I can't tell you how pleased I am to be appearing in the first issue of the newly-revamped WT. The cover design, from the logo to the art, is gorgeous. Definitely something that would catch my eye in the magazine racks at a bookstore. Also something I'll be tempted to frame and hang on my office wall.

Well done, Wildside.

Yeah, I gotta echo Lisa Mantchev on the design. I posted about this at Jeff VanderMeer's site over and will shamelessly crib myself:

--
Wow, y'know I was skeptical but I've had decades of exposure to the WT logo--it was a successful brand. So I'm kinda shocked at how much I like that cover.
--

Maybe not the best sentences I ever wrote. Anyway, I was trying to convey the sense that I had doubted that a redesign would sit well with me, especially of the logo, but I like that cover a lot. Looking forward to seeing the interiors, and looking forward to Ann VanderMeer's editing.

Y'all's plan seems to be to go back to the weird intended from the very beginning while working hard to avoid any sense of retro that, really, undermines the possibilty of a subversively weird experience.

By which I mean that you're a bunch of weirdos. ;)

Cheers,

Christopher Rowe

This looks really gorgeous. Creepy, but gorgeous.

The Weird Tales logo has served well for nearly three quarters of a century. The new logo looks like a confused and cutesy text message. I urge you to reconsider the value of the hard earned "branding" accomplished with the original look. Personally, I would never pick up a copy with the new look, feeling that the content must be something targeting teens and tweens instead of a more mature and literate audience. I believe this "update" will affect both sales and submissions in a negative manner. There is a lot to be said for tradition. The fact that such a magazine still exists, despite the internet, is reason enough not to meddle with success... reason enough to leave an icon.... standing.

Or will the next "update" be that Weird Tales goes "online" instead of in hard copy?

Lovecraft, Howard, etc are spinning in their normally static and supreme graves. I'm doing a bit of spinning myself here. Hopefully others will have the courage to speak their minds.

You own an outstanding legacy. All I ask, is that you be TRUE to said legacy. Otherwise... We are lost.

-SB

The new look seems to me to keep the "print" character, but add an organic feel that is more vibrant, and just a little bit more palpably prone to change if I look away for a moment.

You know.

Weird.

Well done.

I like the contemporary look.

What is interesting to consider is how the external change is indicative of an internal change. Ann Vandemeer, who used to do The Silver Web, has made a couple of statements that indicate she'll change the editorial direction of the magazine while being mindful of its roots. The Schweitzer/Scithers edited version of the magazine I think was pretty solidly grounded in traditional gothic/horror story telling. There were contemporary settings in some of the stories, but the weirdness always felt old school to me.

Since I appeared in the old Weird Tales several times, I'm particularly interested in whether I'll be able to catch Ann's interest with my stuff, or if my stories in the magazine were the result of a peculiar flaw in Scithers' and Schweitzer's taste.

If Lovecraft and Howard were alive today, they would probably be delighted to submit to the magazine. They certainly wouldn't give a crap about the logo.

jeffV

The cover is incredible!
Allyson Bird

The cover illustration for the issue looks great. Very evocative and mysterious.

The new playfulness with typography (the story and author names like spokes rather than level and true) is a good thing.

In those two respects, I'm hoping the inside feels like the outside.

The logo feels weak, though. I'm absolutely open to a new logo, but the choice you've made feels like the sort of thing that anyone could create using readily available fonts on their computer -- too easy, too cheap. It's looks like the sort of lettering used to sell rubber stamps at crafts stores.

I suggest you find an artist who can hand-design a truly unique font for what was once called the unique magazine.

You're on to something, though. Definitely on to something. Keep going!

MM

I saw the new cover posted over at Shocklines.com and wanted to come by to say, Wahoo! I love the new look of the mag. It's brilliant. It was certainly enticing enough for me to become a new subscriber!

Also, congratulations to Ann on the editorial position. Wishing you all the very best.

Best Regards,
Fran Friel

I'm with Jim. I think it's time for a breath of fresh air in the visual design department and look forward to seeing what exactly that means for the internal changes as well.

The modern look is more likely to attract a new reader to pick up the zine off a shelf, whether young or old. IMHO that can't be a bad thing. If it was change just for the sake of change, or change that seemed totally inconsistent with the spirit of bringing what has gone before (at long last) into the 21st century, I'd be against it.

But when you line this new cover up against all the old ones, it's like seeing a bikini on a beach in the 1920s. And what a welcome sight it is. ;)

Hot dog! This definitely isn't my granddaddy's WEIRD TALES. I saw this posted at Shocklines and it inspired me to get interested in the magazine all over again. I'll pick up a copy on the newstand posthaste.

Keep the issues hot and flying. That's the ticket.

I'm not a partisan of the old logo by any means. A new one would be a pleasing change of pace -- but not this. There's something self-conscious about it; it's thin, weak, generic, so deliberately modern it already seems dated.

Otherwise, that cover looks swell.

Anyway, it's the words that count. Never mind what the thing looks like, as long as it's still good to read.

I remember when Weird Tales began its new run in 1988, I believe the year was, in its original pulp format, then it switched to a standard magazine format and some subscribers were upset to the point of threatening to cancel their subscriptions. I, on the other hand, figured as long as the content was compelling the format didn't matter. Now we come to a changing of the logo, and I still fill the same, but...

I dislike the idea simply because of why it is happening. If the logo change to subscribers and magazine stand meant a farewell to the original logo, that's one thing. But since the idea by what I read a while ago is to use the original logo to create a "collectable" Weird Tales edition of each issue, that's another. Nevertheless, as I said, as long as the content remains compelling I will learn to live with the change.

T.R.

T.R. -- thanks for your thoughts. I should clarify here that we're NOT changing the logo IN ORDER TO charge more for a variant edition with the classic logo. Quite the contrary, really.

Producing a variant edition of the magazine means more work for our small staff, and frankly, we don't expect to turn much of a profit on the "collectible" version. From our perspective, the variant edition will be a service we're offering out of respect and courtesy to the small but devoted number of longtime fans who really feel that it's not Weird Tales if it doesn't have the classic logo.

Why are we changing the logo? We're doing it because, whether we like it or not, it is the year 2007, and there is a generation of readers who would LOVE Weird Tales if only they would see it and pick it up... which they don't. The classic logo, in all its gothic-deco hybrid glory, was very much a product of its time when it was designed in the 1930s, and if we want Weird Tales to continue to thrive in the 21st century, reaching and compelling an audience that will stay with it for decades to come, we have to capture their attention just as the great editor Farnsworth Wright did back then: by being weird, as weird is measured by that audience in the moment.

Or, to put it even more simply: From 1923 to 1933, Weird Tales changed its logo six times. The magazine experimented a LOT in its first heyday, and we're just trying to follow in its footsteps.

(Darn it, we're INCREDIBLY HONORED to be following in its footsteps -- but in a new pair of shoes. Because, you know, athlete's foot. Gross.)

I learned about this logo from a flyer at Lunacon...and I really,really,really don't like it.It would be appropriate for a cyberpunk magazine,but is totally out of step with anything that plumbs the abysses of deep time to unearth primordial unspeakables.
By the way...just what are your plans for April 31?