Number 1535: Clutching hands and faces of fear

I think the American Comics Group did a fine job of using a small number of titles to keep the company afloat during both boom and bust years of comic books. It started as Better or Nedor, and its early history is documented elsewhere. You can read about it in this preview PDF of Alter Ego #61, with a fascinating article by Michael Vance. When ACG came up with its supernatural titles, Adventures Into the Unknown and Forbidden Worlds, they became the two books that were their mainstays, and would take them to the end of their history in 1967.

The supernaturals, as assistant editor Norman Fruman called them, sold quite well, and ACG added Skeleton Hand, which didn’t make the crossover to a Comics Code-approved book (probably because of its title), Out of the Night, and a one-shot issue of The Clutching Hand, which isn’t identified as ACG on its cover. That’s likely because ACG was trying out stories that didn’t have the boy-girl happy endings that a lot of their “horror” stories did. Fruman is listed as editor of The Clutching Hand. According to one bio I read of Fruman, he wrote about 700 scripts for Better/Nedor/ACG.

Here are examples of the two styles, one with the happy ending, and one more typical of the horror comics from other publishers.

From Forbidden Worlds #17 (1953), drawn by Al Camy:

From The Clutching Hand (1954), drawn by Kenneth Landau:

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More Ken Landau, including a pre-Code story from Out of the Night, and a story for the very last issue of Forbidden Worlds in 1967. Just click the thumbnail.

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Number 1209: Jeepers! A zombie!

This is a good opportunity to remind you of Zombies, the book edited by Craig Yoe and Steve "Karswell" Banes. It's number three in their series, “The Chilling Archives of Horror Comics.” It's available from Amazon.com, Yoebooks.com, or your other favorite online book dealers. And I'm sure if you promise not to eat his brain, your local comic book dealer could order it for you.

“The Lair of Lost Souls” from Adventures Into the Unknown #33 (1952) is a zombie story, art attributed to Al Camy, not included in the Zombies book. I'm showing it today because the splash panel is part of an ongoing search I have for what I call the Jeepers girl, a girl in a pose that looks like this panel from the anti-comics book, Seduction of the Innocent by Fredric Wertham, M.D. When I started seeing similar girls in similar poses I began to collect them under the overall title Jeepers girl, based on this.

I have found this supine girl in other comics, not only Golden Age but Silver Age, as well as a couple of magazine covers, Mad, and even an issue of Life magazine.

After the story I'll show you what I've collected so far in my quest for the Jeepers girl.

 “Jeepers! A dame!”

So far the earliest example of the Jeepers girl I've found has been in an article on the radio program, The Fat Man, from a 1946 issue of Life. Lots of artists used Life as a source of reference material, and this may be one of those instances.

The next is from artist Lily Renée, from Fight Comics #47, also 1946.

After that the Jeepers girl pops up in several places. I'm aware that the poses aren't exactly alike, but I believe that the Jeepers girl is a pretty good example of how you can't keep a dead girl down when you've got artists looking to other artists for inspiration.

 

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Number 1003





The Mist is a gas!





Black Hood was out of the superhero stable of MLJ Comics, which after a few years became Archie Comics. "MLJ Leads The Way" was an early slogan, and I'm not sure they led, but they were pretty good followers. Black Hood appears to be patterned after Batman--no super powers, but athletic--and has that square-jawed look that comes right out of the Bob Kane school. Like Batman, Black Hood had some wild adversaries, including the Mist, who could "vaporize his body." In this story Black Hood's savior, the Hermit (see Black Hood's origin in Pappy's #382, and the follow-up story in Pappy's #467), invents a liquid that turns the Mist's gas into a solid. It's a comic book, folks...anything goes.



The story is credited on the splash to Al Camy and Harry Shorten, from Top-Notch Comics #16, 1941:





























I showed the very last Golden Age Black Hood story in two parts: part 1 in Pappy's #959 and part 2 in Pappy's #960.

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