Sheldon Jaffery - The Weirds/ Grim & Grue

[dem bones]

Some cursory notes on this winning pair! At a later date, will try and add more detailed outlines, but for now you just have a short entry to skip

Sheldon Jaffery (ed.) - The Weirds (Starmont, 1987)

Introduction: The Weirds - Sheldon Jaffery

Frederick C. Davis - The Mole Men Want Your Eyes (Horror Stories, Apr-May 1938)
Ralston Shields - Mistress Of The Blood Drinkers (Horror Stories, March 1940)
George Vandegrift - White Mother Of Shadows (Terror Tales, Jan 1941)
Francis James - Dance Of The Bloodless Ones (Terror Tales, July-Aug 1937)
W. Wayne Robbins - A Beast Is Born (Horror Stories, Oct 1940)
J. O. Quinliven - Beauty For Sale (Horror Stories, Oct-Nov 1936)
Wyatt Blassingame - The Horror At His Heels (Horror Stories, Aug-Sept 1936)
Leon Byrne - Guest Room In Hell (Horror Stories, Oct-Nov 1936)

Chamber Of Horrors: A Department (Readers' Letters)

To this reader, each of the weird menace publication mentioned in this section has something to recommend it, but if we're talking must haves, there are LOADS. The two novellas that come straight to mind are 'Russel Gray's notorious exercise in mindless torture porn Fresh Fiances For The Devil's Daughter and Frederick C. Davis's outrageous The Mole Men Want Your Eyes, the latter's inclusion here making The Weirds a particularly desirable collection. It's been too long since I read this as driven home by the fact that I can no longer remember what the half-man, half-octopus creature in the diving helmet has to do with Dance Of The Bloodless Ones.

Sheldon Jaffery (ed.) - Selected Tales of Grim and Grue from The Horror Pulps (Bowling Green State University, 1987)

Preface - Sheldon Jaffery
Populars Weird Menace Pulps - Robert Kenneth Jones
Index to Weird Menace Pulps - Robert Kenneth Jones
Issue by issue index to Ace Mystery, Eerie Mystery, Eerie Stories and Uncanny Tales

Francis James - Arms Of The Flame Goddess (Dime Mystery, April 1938)
Hugh B. Cave - Death Tolls The Bell (Terror Tales, July 1935)
John H. Knox - The Buyer Of Souls (Horror Stories, Aug-Sept 1936)
Wyatt Blassingame - The Tongueless Horror (Dime Mystery, Apr 1934)
Wayne Rodgers - Sleep With Me - And Death (Horror Stories, Apr-May 1938)
G.T. Fleming-Roberts - Moulder Of Monsters (Terror Tales, July-Aug 1937)
Arthur J. Burks - Dance Of The Damned (Horror Stories, Aug-Sept 1936)
Edith & Ejler Jacobson - Corpses On Parade (Dime Mystery, April 1938)

Perhaps brainy weird menace is overstating the case, but while Hugh B. Cave's name is synonymous with Horror Stories, Terror Tales & co., I'm not sure he was always comfortable with the sex and sadism aspect of it all - he certainly doesn't approach it with quite the same relish as Bruno 'Russell Gray' Fischer - and his efforts read more like decent horror-mysteries with the occasional gratuitous whipping scene grafted on to hold the readers' interest. Like Cave, John Knox - some of whose best work has been collected as The Cyclops' Eye - was as versatile as he was prolific, commendably loath to allow the dictates of the shudders to stand in the way of his fiendish imagination and invention. For lovers of heads down, no nonsense extreme mindless unpleasantness there's always Wayne Rodgers (as Jaffery writes in his Preface, "He excelled in explosive chaos." Three decades on, he would doubtless have adapted his style to suit the Pan Horror series) and G.T. Fleming-Roberts' self-explanatory mad-scientist hates gurls offering Moulder Of Monsters.

[severance]

Been racking my brains trying to think where I've heard the name Frederick C. Davis - eventually remembered that he turned to writing crime thrillers in the 50's under the name Stephen Ransome, of which I have a couple:

I remember Curt liking the second one over at Groovy Age of Horror.

[dem bones]

Yes, that's him! Think I've only another three of his, all from the shudder pulps and all with my tragic red asterisks against them denoting how great they are. All too briefly interviewed in Ron Goulart's Cheap Thrills aka An Informal History Of The Pulp Magazine, Davis reveals that he began selling to the pulps in 1924 when he was still at college, rattling out a story a week - westerns, air adventures, detective - until 1930, back home in Manhattan "and it was then that I began to develop a full head of steam. Before long my output was 125, 000 words a month. I kept up this pace for years, with hardly a vacation." Seems incredible, but at that rate, it would have taken him only a matter of hours to whacked out the likes of Molemen ...., Dig Deep The Graves!, Goddess Of Evil Revelry and Festival Of The Bloodless Dead - that's virtually an entire career's work by modern standards. According to Robert Kenneth Jones in The Shudder Pulps, when WWII did for Horror Stories & Co., Davis, like so many of his fellow speed demons, simply turned to other genres, even "effortlessly" graduating to the slicks, which is likely around the time you pick him up in his 'Steve Ransome' mode. Perhaps most amazing of all, compared to the almost superhumanly prolific Arthur J. Burks, master of the highly convoluted and never-ending sentence, Fred Davis was a workshy slouch!

