Monday, September 13, 2010

Inspiration from Weird Menace


"Weird menace" or "shudder" pulps featured lurid stories in the horror genre with bizarre villains hatching macabre plots, and graphic (for the era) scenes of torture and murder.

And they had some really great story titles.  Titles where thinking of the sort of adventure that might have said title is possibly better than reading the story.  Here, presented for your inspiration, are a few choice ones:

"Satan's Roadhouse" by Carl Jacobi, Terror Tales (Oct. 1934)

"Death Teaches School" by Nat Schachner, Terror Tales (April 1935)

"Devils in the Dust" by Arthur J. Burks, Dime Mystery (Dec. 1935)

"The Shriveling Murders" from Dr. Death (April 1935)

"Brides for the Swamp God" by J.G. Quinliven, Terror Tales (May 1936)

"The Molemen Want Your Eyes" by Frederick C. Davies, Horror Stories (April/May 1938)

"Girls for the Coffin Syndicate" by Russell Gray, Dime Mystery (April 1940)

"March of the Homeless Corpse" by Wayne Rogers from Terror Tales (March 1941)

4 comments:

Stefan Poag said...

I LOVE the art from these things and have noticed the titles (simply because a story entitled "Girls for the Coffin Syndicate" intrigues me), but never went anywhere with it other than gaping.

To use the titles as inspiration is pure genius!

John Matthew Stater said...

How great would these be as adventure titles for your game? Looking forward to it.

Anonymous said...

Wonderful inspiration there.

Trey said...

@Matt - my thoughts exactly.