Number 566


Forbidden Tales of Oleck and Alcala


A while back I showed you a couple of 1970s DC mystery stories by writer Jack Oleck and artist Alfredo Alcala, and because I admire both of them for their craft at horror, here are two more from that duo. "Head Of the House" is from Forbidden Tales of Dark Mansion #9, and "The Monster" is from the subsequent issue, Forbidden Tales #10, both dated 1973.

"The Monster" is another from the same swamp that produced the 1940 Unknown story, "It!" by Theodore Sturgeon, which in turn influenced Air Fighters Comics' Heap, Swamp Thing, Man-Thing, Ring-A-Ding the Thing-Thing (that last one I made up), et al. The swamp monster is a genre unto itself. I like Oleck's snap ending to "Head Of the House" because of its ghoulishness. And what can I say about artwork by the late Alfredo Alcala except that it is always a joy, no matter the subject.

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Number 538


Alex Niño


Alex Niño's angular, psychedelic style was probably the most unique of the Philippine comic artist invasion of the 1970s. He could take even the most routine script and turn it into something interesting. As I recall he had some trouble with editors over his style when he stretched his imagination too far, and made the stories difficult to decipher.

There's no problem with that here. These stories are written by Jack Oleck. "Fish Story" is from Secrets of the Haunted House #1 from '74, and "The Evil Power" is from Weird Mystery Tales #9, 1975.

Grantbridge Street has posted an Oleck/Niño DC story here.

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Number 502


Oleck and Alcala


Two stories set in the past by longtime comic book scripter Jack Oleck and Philippine comic artist Alfredo Alcala: "Lady Killer" is from DC Comics' 1974 Weird Mystery Tales #10, and "A Second Chance To Die" is a black and white strip from Marvel's Tales Of The Zombie #7.

I love the way Alcala captured the look of Victorian England in "Lady Killer." His intricate brushwork was perfectly suited for the strip. "Second Chance" is a sadistic revenge story. The former feels like an old Atlas horror story, and the latter seems more like an EC story. No surprises, there, because Oleck wrote for both Atlas and EC.

In his Grantbridge Street blog Joe Bloke ran a ghoulishly funny strip by the Oleck/Alcala team from Plop! #2.

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Number 470


Who's afraid of the big bad werewolves


Karswell started this, posting horror stories from the '70s DC's, so I'm just following along behind him. It was his idea, really. I'm using him for inspiration.

Here are two werewolf stories, picked out because (1) they both have great Bernie Wrightson werewolf covers; (2) I like werewolves, and (3) because I own a page of the original artwork from "Way Of the Werewolf" from House of Mystery #231. It's by Gerry Talaoc, and demonstrates how the muddy coloring and printing of the 1970s obscured some really fine artwork. I've shown this page before, but it's worth looking at again.


"Deadly Stalkers Of the North" is drawn by Ricardo Villamonte and gives Wrightson an opportunity to draw three wolves on the cover. Weird Mystery Tales #21 has a cover date of August 1975, while House of Mystery #231 is dated May 1975. So 1975 was a good year for werewolves.

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