Number 1609: Russ Heath,“The Executioner”

“The Executioner” has beautiful artwork, and a real feeling of the setting and time, Chicago, 1928. Russ Heath drew this violent crime tale.

The most jarring aspect of the tale is that it was published in Creepy magazine. Not that a stone killer isn’t creepy in his own right, but we expect more of the supernatural from that magazine. I assume Russ’s bona fides as one of the premier comic artists in the industry had something to do with its inclusion. Heath is credited with the story, although either he or the editor didn’t feel he was up to the task of dialogue, because they handed that to Cary Bates.

From Creepy #92 (1977):

Pappy’s enters its ninth year

July 26, 2006 was the day I launched this blog, and as I’ve said before, I did not intend for it to go on this long. The reason it does is because I can still find things that inspire me to share. I guess as long as that is the case, or until I cannot physically do it any longer, I believe I will keep doing what I have been doing.

I was told when I was a kid that I did not have the patience to complete projects, and my critics were right. I guess I grew out of that short attention span (and got on good meds). I managed to hold down the same job for 32 1/2 years before I retired, and I’ve been blogging on a regular schedule for a few years, so to all those people who said I could not do it, HAH! What a burner on you, huh? (Quoting Clark Bent to Lois Pain, from Mad #4.)

When I’ve had some time, I have been going back to my early posts to get rid of the connection I had to Photobucket in the early years. Blogger did not offer much free bandwidth in those days, and I figured I could make up for it by also using Photobucket. But I see there are some links that don’t work because I exceeded the space Photobucket made available to me. It has been a slow process re-doing the old posts, and for a time I was re-editing them. That is an advantage when using the Internet, where unlike print I can go back and change something that now embarrasses me. But after a few of those I thought why do it? If it is an egregious error I can fix it, but the everyday things I said back when this blog was young, embarrassing or not, are part of the record. Besides, I got lazy; it was too much trouble to fix it. Re-doing the old posts is a time consuming task, and I will work on it when I can, but for now if you encounter a dead link, just wait a couple of years. I might get around to fixing it.

A tip of the Pap cap to those readers who have stuck with me so far. Thank you!

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Number 1594: There wuz giants in them thar days!

If the credits in the Grand Comics Database for Marvel’s Black Rider #8 (actually #1, 1950) are correct, then the artists who drew this story are giants of comic art. That seems appropriate since the story is called “The Mystery of the Valley of Giants.” GCD says (with their ? meaning they’re not quite sure) that the story was drawn by Syd Shores, Joe Maneely, John Severin and Russ Heath. Wow! What a crew. If you are an art spotter you can go through and see where each artist’s style pops up.

Not only are those art credits interesting, the cover photo is claimed to be Stan Lee in costume. Maybe any gun experts reading this can tell me if the pistols Stan “Black Rider” Lee is holding are real. To me they look like a set I wore circa 1952. They came with a Hopalong Cassidy outfit I got for Christmas.

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Number 1570: Sea Devils — the devil’s in the details

Despite dropping almost all my DC Comics purchases in '61-'62 after Marvel introduced The Fantastic Four and the rest of their early hero lineup (a fickle fan, wasn’t I?), an exception was DC’s Sea Devils. I bought it because of Russ Heath’s artwork. It’s telling that I stopped buying the book after issue #10 when other artists took over. It wasn’t that they were bad artists, just that I was buying the book because of Heath.

Looking at #1 after 50+ years makes me wonder if I just looked at the artwork without reading the stories, because I don’t remember them. Like this first story from issue #1, about a movie with a robot Octopus Man who roams the ocean floor walking a huge octopus on a leash. Then a real Octopus Man shows up. Next to this The Fantastic Four seems almost non-fiction. But there is that Russ Heath artwork, and that makes up for the implausibilities and overall silliness of editor Robert Kanigher’s scripts.

From Sea Devils #1 (1961).

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Number 1461: Horror without the horrible

Only a few more days until Halloween. Fill up those candy bowls for the visiting trick-or-treaters, but save the best stuff for yourself. Pappy's rule for Halloween: the kids get the cheap stuff.

No cheap stuff for you today. I’m showing all the stories from Atlas Comics’ Marvel Tales #119 (1953). The tales run the gamut from a golddigger/serial killer to mummies from outer space to choosing a new life, to...well, read on.

Unlike most horror comics of the era there aren’t any vampires or werewolves, and the mummies aren’t even Egyptian mummies. All in all it’s a fun issue. There is some variety, even humor to some of the stories. Besides the total silliness of the plot of “When the Mummies Rise,” drawn by Russ Heath, there is a shaggy dog joke ending to “They Gave Him a Grave,” illustrated by Larry Woromay. John Forte’s art is perfect for the serial killer story, “Collector’s Item!” I got a laugh out of the Marilyn Monroe panel in “The New Life!” drawn by Al Eadeh. Mac Pakula wraps up the issue with a story of a killer who escapes earthly justice only to find it in space.

I could not help comparing the cover by an unknown artist to an earlier cover by horrormeister Bernard Baily for Mister Mystery #11.

As a morbid child I used to think of what would be the most terrible way to die. High on my list was being buried up to my chin and set upon by ants. Despite having a higher ratio of skulls to head, the Marvel Tales cover is tepid compared to Baily’s.

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