The Man Who Collected Machen's Mysterious Cover

Last week, the upstanding Chomu Press and Mark Samuels gifted the weird fiction community with a lingering mystery. Chomu recently held a contest that challenged observers to uncover the hidden meaning within the cover art for The Man Who Collected Machen and Other Weird Tales. Blogger Brendan Moody was declared the winner, due to his especially herculean effort at unraveling the cover's message, and the strange aftershocks it left him.

Still, the mystery remains. Is it possible that Chomu, Samuels, and the cover artist have conspired to give weird fiction one of its most intriguing meta-fictional quests in recent times? I hope so! If this is the case, it's brilliant marketing - exactly the kind that should be appreciated in a genre that often overlooks strange mechanics operating outside the horror stories.

While the book cover will never approach the notoriety of something like the infamous Voynich Manuscript, it's nevertheless a fittingly Samuels-esque bonus to an excellent collection. Care to take a stab at the cryptogram yourself? Read my review from earlier this year, and then consider picking up The Man Who Collected Machen.

-Grim Blogger