The Wanderer's Necklace: Delightful Weird Fantasy Art

This week on Rediscovered Realms, we’re going old-OLD school to look at some badass fantasy illustrations from a bygone era.

If you’re like me, you can enjoy fantasy artwork from any place and from any time. Welcome to an actual copy of “Famous Fantastic Mysteries” magazine I was able to acquire from April of 1943¹.

No, I didn’t time-travel to 1943 United States to get this, though if I did, I would find myself in the midst of World War II, listening to “Paper Doll” on the radio by the Mills Brothers, perhaps seeing “Lassie Come Home” in the movie theater, though watching “Coney Island” or “Sweet Rosie O’Grady” starring Betty Grable, the most famous American at the time, would be my preference.

Betty Grable - Her 42 films grossing more than $100 million made her one of the most famous Americans of her time

If I tried to attend a Pitsburgh Steelers football game, I would instead find myself watching the “Steagles”, when the Steelers & the Eagles combined players due to the shortage of players from WWII, paying for my stadium snacks with some steel pennies minted that year to conserve copper for the war effort.

Being of Italian-American descent, I can’t help but mention that I would try very hard to visit Chicago to taste the deep-dish pizza, created for the very first time by Pizzeria Uno.

If I happened to arrive in Coahuila, Mexico, however, I could have tasted the first nachos invented by Ignacio “Nacho” Anaya!

“Rosie the Riveter” by Norman Rockwell first appeared in 1943 on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post

But no, I was not in 1943, but instead am here in 2023, a full 80 years later, banging away not on my typewriter, but at my laptop. It’s a tradeoff I gladly make.

BTW: Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, said in 1943, “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.”

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“Famous Fantastic Mysteries” from March of 1943 (for reals this time 😉)

Famous Fantastic Mysteries was an American science fiction and weird fantasy pulp magazine published from 1939-1943, that reprinted stories of adventure and mystery from older weird fantasy pulp magazines, like Argosy.

It was an immediate success, largely due to the artwork by such artists as: Virgil Finlay and Lawrence Stevens.

This particular issue I hold features artwork from “Lawrence, Bok and Finlay” - all famous in their day and beyond.

The cover of our issue was done by Lawrence. I am so enamored with it. The vibrant colors, the composition and layout, the different emotions it captures and evokes. The more you stare at it the more details come to light - the jewelry, columns, Viking boat, the masterful way the hands were painted - and THE SHELLS and SCARAB BEATLES on the necklace! They look like you can just reach over and pluck them out.

I’ve got a small clear plastic “Golden Spiral” sitting on my desk from a past Kickstarter I supported. On a whim I picked it up to overlay Lawrence’s cover. It matches up PERFECTLY with so many parts of his composition, which probably explains a bit why I’m so drawn to this cover. This really speaks to his expertise - whether he did it consciously or not!

The featured story is “The Wanderer’s Necklace” by H. Rider Haggard, of “She”, and Alan Quatermain fame. He originally published this story in 1914.

Wikipedia’s description of The Wanderer’s Necklace:

“Olaf, a Norseman in the eighth century AD, flees his homeland after challenging the Norse god Odin's right to a human sacrifice, travels to Constantinople to protect the Empress Irene, Augusta, from her son Constantine VI, and other enemies of the Eastern Roman Empire. From Byzantium, to the pyramid tombs of Upper Egypt, Olaf becomes a traveling Christian who must reject the adulterous advances of Irene. Blinded as punishment for rejecting the Empress, Olaf's adventures are woven within the intrigues of the Eastern Roman Empire.

Olaf begins his recollections with a polar bear hunt, leading on to his fame as a great hunter, and excavating his previous life's gravesite to recover a necklace. Half of the necklace lies on a mummy reposing within a pharaoh's tomb in ancient Egypt. The adventure novel shows how these two events tie together past and present lives.”

Now, if THAT doesn’t get your adventurous spirit going, I don’t know what will.

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Do you love heroic fantasy gamebooks like me? Consider signing up to be informed when I launch my very 1st one!

(Featuring artwork from Clyde Caldwell & Luke Eidenschink!)

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It looks like Finlay only signed the illustration for the Sci-Fi “Espadrilles” story in this issue, so may not have done the ones for “The Wanderer’s Necklace”:

“Espadrilles” Sci-fi story illustration by Virgil Finlay

Can’t read the signature, so possibly Bok? “Espadrilles” Sci-fi illustration

I couldn’t help but compare the 1943 illustration above with one of Clyde Caldwell’s pieces from 1976! What do you think? Is it just me?