[dem bones]

G.T. Fleming-Roberts - Moulder Of Monsters: More weird menace gold, again suspiciously light on misogyny. Dr. Hedson and his beautiful nurse, Flo Marin, are investigating the disappearance of several prominent surgeons. Suspicion falls on humble garage mechanic Henry Crowe, dismissed from medical school on the grounds of unethical practice. Crowe has spent the intervening years honing his talents for plastic surgery, bizarre transplants and bone manipulation. Six of the medical profession's finest were responsible for Crowe's dismissal, now the same six have vanished, while the effeminate Whit Jennings has six hideous new exhibits on display in his tawdry Freak Museum. His latest project? transplanting Flo's eyes into the vacant sockets of a mad panther.

Not the greatest of the weird menace mad surgeon extravaganzas (Robert Leslie Bellem's Labyrinth Of Monsters takes some beating!) but a hydraulic lift is put to good use as a torture implement and the results of Crowe's "repulsive experiments" would make ideal boyfriends for the vivisected victims of Dr. Marston in Seabury Quinn's The House Of Horror.

[cauldronbrewer]

Oct 13, 2009 17:32:16 GMT severance said:

Been racking my brains trying to think where I've heard the name Frederick C. Davis - eventually remembered that he turned to writing crime thrillers in the 50's under the name Stephen Ransome, of which I have a couple

Oct 13, 2009 19:20:51 GMT dem bones said:

Yes, that's him! think i've only another three of his, all from the shudder pulps and all with my tragic red asterisks against them denoting how great they are. All too briefly interviewed in Ron Goulart's Cheap Thrills aka An Informal History Of The Pulp Magazine, Davis reveals that he began selling to the pulps in 1924 when he was still at college, rattling out a story a week - westerns, air adventures, detective - until 1930, back home in Manhattan "and it was then that I began to develope a full head of steam. Before long my output was 125, 000 words a month. I kept up this pace for years, with hardly a vacation." Seems incredible, but at that rate, it would have taken him only a matter of hours to whacked out the likes of Molemen ...., Dig Deep The Graves!, Goddess Of Evil Revelry and Festival Of The Bloodless Dead - that's virtually an entire career's work by modern standards. According to Robert Kenneth Jones in The Shudder Pulps, when WWII did for Horror Stories & Co., Davis, like so many of his fellow speed demons, simply turned to other genres, even "effortlessly" graduating to the slicks, which is likely around the time you pick him up in his 'Steve Ransome' mode. Perhaps most amazing of all, compared to the almost superhumanly prolific Arthur J. Burks, master of the highly convoluted and never-ending sentence, Fred Davis was a workshy slouch!

This seems like a logical place to mention that Ramble House has just released a collection of Frederick C. Davis's work, When the Bat Man Thirsts and Other Stories.

It includes "The Goddess of Evil Revelry," which I read in Robert Weinberg's Weird Menace #1: The Corpse Factory, but surprisingly does not include "The Mole Men Want Your Eyes." Gavin O'Keefe's cover strikes me as a good fit for Davis. I'm on more of a Victorian/Edwardian bender right now (alternating with chunks of Jeremy Dyson's The Haunted Book), but I'm tempted here--even though I suspect that the Caped Crusader will not appear in a shudder pulp tale, however cool that might be. I've read and enjoyed Ramble House's previous collections of stories by shudder pulp masters Hugh B. Cave and Donald Dale. They've also published collections by the likes of Wyatt Blassingame, John H. Knox, Arthur Leo Zagat, and Russell Gray (not such a good cover there, and his "Fresh Fiances for the Devil's Daughter" was actually a bit too much on the side of pure sadism for my taste).

[dem bones]

That cover's not so bad at all, but it really takes John Newton Howitt to bring this kind of nightmarish material to life. Very generous of Ramble House to provide Mr. Pelan's introduction, The Weird Menace Yarns of Frederick C. Davis, as a taster. Between them, Davis' Mole Men Want Your Eyes and Gray's Fresh Fiances ... must shoulder much of the blame for the Vault Advent Calendar.

[cauldronbrewer]

Sept 28, 2013 7:22:21 GMT dem bones said:

Very generous of Ramble House to provide Mr. Pelan's introduction, The Weird Menace Yarns of Frederick C. Davis, as a taster.

