Number 185

Sex and Skeletons Without The Sex

This is the last of the Sex and Skeletons postings. I have some good skeletons, but no sex. Sorry, fellas.

As I've said before, I can still be surprised by what Golden Age covers I've never before seen, and this issue of Dark Mysteries, with a gruesome hanging cover scene, is one I encountered recently for the first time. The effect of it is dampened a bit by artist Hy Fleishman's near-cartoony approach.* For its morbid subject matter alone, in the hands of a better artist I'm sure this would be on everybody's must-have double-bag list.

One of Atlas' finest artists, Russ Heath, contributes a couple of great covers. Journey Into Fear is especially effective. I'm not sure exactly what it all means, but it's very eye-catching, and I love the sinister and amused look on the skull's partially turned face.

Our Canuck comic comrades came up with a cover that's beauty, eh. Journey Into Fear #13 has a great cover. Wait! Did I say none of these covers were sexy? A skeleton takes a pic of his vampiric girlfriend in her coffin. It looks familiar…like what I see a lot on the Internet. Bless all you gothic gals who want to share your dark visages with the world.

Strange Stories From Another World #3 is a terrific job by illustrator Norman Saunders. The guy could do no wrong, and no matter what he was illustrating he did a beautiful job. Saunders was also a best friend of Allen Anderson, featured with his own painted cover in the previous posting of Sex and Skeletons. Just click on the link "skeletons" at the bottom of this page.

Finally, Bill Everett, a leading light and artist for Atlas, like Russ Heath, comes up with yet another mind-blowing cover, this time for Venus #19. Looks like Venus is meeting her boyfriend's family, finding out they have a lot of skeletons who have come out of the closet, including her boyfriend.

*Something about the cover of Dark Mysteries #16 reminds me of the underground horror comix of a decade-and-a-half later, when artists like Greg Irons and others used a combination of cartooning and gruesomeness. The character on the cover who is speaking even has long hair, blue jeans and a collarless shirt. Since this book was published in 1954, in the fashion department he was over a decade ahead of his time.

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Number 182


Sex and Skeletons Part 5


Ah, the things I do for you guys, looking through all of these skeleton covers so I can give you a few moments of pleasure. Well, it's a chore I enjoy. ::he said, giving his Crypt Keeper cackle:: I've explained how publishers used images of sex and death--like that's a big surprise--to sell their products, and comic books of the '50s were no different.



Eerie was published by Avon, and Eerie Adventures by Ziff-Davis. More than one cover of Eerie used the same girl in the same stance, looking at some horrific sight, like an approaching skeleton. It might have been some sort of inside joke. Why repeat the motif? Another mystery from the horror comics of the 1950s.





Secret Diary Of Eerie would have been one of those one-shot rebound editions of three unsold copies of regular issues squarebound in a new cover. A way of recycling that produced some interesting giant comics.



The cover to Eerie Adventures is painted by illustrator Allen Anderson. The beautiful girl in the foreground, giving much the same pose as the girl on the Eerie covers, is actress Jean Dawyot, who Anderson used for multiple covers, including pulps like Planet Stories. An article on Anderson in the excellent magazine, Illustrator #18, has several of Anderson's covers reproduced, including his Ziff-Davis covers; Dawyot is in most of them.

Eerie and Eerie Adventures were mentioned in the infamous Seduction Of The Innocent by Fredric Wertham, M.D. It was about Avon suing Ziff-Davis for using the word "Eerie" on their covers. Wertham thought the judge should've throw in his opinions on the contents, but the fact that the judgment was solely on unfair competition and infringement didn't occur to the good doctor. What the judge ruled was that Eerie Adventures had to make the word "Eerie" smaller. I guess Wertham thought the judge should have torn them to pieces or burned the books in front of the court.

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Number 178

Sex and Skeletons Part 4

Haunted Thrills, published by Farrell, a publisher which hung around the periphery of comics even after the Comics Code was instituted, had a nice selection of skeletons and skulls on its horror comics covers. Some symbolic, some representational.

I especially like the taxi driver cover on issue #15. I'll bet jouncing over bumpy roads with this guy gave new meaning to bone-rattling. When he jawboned with the passengers, he really jawed.

I've also included a copy of Canadian publisher Superior's Strange Mysteries #15. Not only does it have a big symbolic skull, it's got bony hands reaching for a girl with a Bettie Page hairdo, a red dress, and some of the worst looking and un-sexiest sandals I've ever seen.

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Number 171


Sex and Skeletons Part 3: Don't Look Behind You!


