Weird Tales Oct 1934 – C.L. Moore's 'The Black God's Kiss' Cover
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Weird Tales Oct 1934 – C.L. Moore's 'The Black God's Kiss' Cover

Against a blazing vermillion background, a massive jet-black idol — smooth, featureless, and monstrously vast — envelops a red-haired woman in a pale slip dress who leans into its obsidian face in an eerie, compelled kiss. The figure's sheer scale dwarfs its captive, suggesting ancient, irresistible supernatural power. This is the debut of C.L. Moore's iconic Northwest Smith story featuring Jirel of Joiry, rendered in bold gouache with a lurid, hypnotic tension between beauty and dark divinity.

Category: Magazine Cover
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Artist: Margaret Brundage
Era: Pulp Era (1920s-1940s)
Decade: 1930s
Country: United States
Coolness: 9/10

The sheer audacity of a woman kissing a colossal black idol against a screaming red backdrop is peak pulp excess — every square inch radiates forbidden-god energy. Margaret Brundage's sensational composition packs supernatural menace, erotic tension, and mythic horror into one unforgettable image.

Text in image:

Weird Tales OCTOBER, 1934 OCT. 25c Vol. 24, No. 4—25c THE BLACK GOD'S KISS the weirdest story ever told By C. L. MOORE also H. BEDFORD-JONES and others WEIRD TALES

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