Taking a look at that introduction, I see it mentions that "three outstanding novellas are collected in The Mole-men Want Your Eyes, volume #4 in the Terror Trios series from Altus Press." I didn't see that collection on the Artus Press website, but I did see Terror Trios collections by Hugh B. Cave, Wayne Rogers, and Wyatt Blassingame, so perhaps the Davis collection is forthcoming soon.

Sept 28, 2013 7:22:21 GMT dem bones said:

Between them, Davis' Mole Men Want Your Eyes and Gray's Fresh Fiances ... must shoulder much of the blame for the Vault Advent Calendar.

Indeed.

[jpelan]

Hi All:

The Mole Men Want Your Eyes is indeed forthcoming from Altus Press; as to when, you know as much as I do. Astute readers have probably noticed the omission of the late, great Paul Ernst from the DTP line-up. The reason for this is that as companion volumes to the Complete Dr. Satan (which is sort of weird menace in nature), I've turned in not one, but two massive collections of Ernst's best work to Altus Press, featuring both stories under his own name and the pseudonym of "George Edson".  Again, no real clue as to release date.

I don't know if this belongs here or under the Peter Haining thread, but here goes... Though we never met in person, Peter and I corresponded for years and there are at least two "legacy" books thanks to him. I know that it comes as no surprise to anyone that Pete's research was occasionally a bit, should we say, uh, "less than comprehensive"? He also was convinced that I have a huge pulp collection (I don't but I do have lots of friends with large collections). So back a few years ago he approached me with the idea of doing a collection that would combine stories from Anthony Rud and Robert Spencer Carr, under the idea that neither man had had a collection published and that there weren't enough stories by either for a full-size book. Well, there's that research thing... Point of fact Carr indeed had a collection published, way back in 1951 and in my not so humble opinion, once you've read "Spiderbite" you've read all the Robert Spencer Carr that you'll ever require.

Now as to Anthony M. Rud, it might be just barely possible to form a collection if one were to include his most outré adventure and mystery tales. But other than that. there is no way to fill out a collection without compromising, and that's not something that I do very well (if at all).  So here was the dilemma, Pete sent along two stories by Rud and around half a dozen by Carr along with a note that I could likely fill out the collection with selections from "my vast collection". So what I've really got are a half-dozen stories by author who I think is pretty much rubbish and two stories by an author who is quite good, but really didn't do much overt horror, so what's to be done? I have never and will never flesh out a book with what I feel is substandard material, I'd just as son not do it at all. Well, here's that research thing again. what Pete didn't know, but that I did, was that Anthony Rud was (in addition to being the first author featured on the cover of Weird Tales), was the first weird menace author to break into book form, (all the more unusual as he never sold short fiction to the weird menace pulps), so, his other first resulted in two excellent novels, The Stuffed Men and House of the Damned. Both are rather short, as was the custom of the time, leaving plenty of room to gather up his few actual horror stories. So, while the books turned out quite a bit different from what Pete had envisioned, to give credit where credit is due, we have Peter Haining to thank for two more books (forthcoming from DTP). Sadly, I miss my friend and very much wish that he were here to see the end result of his proposal... The Place of Hairy Death should be out by the end of next month. House of the Damned should be late fall of this year. Thanks to one and all for helping me keep this genre alive! Sheldon never had the budget to do a full-size anthology, and Tales of Terror and Torment is truly his legacy, (Sheldon and Bob Weinberg were the guys that turned me on to the genre many years ago).

Lastly, I just (minutes ago) turned in Tales of Terror Vol.2 so, we have selections from twenty-four weird menace authors from the three Popular Publications titles. What we don't have are stories from any of the other weird menace pulps and we're missing several significant authors as well as a few chaps like Dane Gregory, (very small but quality body of work). So... You heard it here first and straight from the horse's mouth... I'm starting work on Tales of Terror and Torment Volume #3 this evening!

Cheers,

John

[dem bones]

How on earth did I miss the above post? A belated thank you for all that information, Mr. Pelan.

Leon Byrne - Guest Room In Hell: (Horror Stories, Oct-Nov. 1936). Narrator is caught in a storm while seeking rare botanical specimens in the swamp. Hopelessly lost, he forces entry into what he takes for a derelict mansion. The cadaverous host insists on relating the story of a loving husband whose wife cheated on him with their mutual best friend, the family physician. Being of kind heart, and unable to deny his wife's happiness, the cuckold assures the pair that they have his blessing to be joined as one forever.

At which point he is interrupted by pathetic shrieks and moans from the adjoining locked room. Narrator catches a glimpse of a mummified ruin of a man chained to a wall by the neck, alongside a skeleton similarly shackled ....

No "It was the owner of the tin mine dressed up as an octopus all along!" this time.

