Meanwhile, In 1938...

While we're in the neighborhood...

Just down the rack a ways from yesterday's Life magazine, a young artist was beginning to make a name for himself with the cover painting and interior illustrations for the April '38 issue of Weird Tales -

At this early stage of his career, Virgil Finlay had yet to work out the signature that was to become so familiar in his later works. You can see the signature he's using here in the lower right corner of this next piece. Or rather, one of the signatures - the shorter, first name only signature is below her head on the cover above, while the longer signature with full name is on the art below.

Here's the Table Of Contents for the issue, with quite a few great old writers on the bill -

Finlay had another half dozen illustrations in the issue. When they were title illos, i left the story details in the images for context:

Finlay, of course, went on to become one of the great science fiction/fantasy magazine artists of the 20th century and honoree of the Science Fiction Hall Of Fame. If you're not familiar with his work, no worries. We'll be correcting that...

art by Virgil Finlay for Weird Tales v.31 #4 (1938)