Gateway: Non-E.C. Pre-Code horror comics
May 21, 2015 22:43:17 GMT -5
Some Kind of Munster, repulsionist, and 2 more like this
Post by Il sole sotto la terra on May 21, 2015 22:43:17 GMT -5
Obsession: Non-E.C. Pre-Code Horror comics
Why It’s Daunting: With more than a dozen publishers churning out over a thousand issues between 1947 and 1954, the comics industry produced an overwhelming array of horror comics. While Bill Gaines’s E.C. line is rightfully revered among comics fans, you can only read Vault of Horror #32 so many times before the thrill wears off. Then it’s time to explore the titles that came before, and the myriad imitators. Original copies don’t come cheap, so reprints are the way to go. But where to start?
Possible Gateways: Four Color Fear: Forgotten Horror Comics of the 1950s, edited by Greg Sadowski and John Benson.
And
The Horror! The Horror!: Comic Books the Government Didn't Want You To Read, by Jim Trombetta
Why:
Reprinting 40 stories and 32 covers, Four Color Fear is an admirable survey of the non-E.C. horror landscape of the early 1950s. Featuring work from comics luminaries such as Bob Powell, Jack Cole, Basil Wolverton and Joe Kubert, along with work by E.C. contributors like Al Williamson, Sid Check, George Evans, Reed Crandall and Wally Wood, these represent some of the best horror stories the Pre-Code era has to offer. Everything is beautifully reproduced and Sadowski provides excellent background information on the publishers, editors, writers, artists and stories. Marvel’s iron-clad grip on the Pre-Code Atlas material makes it conspicuous by its absence, but more on that later.
Although The Horror! The Horror! reprints only 16 stories, some of which overlap with those in Four Color Fear, Jim Trombetta strives to place Pre-Code horror within the broader contexts of supernatural literature and popular culture, making it a worthy entry point. Everything is thematically grouped, and what it may lack in individual stories is made up for in its wealth of covers and notable individual panels.
Next Steps:
UK publisher PS Artbooks offers a line of Pre-Code collected works covering several publishers. The cleanup job they’ve done to the scanned artwork can be dodgy at times, making some of the text difficult to read, but these volumes are by far the easiest way to get some fairly obscure material.
The single-volume collection of American Comics Group’s Skeleton Hand, which includes the 1954 one-shot Clutching Hand, serves as a good introduction to ACG’s horror line. ACG can be credited for kicking off the horror boom by launching the first ongoing horror title, Adventures into the Unknown, in the fall of 1948. By 1952, the line had expanded to four titles, with Skeleton Hand being the last to begin publication. ACG’s horror line tended to take the form of adventure stories with a veneer of the supernatural, and many of ACG’s artists were journeymen from the 1940s, which gave the line a look and feel that harkens back to the earlier days of the Golden Age. Editor Richard Hughes was among the better horror comics writers, and while the art in Skeleton Hand may be pedestrian at times, the quality of the writing and ideas shows through. Clutching Hand, also scripted by Hughes, makes an interesting contrast as the artwork and stories showed a marked increase in gruesomeness, giving it a much more modern feel.
If Skeleton Hand appeals to you, Out of the Night is a good next step in the ACG line. Again scripted by Hughes, it features occasional appearances by Al Williamson and Frank Frazetta. At three volumes, it’s much more manageable than the truly intimidating (and as yet incomplete) reprints of Forbidden Worlds (16 projected volumes) and Adventures into the Unknown (21 projected volumes).
Stanley P. Morse’s fly-by-night Key Publications show a completely different approach to horror comics than ACG took. Featuring some of the most notorious covers of the Pre-Code era, Morse’s horror comics made up for his inability to put together E.C.-caliber material by pushing the bounds of good taste. PS Artbooks has collected Key’s Weird Mysteries in two lurid hardbound volumes, featuring vile stories about vile people doing vile things and meeting vile ends. Most of the stories are straight-up horror, but there are some interesting sci-fi pieces in the vein of E.C.’s sci-fi titles. Key’s most notable artist was Basil Wolverton, who is well represented here, along with the team of Ross Andru and Mike Esposito, and Tony Mortellaro, who later wound up at Marvel inking Spidey.
