ARCHEOLOGICAL DIG

For the curious, we display for you finds of
strange lore, tabloids and tomes from the re-
cent past. The roots and seeds, the yellowing
parchment pages telling of mystery, adventure,
and eerie, blood chilling terror written for us
by the masters of weird story telling. Comics,
pulps, fanzines, ephemera, these are the modern
day artifacts akin to hyroglyphics and cuneiform
from the craddle of civilization, the myths and
mythos of the ancient world, the sagas and folk
tales passed down through the ages. Heros and
villians. Gods and monsters.Strange and fan-
tastic worlds. Scenarios both unreal and all
too familiar and frightening. And in the end?
A good story.Entertainment
In the early twentieth century
, bearing the endelible stamp of industry,
technology, and capitalism, those intrepid
hucksters of yore re-packaged it all and,
seventy five years ago, sold it all back for
a mere, thin, silver dime. Thirty five years
ago, two dimes. These artifacts you see are
here are part of a collection that is on go-
ing, and there in lies the fun. Remnants of
times gone by and prime examples and inspira-
tions of what good story telling is, should,
and can continue to be. Right this way......

ITEM 1

We begin our perusal with a fanzine/chapbook
The Vaults Of Yoh-Vombus: The Unexpurgated
Clark Ashton Smith,published by Necronomicon
Press in 1988, assembled by Steve Behrends of
Aurora,Illinois, with the help and blessings
of the Clark Ashton Smith estate, cover illus-
tration by Robert H. Knox. This is the first
in a series of three chapbook collections con-
taining the full edits made by Clark Ashton
Smith for stories he had published in Weird
Tales Magazine [the other two chapbooks in-
cluded the complete edits of the C.A. Smith
stories Mother Toad and The Dweller in the
Gulf]. These edits, printed fifty seven
years after the original toned down stories
had made print in the pages of Weird Tales
Magazine, are, by todays standards, tame,
but were done at the behest of publisher
and editor, Farnsworth Wright. According to
Edgar Hoffman Price in his Book of the Dead,
his personal account of the friendships and
first hand experiences with the great fic-
tioneers of the pulps past, many of Smith's
stories were too blue for the editorial blue
pen of Farnsworth Wright! Publishers wanted
to sell books, writers wanted to be paid.
And if the stuff was to hot for the news
stands, forget it! C.A. Smith told H.P.
Lovecraft in a letter"...I wanted to tell
[F.Wright] to go chase himself...if I
didn't have to support my parents and debts
to pay off."

ITEM 2

The Garden of Fear by Robert E. Howard, a
Crawford Publication, Los Angeles, California,
cover by Alva Rogers, 1945, originaly sold for
twenty five cents."Strange, fantastic adven-
tures in other times and worlds." Also in-
cluded are Celephais by H.P. Lovecraft,
The Man with the Hour Glass by L.A. EShbach,
Mars Colonizes by Miles J. Brever,MD, The
Golden Bough by David H. Keller, MD. This
fanzine was found in a wonderfuly dusty
science fiction/mystery bookstore in the
foggiest section of San Francisco. The pages
are so brittle I dare not read it as is!
Robert Howard's tale was originaly printed in
Marvel Tales [!?!] in 1934,and is one of
Howard's pre-history adventures, laced with
the author's speculation of primal memrory
and theroies of re-incarnation. Lovecraft's
Celephais is the tale of a wastrel prince
dreaming his life away, printed originaly
in 1922 in the publication The Rainbow.
Dr. David H. Keller had written over seven
hundred medical articles and was published
in the pages of Weird Tales and many other
fantasy pulp publications. Alas, for Mr.'s
Eshbach and Brever, I could find no infor-
mation to point me in a solid direction
biographicaly or biblography speaking. Any
help from you, the faithful, would be
appreciated.

ITEM 3

1965 saw the first attempt at adapting H.P.
Lovecraft's written work in to film. Roger
Corman's Die! Monster, Die!, made for that
grandhouse of drive-in fare, American Inter-
national Pictures, casted no less thaen Boris
Karloff to star in this clumsy and dull
version of Lovecraft's The Color Out of Space.
By the mid sixties, Dell Comics,who had made
their fortune in publishing the antics of both
the Disney and Warner Bros. characters, they
had gone on to publishing tv and film comodoties
ranging from Leave it to Beaver to the Man From
U.N.C.L.E..Tragically dull in the writing,
less than captivating to gaze upon as an
illustrative work. Just a quick way way to
purloin twelve cents from the kids at the
soda fountain. This film and the far more satis-
fying Corman/Lovecraft adaptation, The Dunwich
Horror, are available as a two on one DVD from
MGM home video.

ITEM 4

This is a "blotter advertisement" from a hard-
ware store once located between London and
Tornto, Ontario, Canada. These kinds of adver-
tisements were placed in windows, doors, or
under counter glass where ever you bought
your families supply of coal, feed grain, or
rock salt. Give away matchbooks were also
created with eloborate illustraions on the
cover, and match sticks too! The Shadow's
longtime sponsor, Blue Coal, was based in
Glenolden, Pennsylvania, and were purveyors
of many highly prized "premium" tie-in's;
mystic Shadow rings, metallic Shadow badges,
all kinds of novelties that could be yours
with a proof of purchase seal and ten cents!

ITEM 5

Weird Tales May 1951, cover story Notebook
Found in a Deserted House by Robert Bloch,
cover by Lee Brown Coye, inside illustration
by Max Fox. This was recently unearthed by
the Hermetic Order of Arcana's own in house
illustrator and cast member, Wayne Shellebarger
at this years WonderCon, held at the Moscone
Convention Center. We are very pleased and
excited to be presented with something so
close to our hearts. This pulp is fifty five
years old, slightly tanned, cover loose from
the staples, but the pages are supple and
creamy, a readable pulp novel. I'm not too
keen on the cover art, funds must have been
low and artistic connections few that spring,
but these must have been the realities of the
was the post Farnsworth Wright Weird Tales era.
Mr. Fox's illustration of the climatic encounter
between Cap Pritchet and Willie by Max Fox are
cracker jack,top notch! In the Hermetic Order
of Arcana's production of Corridors of Evil, the
part of Cap Pritchet was played by Wayne Shelle-
barger and the part of Willie Osbourne played
by Allison Knowles.

ITEM 6

Weird Tales September 1947, The Quest Of The
Gazolba by Clark Ashton Smith. This story, printed
a full decade after Smith had quit writing for the
pulps, is not to be found in the current collection
of his "Complete Collected Fiction". Any information
regarding this tale would be greatly appreciated.
This Weird Tales is in very poor shape. It is creased and bent, the pages are deeply tanned and brittle to
the touch. It caught my eye on a shelf with many other
pulps of the thirties and forties at Moe's Books on
Telegraph Street in Berkeley, California. The scan we
have here brings out the muted, dusty, hues along with
the rich, tempered shadows that make this cover a thing
of beauty and wonder in "Oriental fantasy" illustration.
One more magical cover saved, presented for your enjoy-
ment.

ITEM 7

ITEM 8