Have you ever wondered why magazine covers are so enticing to the human eye? The Magazine "Weird Tales" is known for its powerful, beautiful and meaningful cover images. The March 1924 edition is no different. The March 1924 edition depicts the great Harry Houdini preforming one of his famed escapes, drawn by R.M Mally. When you look at the image you notice three things, in no specific order, one being Houdini himself and his very powerful body image the second the skeleton on the ground and the third the text written on the cover. These aspects of the visual text are important because they each deliver a different message, Houdini delivers the message of strength and power which is vital to any society. The skeleton delivers the message of hopelessness, fear and troubles which connect directly to Houdini's life because of all the depression he dealt with. The text is pretty strait forward, the first thing that grabbed my eye was the "Weird Tales" logo at the top of the page which is expected because it is a magazine and that is what the title is suppose to do. The other writing on the image is clean and strategically placed in the image, very important to the message of the text. Icons, shadowing and color are all represented in this image and with those we can get and inside look at Houdini's life. 

When you look at an Icon like Houdini you can tell how he is being depicted as a powerful man like those handcuffs and chains can not hold him back, and they will not, we know he will escape from them because that is what he does. The artist chose to depict Houdini with out any clothing, this is a bold and powerful choice in any piece of art and in the case of the poster a very successful one, the fact that Houdini does not have clothes on makes his image look even stronger, along with the aggressive lines and the realistic approach and proper shading the artist used while drawing the iconic Houdini and it turned out to be perfect. The message of strength and power is what Houdini is in this image, in the height of the roaring twenties that is what sold, strength and power, it is what every American man wanted, and that is what Houdini was, he was practically invincible. 

Despite of his powerful image Houdini was in fact a very troubled man, one aspect of him that most of the public did not know about but was discreetly depicted in the magazine cover. The skeleton is a representation of how depressed and troubled the great Harry Houdini was. In 1913 Harry Houdini's mother passed away and from that point on he became extremely depressed but continued to preform anyway because that is who he was and he was going to preform no matter what he loved what he did. Houdini had a very difficult time dealing with the death of his mother, not uncommon among the rest of society but, this became an obsession to Houdini he would not let himself get over the death of his beloved mother. When this cover was drawn Houdini would only have about two more years to live. The meaning of the skeleton as well as a representation of the demons Houdini had inside of him it also represented the downfall of his career at this point Houdini stops preforming regularly and instead becomes even more obsessed with the death of his mother and discovering a way to contact her. The shading of the skeleton is very important to how the artist wants us to interoperate what the skeleton means to this visual text and to Houdini, the shading is very dull and does not draw your eye to the skeleton at all, I believe the purpose of the dark shading is to show that Houdini was troubled a troubled man and that his life was much more than magic tricks and escape acts but really consisted of a sever amount of depression. The skeleton represents many things and is open to interpretation whether you think it is his depression regarding his mother or the death of his career it is not a positive message that is for sure. 

The text is critical to this cover for multiple reasons, the first being the appeal of the text to the reader and how it has to draw you in, second is the color scheme and how it works with the coloring of Houdini and the rest of the cover. Lastly is the placement of the text and how it adds to the overall design and appeal of the cover. The text is overall very appealing the lines are flowing from each letter to the next word. The way the title is written gives it the ability to draw in your eye, the artist wanted to make sure you knew what magazine you were about to read. The color scheme works very well with the drawings of Houdini and the skeleton, it keeps with the dark yet powerful message. The color orange is used to represent ambition, and fright, that is exactly what it did, it added to the meaning of the comic which is how Houdini was strong and a head of his time but at the same time was frightened by the fact that he no longer had his mother with him. The placement of the text is key to the entire image, it is in a spot where it flows with the entire work, everything looks like it belongs where it is. The text selection is correct for the time period nothing is very special about it. The text is very much clean cut and delivers another powerful message with Houdini's name being bolded, it showed that this is his story about the people that did him wrong, the "spirit fakers" who lied to him about his deiced mother.

The message being delivered by the poster is one of strength and of depression. This issue of the magazine was about Harry Houdini's life all aspects of it. This cover captured all aspects of his life from the escapes to the heartbreak and anger all of it captured in one image. The way R.M Mally used Houdini and the skeleton as a symbols for the two different parts of Houdini's life is incredible. Houdini was and is an iconic name but not many people know much about him and even back thank not many people knew about his personal life I feel that this visual text gave us a little bit of a deeper understanding to what his life was like off the stage. Houdini was a powerful, strong, and ambitious man that dealt with demons and a level of depression that should be wished upon no one. 

