Fritz Leiber -- Thirty Years Gone

September 05, 2022 by Deuce Richardson

Today marks the thirtieth anniversary of when Fritz Leiber departed this mortal coil. At the venerable age of eighty-one, he left behind him a truly great legacy in the fields of fantasy, science fiction and horror, not to mention the realms of literary criticism and role-playing games. When he died, Leiber had already influenced the likes of Ramsey Campbell, Michael Moorcock, Harlan Ellison, Terry Pratchett, Glen Cook, Tim Powers, Neil Gaiman and Michael Chabon, demonstrating the sheer breadth of what he had wrought.

Lee Brown Coye -- Forty Years Gone

September 05, 2021 by Deuce Richardson

Lee Brown Coye was a truly unique artist, contributing covers to the original run of Weird Tales and, later, Arkham House and Carcosa.

August Derleth -- Fifty Years Gone

July 04, 2021 by Deuce Richardson

August William Derleth died of a heart attack on the Fourth of July, 1971. Thus ended a literary career that spanned six decades. Derleth won awards for his fiction, co-founded one of the most beloved small presses in the history of publishing and nurtured the careers and literary reputations of a legion of legendary authors—H.P. Lovecraft and Ramsey Campbell being just two examples. AWD also helped co-found the Cthulhu Mythos along with HPL, Robert E. Howard and Clark Ashton Smith.

Carcosa: Short-Lived, But Legendary

January 29, 2021 by Robert Barr

Carcosa, the imprint founded by Karl Edward Wagner with partners David Drake and Jim Groce, came to be partially out of the concern that Arkham House would close shop after the death of August Derleth in 1971. Thankfully, that didn’t happen. But for me, the four Carcosa volumes are Arkham House books by extension. They are design-executed as traditional AH titles and are absolutely essential books in the macabre-fantasy genres.

The Macabre Art of Stephen Fabian: The 1970s

October 29, 2019 by Deuce Richardson

We’ve covered a fair amount of Stephen Fabian’s art here on the DMR Blog, but we haven’t spotlighted his horror/weird illustrations…until now. While the 1980s—when Fabian was illustrating everyone from H.P. Lovecraft to Clive Barker to Stephen King—could be considered the highpoint of Stephen’s career as a horror artist, I’ve decided to look at his earlier creepy illos created in the 1970s

Regarding August Derleth

February 24, 2019 by Deuce Richardson

I am Deuce Richardson and I am a recovering Derleth-hater. Today marks the one hundred and tenth anniversary of August Derleth's birth. Considering statements I made in the past, I feel it is incumbent upon me to lay out some facts so that others may not wander down the same error-plagued path that I did.