Charlton Comics didn’t go in for horror in a big way, with just two horror titles in This Magazine is Haunted, which was picked up from Fawcett, and The Thing. PS Artbooks has collected The Thing in two highly enjoyable hardbound volumes. Introduced and narrated by the unseen Thing, these are fun, pulpy horror stories. There is some spectacularly bad scripting early on, but the title pretty quickly finds its footing. The first volume relies heavily on Bob Forgione, who went on to work for Dell, Marvel and DC, and the second volume relies nearly as heavily on comics legend Steve Ditko, who has two complete solo issues. Bob Powell and E.C. contributor Sid Check also make appearances.
Four Color Fear reprints many of the best stories Harvey Comics published, but there are more gems to be found in the line. PS Artbooks has reprinted the whole shebang, which is available in hardback and trade paperback editions. Harvey’s horror titles can be neatly divided into two separate eras: Before Sid Jacobson and After Sid Jacobson. Jacobson came onboard in early 1953, and immediately began reshaping Harvey’s moribund horror titles. While E.C. rarely featured vampires and werewolves, and studiously avoided ghosts and the Devil, Harvey (along with many other publishers) frequently had all of them in every issue. Stories typically consisted of the protagonists perpetrating or enduring evil for several pages, all in service of a limp twist at the end (the guy sold his soul to the Devil in the first panel, and the Devil wound up with it in the end? You don’t say.). Jacobson, who was new to the industry, came in and looked to E.C. for inspiration. He recognized a rare talent in young artist Howard Nostrand, who could impeccably ape both Wally Wood and Jack Davis, and he became a devotee of Harvey Kurtzman’s stationary-camera technique. Jacobson also unleashed Lee Elias, who created some of the Pre-Code era’s most spectacularly gruesome covers in a style that suggests Johnny Craig inking Jack Davis pencils. Mad-inspired humorous horror stories began to appear in all four Harvey horror titles, with Witches Tales becoming a completely humorous horror comic in 1954. Black Cat Mystery and Chamber of Chills remained straight horror with the occasional humorous story, and Tomb of Terror moved into sci-fi horror, also with humor mixed in. With three slim TPB volumes, Tomb of Terror is the best entry point here. Nostrand and the legendary Bob Powell are both well-represented in Tomb of Terror, and occasional E.C. artist Sid Check makes a few appearances as well.
Marvel predecessor Atlas Comics was run by Martin Goodman, who never met a comics trend he wouldn’t jump on. Horror comics were no exception, and Atlas churned out nearly 20 titles spanning close to 400 issues. The now-defunct Marvel Masterworks series collected the Atlas horror titles Journey into Mystery, Menace and Strange Tales in beautiful dust-jacketed hardbound volumes. The relatively short-lived Menace is a good jumping-off point here. Why is that? Well, if you guessed Stan Lee at the helm as writer/editor, you win a No-Prize! Like the Sid Jacobson era at Harvey, Menace draws heavily on E.C. for inspiration, but instead of the Crypt Keeper, we get Stan the Man himself providing the second-person narration. The artwork is a cut above most of the other E.C. imitators as well. Russ Heath has several spectacular stories, Gene Colan has a good one that looks like he was paying a lot of attention to what Al Williamson was doing, and the hyper-prolific Joe Maneely has several stories that give a nod to Jack Davis. Fans of Silver Age Marvel will recognize plenty of other artists here, such as Joe Sinnott, John Romita, Bill Everett and George Tuska, and Bob Powell turns up yet again. The only real drawback to the Marvel Masterworks series is that the art has been cleaned up and recolored to within an inch of its life, which robs it of some of its original charm.
Where Not To Start:
Several publishers offer collections of a single artist’s work in Pre-Code horror. Bob Powell, Steve Ditko, Howard Nostrand, Joe Simon & Jack Kirby and Wally Wood all have books collecting their work. Although they are undoubtedly worthwhile (who wouldn’t want all of Wally Wood’s non-E.C. crime/horror stories collected in one place?), they tend to obscure the wild and wooly variety of Pre-Code horror. They’re best left to hardcore geeks.
