Who Was This Guy Back In '38?

A month prior to the issue of Weird Tales we saw yesterday, the March 1938 issue sported this cover -

I don't know about you, but i thought that was a fairly daring cover for the '30s. When i first encountered one of M. Brundage's covers it was quite a surprise.  Not only was the work lovely, it was luridly so, with imagery i would not have guessed would be on a magazine cover back in the early '30s, as these three were -

Seriously. I'd be tempted to put these in the adult content back room if they weren't off the rack magazine covers from over 80 years ago. Who was this Monsieur Brundage fellow?
I wanted to know more, and certainly wanted to find more of his artwork.

Oh, i was so confused...

(as we'll see this weekend)

covers by Brundage for Weird Tales June & Sept. (1933), Jan. (1934), and March (1938)

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)