Number 1038


In and out of the closet


Jeez, it's only ten days until Halloween, and I've been so busy working on this blog that I haven't been able to re-wrap Ex-Lax wafers in Hershey Miniatures wrappers. See what I do for you? Blogging is work, sabotaging Halloween is fun, and for you I've chosen work.

Oh well. I've got a couple more horror stories for Halloween. We have two different stories dealing with putting people in closets. One is of a mean ol' aunt punishing her niece in that nasty dark closet, from Harvey Comics Tomb Of Terror #11 from 1953. The second story is from Charlton's Lawbreakers Suspense Stories #12, from 1954. Both comics regarded the stories as good enough to get the cover position, but then, the closet is a universal fear, isn't it? Being in a confined, dark space gives some folks the whim-whams.

"The Black Closet" is drawn by Art Cappello, and the cover is by Lou Morales. There's sleazy cheesecake (sleazecake?) in this story. This type of comic helped fuel the furor against comic books. I think it's just good sexy, sadistic fun, myself. "The Closet" is drawn by ?, according to the Grand Comics Database, with a cover by Lee Elias.

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Number 945


Check and double-Check


Compared to many of the journeymen comic book artists I feature in Pappy's, Sid Check did relatively few stories during his career. He did a reasonable imitation of the better known Wally Wood, some stories looking better than others. He even found his way into EC comics as a freelancer with a couple of memorable stories.

Here are two stories of Check's that I have on file: "The Werewolf's Victims" I showed long ago, but I have re-scanned it so the pages are actually readable. It's from Atlas Comics' Mystic #31, 1954. "Death Sentence" is a story I have both in the printed version from Harvey's Tomb Of Terror #14, also from 1954, and these scans of the original art I took a few years ago from the Heritage Auctions site. It's the originals I've chosen to show you today.

More Check stories can be found, posted by Mr. Door Tree in his Golden Age Comic Book Stories blog, here.

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Number 324


Rat Man!


Today Karswell of The Horrors Of It All and I are running two versions of the same story: He has the printed version of Bob Powell's "The Rat Man" from Harvey Comics' Tomb Of Terror #5, and I am showing the original art. Wish I owned this art, but I stole…errrrrrrrr…I mean borrowed it from the Internet.

This is a good example of how Powell used blue watercolor to indicate to the color artist where he wanted color emphasis. You can compare these pages to the printed pages and see if he got through to that colorist.

*******

...and while we're showing original art, here are three pages I bought over 20 years ago at the San Diego Comics Convention, all hand-picked for their horror qualities, drawn by a couple of superfine Filipino artists.



"Beware the Snare of the Tarantula," from Witching Hour #54, is drawn by Jess Jodloman, written by EC Comics vet Carl Wessler. Love that Modred figure in the splash panel. Love the whole splash panel!*

Fellow EC vet Jack Oleck wrote "Way of the Werewolf," and here's a great page by Gerry Talaoc. A really nice werewolf tale, and this issue, House Of Mystery #231, has an incredible cover by Bernie Wrightson.

My thanks to best friend Dave Miller for doing the work of stitching the pages together via Photoshop.

*After posting this Karswell sent me this poster for The Fly, which obviously influenced the splash. Thanks, Karswell!

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Number 313

Evolution

This 5-page story from Harvey's Tomb Of Terror #12, November 1953, was appropriated (read: swiped) from the science fiction story, "The Man Who Evolved" by Edmond Hamilton. Hamilton, who was born in 1904, was a prolific writer from the 1920s until the 1970s. He wrote the Captain Future pulps. He was also a writer for DC Comics, writing many, many stories for editors Mort Weisinger and Julius Schwartz, both friends of his. "The Man Who Evolved," which appeared in the science fiction pulp Wonder Stories in 1931, was a favorite of Isaac Asimov, included in his anthology Before The Golden Age.

Oh yeah…the comic book story, "Evolution," was scripted by an unknown writer, but drawn by Manny Stallman and John Giunta. For a well-done Atlas horror story that may be Stallman go to The Horrors Of It All.

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