Do you like pen and ink fantasy illustrations? Then check out Rediscovered Realms’ interview with contemporary fantasy artist, Luke Eidenschink!

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Up upon the hill, “The Wanderer”, himself!

Did you miss this Rediscovered Realms article about Fantasy Illustrations Honoring RPG Roots?

captioned: “I seized the precious chain and tugged at it.” (This illustration would fit into ANY D&D or fantasy RPG campaign!)

. . . all that is required is that you join our cult and drink this grape-flavored drink, we call Koolaidicus . . .“

“Nay, nay. Don’t shake my hand - to stay healthy, we should spectral-fist-bump instead.”

Partying like it’s 1999 (BCE)

If you’d like to read the story, “The Wanderer’s Necklace”, you can:

• read it online here

• or give it a listen here

An Aside about the word, “Weird”:

It’s interesting to me to see in the old pulp days of the 20s-70s, fantasy was often paired with the term, “weird”. There were magazine and comic titles like “Weird Fantasy”, “Weird Tales”, “Weird Worlds”, “Weird Mysteries”, “Weird Thrillers” and even one just called: “Weird”!

"Weird" mags

“Weird fiction” of the late 19th and early 20th centuries seemed to have a meaning of “early fantastic tales”, before morphing more into supernatural/horror-related (think H.P. Lovecraft).

It was often a free mix of fantasy, science fiction and horror, but remember, Conan was grouped into this mix, so no spaceships required.

My personal favorite definition of “Weird Fantasy” is fantasy where not everything is entirely understood or explained.

‘nuff said.

BTW, here’s an excellent recent article from The Geekerati Newsletter that discusses a bit about Weird Fiction:

Some Thoughts on Ambrose Bierce's "The Damned Thing" and Lovecraft's "The Colour Out of Space"

And for those of you who:

1. feel weird,

2. have-been-called weird,

3. or want to be weird, remember:

“There is power in weird. Because you know you make your decisions. You stand in the knowledge of your own authenticity, and not many people can say that.” - Elizabeth Broadbent, writer/educator

Other News from The Realms

• 19 days until Quest’s End Dungeons & Dragons inspired Whiskey (co-founded by actor, Matthew Lillard) is released. The first release is “Paladin”: It is a straight bourbon whiskey inspired by the Paladin, a character subtype in D&D. The spirit is an homage to Sarin of the Pit, “who was born in the fighting pits, a Paladin of the god of life, Inxa,” according to Lillard

  • Their website has a really cool & fun soundboard you can play with, or just chill by playing it in the background while you work. (Just make sure to keep the “Mirth & Merriment” to a low volume so as not to attract the attention and ire of your boss & jealous colleagues! The “Orcs Fighting” should be ok though - that just sounds like business as usual in a corporate environment.)

    

• Only 9 days left to back Larry Elmore’s “The Complete Elmore Volume III”! Larry states that this will be his final volume of his long career.

  

  “It has been over 10 years since my very successful 2012 Kickstarter campaign for The Complete Elmore, a hardback collection of many of the highlights of my long career as a fantasy artist. But I didn't stop working in 2012, and the past decade has been very fruitful. I think it's time for an update.” - Larry Elmore

• Lyn Perry
  put out his latest edition 150-page DOUBLE-ISSUE Sword & Sorcery eBook zine, “ResAliens” for only $4!(Get it now before it goes to Amazon for $6)

  • You can get it here at Gumroad

• Over 200 have backed The Secrets of Candarlin fantasy gamebook, raising nearly $10,000. There are only 45 hours to go to join and do what all the cool kids are doing . . . (just don’t drink the Koolaidicus)

  

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Errata: Right before I hit the “publish” button, I noticed a discrepancy between the Table of Contents magazine date (April 1943), and the copyright date at the bottom of the page (1953). After some research, it appears this “Famous Fantastic Mysteries” magazine is actually from 1953! I’m too pooped to research and replace all the stuff one would do in 1953, so I hope you don’t mind a stroll down 1943’s lane instead. “The Wanderer’s Necklace” is originally from 1914 - so it shouldn’t matter anyway . . . right? 🙄