, and it was reprinted in WT in October 1923 -- that was the first professional sale. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 18:02, 14 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • "a story about a young woman tortured and killed by forcing rats to eat through her body" This sentence needs attention. How about "a story including the torture and killing of a young woman by means of rats being forced to eat through her body"? Still not perfect...
    Not sure what the problem is? To give you context, what happens is that a copper bowl is clamped around the woman's waist, with a rat trapped inside it. The bowl is heated so that the rat, to escape the heat, has to burrow through the woman's body. (I read this story as a teenager and was surprised to find, when researching this article, how well-known it was.) Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 18:02, 14 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    That torture technique is ringing a bell with me, interestingly; I wonder where I've come across it... My problem with the sentence is that she is not tortured and killed by "rats being forced", she's tortured and killed by some agent. How about "tortured and killed by a man [I'm guessing] who forces rats to..."? Josh Milburn (talk) 21:55, 14 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    You may have read the story somewhere -- it's been widely reprinted. Here's a partial list, for example. I've reworded the sentence to give it an agent; how does it look now? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 02:28, 15 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Wright also rejected Lovercraft's "Through the Gates of the Silver Key" in mid-1933, but changed his mind after discussing the story with Price, who had revised it before passing it to Wright, and bought it in November of that year." I think this should probably be two sentences.
    Rephrased. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 18:02, 14 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • "for years it was the most discussed topic in the magazine's letter column" This is the first mention of the letter column, I think; I'm left wondering if it should have been mentioned earlier. (That's a pretty long paragraph, by the way.)
    I think it's OK -- any earlier mention couldn't be more than another passing mention, I think. I put the paragraph about the letter column at the end of the section because the readers' interactions seemed less important than the fiction and art. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 18:10, 14 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • "There was so much unpublished work by Lovecraft (submitted to Weird Tales by August Derleth, who had corresponded with Lovercraft) that Wright was able to use that he printed more material under Lovecraft's byline after his death than before." I struggled with this.
    Bruce1ee commented on this too; I moved the parenthetical comment to a note. Does that help? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 18:10, 14 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, a bit better. It's quite a complex claim, so simplifying further may be tricky. Josh Milburn (talk) 21:55, 14 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • "that became known as "weird menace" magazines" Do you have names of these magazines?
    I've linked to the article on them; they're a bit out of my area, so I don't know much about them, though I do have a couple of books that cover them. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 02:30, 15 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Unknown published horror stories, but, in Campbell's words, "Horror injected with a sharp and poisoned needle is just as effective as when applied with the blunt-instrument technique of the so-called Gothic Horror tale"." What's the significance of the quote?
    If you don't mind, take a look at this paragraph, which covers this. I gather from your comment that I need more of that content here? The difference is that Unknown was changing the field, but WT did not change in response, so I thought less coverage was needed here. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 18:19, 14 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • "When Brundage's nude covers appeared, a lengthy debate over whether they were suitable for the magazine was fought out in the Eyrie, with the two sides divided about equally." Repetition of what was discussed earlier. I agree it should be included, but it's worth thinking about how.
    Oops; that was an editing error; didn't realize that sentence was in two places. I've combined both into the section on the Eyrie; I don't think it's needed in the earlier paragraph. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 18:19, 14 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, I think that also allows us to avoid the worry I had about the out-of-the-blue mention of the letters. Josh Milburn (talk) 21:55, 14 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Stopping there for now; very engaging so far. Please double-check my edits, but I think they should be uncontroversial. Josh Milburn (talk) 17:11, 13 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, looking again:

Great read; I do think that you might be able to cut down some of the details towards the end, but given the remarkably long history of this magazine, a long article is surely appropriate. Josh Milburn (talk) 00:06, 14 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the review; much appreciated. I have one more question: Bruce1ee suggested above that I add a fair use image of a later edition of the magazine. I'd certainly like to, but do you think that fair use is justifiable here? It would be illustrative, not because I have critical commentary. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:21, 14 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I can't think that it would be justified unless you had a source or two which (for example) discussed the significance of the later artwork. I don't personally think that the absence of more recent illustrations is a problem; I'd say the article is very well-illustrated. Josh Milburn (talk) 23:17, 14 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
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