Page:Weird Tales Volume 23 Number 2 (1934-02).djvu/128
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discontinued. However, I think it a good idea to follow your present policy of limiting them to not more than one in each issue, devoting the rest of your space to stories that conform more closely to the definition of 'supernatural and uncanny'. Now as to the nudes on your covers: let me add my vote to those of your readers who have requested their utter elimination. No prude, I feel that there is a place for nakedness, but that place is emphatically not on the cover of a weird fiction magazine. Your covers for the last three months, while not nudes, show little improvement. Half clad, in such a manner as to reveal rather than conceal, is no better than unclad. The sex idea is still there, and the idea of nudity is increasing among your interior illustrations at an alarming rate. You are making a grave mistake by continuing this policy. You are simply playing to the depraved tastes of a group of morons who subsist on the filth of that literary cesspool, sex literature. Being attracted by your sexy covers, they will buy one issue in the hope that the contents are in keeping therewith, and being disappointed, will not come back. Meanwhile, you will have fallen considerably in the esteem of those who read your magazine in search of a thrill, not an aphrodisiac. I agree with A. B. Leonard that the pictures usually illustrate a dramatic incident in one of the stories; but I am sure that if Mr. Brundage will examine the contents of each issue thoroughly, he can find plenty of dramatic incidents which do not center upon either an unclad or a half-clad woman. The true craftsman of weird fiction does not need to strip his characters in order to focus the reader's attention upon them."
Readers, what is your favorite story in this issue of Weird Tales? Three stories are in an exact tie as your favorite in our December issue, as shown by your votes and letters: Red Gauntlets of Czerni by Seabury Quinn, Abd Dhulma, Lord of Fire, by G. G. Pendarves, and The Lady in Gray by Donald Wandrei.
My favorite stories in the February WEIRD TALES are:
Story
(1)
(2)
(3)
Remarks
I do not like the following stories:
(1)
(2)
Why?
It will help us to know what kind of stories you want in Weird Tales if you will fill out this coupon and mail it to The Eyrie, Weird Tales, 840 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, Ill.
Reader's name and address: