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Many of you, the readers, have written to the Eyrie asking whether the double-dating of the June-July issue meant that Weird Tales was changing to a bi-monthly. The answer is no. Despite the combining of the June and July issues, the magazine remains a monthly. All subscriptions will be automatically extended one month.
No Brother, We Assure You
Charles H. Chandler writes from Wooster, Ohio: "For a couple of months now I've been reluctant to bother you, who are already so bothered with letters and comments and criticisms; but I can no longer contain myself. The human being does not exist who can read an issue of WT of the quality of your June-July one without forthwith going out and shouting to all the world about it. Two Lovecraft stories of rare excellence—another installment of Howard's Almuric, which has been consistently exciting and interesting (not to mention that it is an outstanding literary job—Far Below, which is one weird tale in a thousand—Clark Ashton Smith's delicate Chinese fantasy (Smith seems to know more about the Middle Kingdom than do most writers on the subject)—all those in one issue! I don't wonder you combined the June and July issues—you had enough good stories for two issues, and the rest would likely have been filler and so as well left out. The only drawback is that such an issue makes the reader want more, and soon—which you are denying him. . . . I hardly know what story to give my vote to for first place in the June-July issue. The Lovecraft stories are tops for literary merit, as is Smith's work also. Far Below was well written and convincing, which Giants of Anarchy definitely was not. . . . I guess first place goes to Celephais, with the others all tied for a very near second—a photo-finish, to be exact. The shorts were good as a rule, but not up to, say, Kuttner's The Watcher at the Door in the May issue, (My vote goes to The Hollow Moon for first in that issue.) Now about the illustrations. Your artists are all good, but Finlay is still without serious competition. (Perhaps some would be good for him.) His distinctive and most effective style is his line-work—cross-hatch—and stipple. But lately he's been dashing off a lot of charcoal work which looks as if just anyone had done it—and I don't like that a bit! Not that it isn't good of its kind—but this kind isn't good enough. But his series of full-page illustrations (and the one in the June-July issue is O. K. with a capital K) is still a fine thing and I'm all for it. I second Reader O'Cormell's suggestion of a Finlay cover from literature. Let's have one, not only once but often."
A Literary Diet
E. K. McCabe writes from Toledo, Ohio: "This, my initial attempt at elaboration on the contents of a magazine to its editors may lack the polished finesse of a regular critic, but everything has a beginning. I wouldn't take trouble except that I have been interested in mythology and metaphysics for a number of years and yours is the only magazine on the market to brush upon those sub-