Remember when you were a kid and had to get up at night? I remember those nights, having to walk to the bathroom in the dark, with the floor creaking, the wind outside moaning, tree branches tapping the windows. Tap, tap, tap. What was really a walk of a few yards in my safe, suburban house, became a midnight walk past a lonely graveyard.

"There's nothing behind me," I'd tell myself. "Mom and Dad are in the other room. If I need to I can holler for help…" I just knew if I turned my head even the slightest I'd see that I was being closely followed by a monster or a ghost or…choke!…a skeleton!

I'd do what needed doing, then walk as fast as possible back to my room, get into my bed, throw the covers over my head, all without turning so I wouldn't see a grinning rack of bones looming over me.

The folks on these covers should probably not turn their heads either. If you don't turn around, the skeleton will just go away. At least that's what I told myself. But then, I didn't test whether it was true or not by actually turning my head and peeking…

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Number 167


Sex and Skeletons Part 2


Dem bones. Dem bones. Dem dry bones. Or how 'bout dem living dry bones! Yow!

Of course we all know that skeletons aren't out walking around; we all know that when the tissue finally decomposes and there's nothing to hold it together, a skeleton is nothing more than a collection of loose bones. We all know that these horror comics covers with their living skeletons are just symbolic. But still, ulp. We'd all have a jolly time if one of these horrors suddenly popped up in front of us, wouldn't we?

These covers have to do with revenge, a major theme for horror comics of the early 1950s. Here's a butcher who regrets meating a couple of bony guys, displeased by the shop's customer service.



Here's another, by artist Hy Fleishman, of a skeleton getting his revenge on a mountain climber. (The climber whose sleeve is being held seems much too passive for someone confronted with such a sight.)



Another couple of covers have to do with revenge from a murdered spouse. In those cases the publishers got themselves into a tricky spot. First of all, the covers have a sub-theme of adultery. So not only did the enemies of comics get to see gruesomely awful covers, but they could take in that the couple being visited by the skeleton were probably having sex and killed the spouse to get him out of the way. Next to those the butcher and mountain climber covers seem relatively tame.



The husband on the cover of Dark Mysteries #4 seems pretty well decomposed for a guy just buried yesterday, doesn't he?



Here's a fella who's being presented to a woman, but not for a formal introduction, we surmise. We don’t know what he's done to deserve this treatment but it's gotta be bad. We don't see her head but we get to see some boobs. Another great Russ Heath horror comics cover. His skeletons look very scary. Considering what's got this poor chump, she must really be something for his mouth to be gaping so wide.

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Number 165


Sex and Skeletons Part 1


Publishers have known since printing was invented that what attracts readers are images of sex and death. Horror comics of the 1950s were continuing a rich tradition. They had a lot of precedents to guide them, and by the middle of the 20th Century several of the comic book publishers had been involved in publishing pulp magazines--no strangers to sex and death--and some were even concurrently involved in publishing paperback books with lurid covers.

The cliché says you can't judge a book by its cover, but in reality you sell one by the cover.

I've picked out some of my favorite horror comics from the '50s, culled from places on the Internet, eBay, etc., even some from my own collection. All of these have something in common: they all show skeletons, since time immemorial the most common symbol of death, and an image that evokes a lot of reactions and curiosity. And speaking of curiosity, young kids looking over the comic covers in the '50s couldn't pass up the opportunity to ogle a sexy babe. Comics used the old damsel-in-distress motif a lot. They used bondage a lot and they used red dresses a lot, too. Not only were the red dresses eye-catching on the newsstand, they were also a symbol of a hot chick. They meant bad girl, a symbol for a prostitute, or at the very least, someone willing to have sex.

The covers also fell into sub-categories, looking for inspiration from other covers. Comic book publishers, or at least the artists, were looking to other artists and covers for inspiration; they swiped both ideas and artwork. Here are two sub-themes I've noticed while looking at my computer file of images. The Bill Everett cover of Atlas' Venus #17, dated December, 1951, appears to have been at least partially inspired by the cover of Chamber Of Chills #21 (actually, the first issue) by Harvey Comics' workhorse Al Avison, cover dated June, 1951.





I've found three covers of skeletons being married to "normal" folks. Adventures Into Darkness #6, is the earliest, from 1952, also the one to show a guy marrying a skeleton girl. In this case I'd say his bride went to some extremes to lose weight so her dress would fit! Journey Into Mystery #6 and Mysterious Adventures #17, both from 1953, reverse that, with a girl marrying a skeleton. These gals picked some real stiffs to drag to the altar! Since Pappy's is a high-class blog we'd never make a joke about these covers reminding us of wedding night boners. We could, but of course we won't.

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