Number 1579: Two stories, one moral

These two stories, which appeared in the same issue of Hillman’s Western Fighters (Vol. 3 No. 12, 1951), have things in common. They are both drawn by comic book men who went into careers as fine artists, and both stories have a similar moral.

Bernard Krigstein and Gerald McCann were like some other comic book artists of their era; the Depression had made it hard for fine artists, and to pay the rent they had gone into comic books. Not only did comics help buy groceries, but I believe the artists who did them learned something about illustration, composition and story-telling from comic books that helped them later. Krigstein quit comics for good in 1962, and McCann also drew comics into the sixties. If you google their names you should find some examples of their painted works.

The moral I mentioned is about revenge. Each story concerns killings that come by way of revenge, and both of the stories end with the vengeance seeker finding that revenge wasn’t the answer. Pretty simple, I’d say, but not for today’s market in popular entertainment. Hooo-boy, do they do revenge nowadays! A “hero” can double as a psychopathic stone killer. able to mow down dozens of people without remorse or second thoughts. I’m like everyone else; I like to watch the bad guys get their asses kicked. I also like to think that the hero I identify with isn’t just as bad as that bad guy.

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Number 1383: The not altogether-horrible Hillman horrors

Hillman Periodicals, publishers of Airboy Comics and other titles, had no horror comics in their line. But Airboy was known to battle some ghoulish foes, and because horror comics were popular in the early fifties some of the elements in that comic skewed toward the horror genre.

To wit, the non-Airboy contents of Airboy Comics Vol. 9 #5, from 1952. The stories are short, and all have some horror to them.

Gerald McCann,* was a fine artist moonlighting in comic books. His moody, dark style fits “The Wolf Boy of Krakow” very well. Ernie Schroeder did the Heap story, as well as the cover illustration from the tale. The Heap was a character like the later Swamp Thing and Man-Thing, inspired by Theodore Sturgeon’s 1940 short-story, “It!” Heap was a peripatetic, shambling mute who went from one town to another, involving himself in various horror scenarios. The tone of the series reminds me of Dick Briefer’s last and more serious incarnation of his Frankenstein character, seen in The Monster of Frankenstein. Last, longtime comic artist and journeyman Bill Ely* drew “The Crown of Coort,” which features a Lovecraftian monster and a classic last panel.

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*More McCann and Ely here. Just click the pictures.

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Number 1037


The fine art comic book artist


Gerald McCann was a comic book veteran, another journeyman, who was also a painter, a fine artist. I don't have much information on him beyond his birth year of 1916. If McCann is still alive he's about 95-years-old by now, but nowhere online could I find a date of death. If you google Gerald McCann you can find examples of his fine art.

McCann did comic books across the genres, but specialized in crime and later in TV tie-ins. He had a fine artist's eye for panel composition. The two moody crime stories I've got here have a noir feel to them. McCann worked into the 1960s, at least, for Dell (Ghost Stories) and for ACG editor, Richard E. Hughes. Today I'm showing one of his later stories from a 1963 issue of Adventures Into the Unknown.

Here's a link to a Western story McCann did for Avon.

From Murderous Gangsters #3, 1952:








From Real Clue Crime Stories Vol. 6 #2, 1951:








From Adventures Into the Unknown #143, 1963:

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