Friday, August 31, 2007

Tag… You’re It!

From the July 1954 issue of Tomb of Terror #16 comes another neat E.C./Wood/Davis-inspired bit of fun from Howard Nostrand. Oddly enough, Overstreet calls this issue a “Special Sci-Fi Issue” when actually only 2 of the four stories are sci-fi (?!) I mean, does this story here seem sci-fi to you? Still, this was a good little yarn for The Tomb to end it’s glorious run with before finally caving in to Comics Code scare tactics and thus becoming “ Thrills of Tomorrow “ for only 4 boring issues full of reprints and weak Kirby Stuntman covers.





Thursday, August 30, 2007

Fearless Frankie (ARTIST)

Our second spotlight on modern artists influenced by pre-code horror comics features Canadian creep Rob Sacchetto, (the madman behind Zombie Portraits), who recently completed a "throwback Tales from the Crypt / EC Comics style tale of zombie terror" called Fearless Frankie, where all the action and gruesome horror takes place in the jungles of Viet Nam.

The comic is completely free and viewable online or as a PDF download. (Thanks to Joel Pednaud for the heads up about this.)

Murder Mansion

As promised, here’s another Lee Elias illustrated story. With his thick, rich, detailed line work and great sense of color, Lee’s mouth watering nightmare visuals more than make up for the poorly paced, confusing storyline here (in fact don’t read this one, just look at the pretty pictures.) For a truly mind blowing experience, type “ Lee Elias “ into the GCD search engine and just look at all of his Harvey horror covers. Amazing!

From the October 1954 issue of Witches Tales #27








Wednesday, August 29, 2007

The Seven Skulls of Magondi

Here it is, the final story from Chamber of Chills #6 and it’s a jungle terror doozy! Great inks too from my favorite Harvey cover artist Lee Elias, who also illustrated a mountain of excellent work in not only the golden age but also the silver (including, but definitely not limited to my favorite era run of kooky Green Arrow stories in DC’s World’s Finest!) I’ll post another Elias story next to give you an even nicer taste of his amazing artistic talent in the horror genre.






Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Black Knights of Evil!

Enter neophytes (and bow-tie wearin’ sissies named Chauncey), into today’s den of evil! Pull up a necronomicon and prepare for your own hazing slash initiation into the black order of the Riders of the Night! Yes, it’s another tale of terror from the March 1952 issue of Chamber of Chills #6--- ARRGHH!! YIIIII!!




Monday, August 27, 2007

Jelly Death

Re-visiting the Dungeon of Doom yesterday only reminded me just how whacked-out and repulsive issue #6 of Chamber of Chills really is. So, bad news for you Harvey haters because for the first time on this blog I’ll be posting the ENTIRE ISSUE over the next few days! Pull out your barf bags my friends, today brings you (gag!) ---Jelly Death!

From the March 1952 issue of Chamber of Chills #6








Sunday, August 26, 2007

Dungeon of Doom

If your idea of fun is watching a beautiful, innocent girl’s face melt right off the skull inside a monster’s disintegrating machine then this is the story for you! I really don’t have much else to add today…

From the March 1952 issue of Chamber of Chills #6





Saturday, August 25, 2007

The Bone Man

An anonymous commenter the other day asked me to post an example of “stupid and derivative” so ask and yee shall receive! It’s not the best worst example I could find, in fact it’s actually a fun little stupid tale of sudden insanity leading to over the top brutality and gory violence. But then again it loses points for not being especially well written, and you can knock off a few more points for Mannie Bank’s somewhat flimsy artwork. It’s definitely inspired in a maniacal sort of way, but it was greasy shock stuff like this that really nailed the coffin lid tightly shut on pre-code horror comics in ‘54.

From the September 1954 one-shot issue of Horror from the Tomb #1






Friday, August 24, 2007

The Unsleeping Dead

Nearly 50 posts and I'm just now getting around to a story from Ace Magazines who published four interesting 50's pre-code horror titles: Baffling Mysteries, Hand of Fate, Web of Mystery and of course The Beyond featuring our creepy tale for today. This is a well written story about a haunted camera that can photograph grisly, unsolved murders from the past. Another first today, I'm finally posting something by golden age fan favorite Lou Cameron who, amongst other things, did some great early work for DC as well.

From the November 1953 issue of The Beyond #23