[dem bones]

John H. Knox - The Buyer Of Souls: (Horror Stories, Aug-Sept 1936). Powerless to fight the obscene forces with which my own Diane had become allied, I sought the aid of the Devil's Mistress. Little did I suspect, then, that in so doing I had sold my soul to Satan!.
Devil worship in the Suburbs. When Basil Shane, spiritualist, "fat, dapper photographer" etc., learns that young Diana Mason is to inherit a fortune, he conspires with local witches Ursula, the one-eyed hag, and hot daughter, Faustina, to turn the girl against her fiancé. This they achieve by persuading Diana that the young lawyer, Colin Avery, has struck a blood pack with the Devil. If she doesn't believe them, come to the cavern in Deadmans Ridge cemetery and see for herself! So convincing is the ruse that even Avery himself believes it. An exciting novelette of murder,'murder,' branding, blasphemy, desecration culminates in a terrible ritual and a conflict between Old Testament beliefs and Black Magic.

Amos Sewell

Edith & Ejler Jacobson - Corpses on Parade: (Dime Mystery, April 1938). From the doors of the exclusive Quadrangle Club they spewed forth — those living corpses whose very presence filled the streets of New York with the stench of the charnel house. But the fiend who created them was not yet satisfied. As recently revived in Zombies from the Pulps

[dem bones]

Arthur J. Burks - Dance Of The Damned: (Horror Stories, Aug-Sept 1936). Will six people, who could have returned from the dark limbo of death, remain there through all eternity because of me?. Neptune stalks a sick beach party held in honour of those who perished when the Cyclonic went down off the Jersey coast. Hostess Lola Carrick invites only those who lost friends and relatives in the tragedy, insisting they honour the wishes of the dead as transmitted in a final radio message, "make merry for us, for we die." It seems the Sea God — or some mad master of cryogenics dressed to look like him — takes exception to such frivolity. One by one the revellers are abducted from the party, carried out onto the frozen waters and drowned beneath the ice, until it is the turn of the narrator's journalist fiancée, Bette Carver ....

In memory of John Pelan, who loved shudder pulps and did so much to bring them back into print.

[helrunar]

Superb drawing! Is cryogenics mentioned in the story? I thought that was something that didn't get started until the 1960s. It's a theme of one of my favorite old television shows, Strange Paradise, from 1969.

cheers, Hel.

[dem bones]

Mar 8, 2023 15:29:46 GMT helrunar said:

Superb drawing! Is cryogenics mentioned in the story?

Spoiler

Not by the name, but some months previously, a scientist had "advanced a theory that human beings could be preserved, in a condition of suspended animation, for a period of years, decades — even centuries." Of course, everyone laughed at him, said he was mad. To prove them wrong, he dressed up as Neptune, gatecrashed the party, half-drowned six stray revellers under the ice, and stuffed their bodies in a freezer to revive at a later date.

[dem bones]

W. Wayne Robbins - A Beast Is Born: (Horror Stories, Oct 1940). The poor idiots could not talk, could not fight back at their oppressors; or so said my callous staff at the asylum. But I could sense their hatred; knew that they were creating a monster, intangible as yet, but waiting only an opportunity to unloose upon us all a torrent of blood and horror!

When a new superintendent, Dr. Colby, 30 takes over at Cedar Lake Hospital for the Insane, he is appalled at the lack of compassion shown toward the cretins by head nurse, Mom Turner, and her male equivalent, Torrence. His predecessor, Dr. Collins, warns there is a vengeful presence loose on ward B, a monster created from the collective inner torments and pent-up hostility of the inmates.

"Don't you know, man, that there's something in that building. It is the pure embodiment of the emotions of those poor patients. Too dull of wit themselves even to encompass hated, still all together — in a sort of psychic emanation from them, they can create it. That's what it is, I tell you. It has formed some natural, primordial, hideous form of life ..."

The job has clearly driven Collins as cuckoo as his cretinous charges! But then Mom Turner is mauled beyond repair by a terrible anthropomorphic creature, and someone or something fails in an attempt to poison Ward B's every last idiot and cretin. With Colby distracted by the disappearance of his fiancée, a fire breaks out, and the monster initiates the final phase of a scheme born in Hell!

J. O. Quinliven - Beauty For Sale: (Horror Stories, Oct-Nov 1936). Jim Clark, unsuspecting, followed his lovely fiancée into a ghastly laboratory whence no woman ever returned — save as a helpless mannequin, condemned to endure man's lustful gaze forever more! Bathers Jim and wife Ethel fall are abducted by a gang of depraved window dressers operating from an abandoned beach hotel along the Jersey shoreline. The trio abduct beautiful women to petrify as window dummies for an exclusive New York dressmakers. The worst of the zombie drug is that the victims remain fully conscious of their plight. Meddling menfolk like Jim are injected, boxed up and buried alive — but only after they've been forced to witness the mannequin mounters take turns with their shrieking loved one!