With last year’s passing of the illustrating titan Stan Lee, it’s suitable to celebrate his voice and verve (along with the great Jack Kirby) with the cover art of Centipede Press‘s latest installment of Weird Fiction Review, which offers a wry wink to the inaugural, 1961 issue of the Fantastic Four (released fifty-seven years ago this past November).  The odd quad featured on the cover are, of course, notables from the Weird field, with Caitlin Kiernan standing in for Sue Storm, Victor Lavalle repping the Human Torch, Stephen Graham Jones taking on Mister Fantastic, and Laird Barron depicted as (suitably, noting his affinity for the Carpenter film) The Thing.  The list price is $35, but Centipede Press’s site currently has it for $22.

“The Weird Fiction Review,” goes the site’s synopsis, “is an annual periodical devoted to the study of weird and supernatural fiction. It is edited by S.T. Joshi. This ninth issue contains fiction, poetry, and reviews from leading writers and promising newcomers. This issue features fiction by Caitl’n R. Kiernan, Laird Barron, Victor LaValle, Stephen Graham Jones, Scott Bradfield and others, and articles by Stefan Dziemianowicz (an illustrated history of Gnome Press), Adam Groves (on surrealist horror novels), John C. Tibbetts (on Marjorie Bowen), as well as verse and other essays and fiction. The feature of the issue is Chad Hensley’s outstanding article on H.R. Giger-inspired Alien toys.”

In addition to a lengthy interview with author David Mitchell, Weird Fiction Review #9 also contains an exchange between Adam Golaski and me — an interview, of sorts, conducted by the Brown University English lecturer back in the fall of 2017.  The several weeks of correspondence was really an ideal way to get to know this writer who, perhaps, thrives in his obscurity.  We were able to spend a brief amount of time attempting to catch up back in December, 2018, on the Brown campus (shortly before our reading at the Arcade Asylum Author Series, Krampusnacht edition, at Lovecraft Arts & Sciences Council).

My story, “The Pecking Order” (a tale which begins with a young woman attending a former student’s funeral, but transforms into something appalling) can also be found in Weird Fiction Review #9.