100 years of Weird Tales: the cult series that put cosmic horror on the map

Today, life feels like something out of a science-fiction novel. Between all the global conflict, climate change, social media and high-tech threats, there are plenty of manmade horrors beyond our comprehension that can lead us to question, well, everything. As the lines between fantasy and reality continue to collapse in on themselves, we’re seeing an uptick in occultism and the mainstreaming of psychedelics and conspiracy theories, which sends waves of weirdness reverberating through the air, and onto our screens.

Rewind 100 years ago, however, and weirdness as an idea was only just coming into its own. The 20s birthed a brand of supernatural horror that would eventually lead to the creation of Weird Tales in 1923, a pulp-fiction anthology series best known for unleashing the dread-inducing works of HP Lovecraft into the world, as well as early speculative works by Seabury Quinn, Clark Ashton Smith, and Ray Bradbury. It also pioneered new genres and sub-genres such as swords and sorcery, occult detective and cosmic horror, AKA the sort of freakish fiction simply too strange to publish elsewhere. Think: Lovecraft’s tentacular monster Cthulu and Bradbury’s menacing tales of dark carnivals.

“Weird Tales is, and has been for the last century, the place where writers are given a free hand to go wherever the story takes them,” says Jonathan Maberry, the publication’s current editor. “The nature of our title, Weird Tales, invites writers to go beyond the ordinary boundaries of genre and write stories that truly don’t fit anywhere else.”

Now celebrating its centennial anniversary, 100 Years of Weird is a collection of new and classic stories, flash fiction, essays and poems featuring works from speculative fiction giants past and present, such as RL Stine, Laurell K Hamilton, Ray Bradbury, HP Lovecraft, Tennessee Williams, and Isaac Asimov. The illustrated book carries the freakiness of the original series though updated for modern readers, with themes that explore new and diverse perspectives.

Across pop culture, ‘weirdness’ – if understood as celebrating anything that deters from the norm – is arguably more championed than ever. “The concept of weird has grown significantly to be a useful label for anyone who thinks differently and looks for a way to share their views,” agrees Maberry. Yet we’re also at a turning point where calls for inclusivity are being reversed, with hate crimes and far-right ideas on the rise. “We’ve lost ground as regards to women’s rights, civil rights, and LGBTQ+ rights. Extremist cells within religions of various kinds are becoming more common and more dangerous, nudging us toward an acceptance of fascism as a new normal.”

Whether it’s through its descriptions of otherworldly realms and cosmic creatures or slimy monsters lurking in strange otherworlds, speculative fiction, or horror more generally, allows us to explore these tensions, while commenting on the unreality of our times. “Those who are different – who are weird, according to some arbitrary view of what is acceptable – are attacked, demonised, dehumanised, legislated against, and put in the crosshairs of people who feel it is their legal and moral obligation to stamp ‘weirdness’ out,” says Maberry. “[With Weird Tales] I get to expand my own – and the readers’ – view of what is scary, compelling, fascinating, unknown, strange, and…well... weird.”

100 Years of Weird is out now via Blackstone Publishing. For a deeper analysis on all things weird, listen to episode five of Logged On: The Dazed Podcast here