Why It’s Daunting: With more than a dozen publishers churning out over a thousand issues between 1947 and 1954, the comics industry produced an overwhelming array of horror comics. While Bill Gaines’s E.C. line is rightfully revered among comics fans, you can only read Vault of Horror #32 so many times before the thrill wears off. Then it’s time to explore the titles that came before, and the myriad imitators. Original copies don’t come cheap, so reprints are the way to go. But where to start?
Possible Gateways: Four Color Fear: Forgotten Horror Comics of the 1950s, edited by Greg Sadowski and John Benson.
And
The Horror! The Horror!: Comic Books the Government Didn't Want You To Read, by Jim Trombetta
Why:
Reprinting 40 stories and 32 covers, Four Color Fear is an admirable survey of the non-E.C. horror landscape of the early 1950s. Featuring work from comics luminaries such as Bob Powell, Jack Cole, Basil Wolverton and Joe Kubert, along with work by E.C. contributors like Al Williamson, Sid Check, George Evans, Reed Crandall and Wally Wood, these represent some of the best horror stories the Pre-Code era has to offer. Everything is beautifully reproduced and Sadowski provides excellent background information on the publishers, editors, writers, artists and stories. Marvel’s iron-clad grip on the Pre-Code Atlas material makes it conspicuous by its absence, but more on that later.
Although The Horror! The Horror! reprints only 16 stories, some of which overlap with those in Four Color Fear, Jim Trombetta strives to place Pre-Code horror within the broader contexts of supernatural literature and popular culture, making it a worthy entry point. Everything is thematically grouped, and what it may lack in individual stories is made up for in its wealth of covers and notable individual panels.
Next Steps:
UK publisher PS Artbooks offers a line of Pre-Code collected works covering several publishers. The cleanup job they’ve done to the scanned artwork can be dodgy at times, making some of the text difficult to read, but these volumes are by far the easiest way to get some fairly obscure material.
The single-volume collection of American Comics Group’s Skeleton Hand, which includes the 1954 one-shot Clutching Hand, serves as a good introduction to ACG’s horror line. ACG can be credited for kicking off the horror boom by launching the first ongoing horror title, Adventures into the Unknown, in the fall of 1948. By 1952, the line had expanded to four titles, with Skeleton Hand being the last to begin publication. ACG’s horror line tended to take the form of adventure stories with a veneer of the supernatural, and many of ACG’s artists were journeymen from the 1940s, which gave the line a look and feel that harkens back to the earlier days of the Golden Age. Editor Richard Hughes was among the better horror comics writers, and while the art in Skeleton Hand may be pedestrian at times, the quality of the writing and ideas shows through. Clutching Hand, also scripted by Hughes, makes an interesting contrast as the artwork and stories showed a marked increase in gruesomeness, giving it a much more modern feel.
If Skeleton Hand appeals to you, Out of the Night is a good next step in the ACG line. Again scripted by Hughes, it features occasional appearances by Al Williamson and Frank Frazetta. At three volumes, it’s much more manageable than the truly intimidating (and as yet incomplete) reprints of Forbidden Worlds (16 projected volumes) and Adventures into the Unknown (21 projected volumes).
Stanley P. Morse’s fly-by-night Key Publications show a completely different approach to horror comics than ACG took. Featuring some of the most notorious covers of the Pre-Code era, Morse’s horror comics made up for his inability to put together E.C.-caliber material by pushing the bounds of good taste. PS Artbooks has collected Key’s Weird Mysteries in two lurid hardbound volumes, featuring vile stories about vile people doing vile things and meeting vile ends. Most of the stories are straight-up horror, but there are some interesting sci-fi pieces in the vein of E.C.’s sci-fi titles. Key’s most notable artist was Basil Wolverton, who is well represented here, along with the team of Ross Andru and Mike Esposito, and Tony Mortellaro, who later wound up at Marvel inking Spidey.
Charlton Comics didn’t go in for horror in a big way, with just two horror titles in This Magazine is Haunted, which was picked up from Fawcett, and The Thing. PS Artbooks has collected The Thing in two highly enjoyable hardbound volumes. Introduced and narrated by the unseen Thing, these are fun, pulpy horror stories. There is some spectacularly bad scripting early on, but the title pretty quickly finds its footing. The first volume relies heavily on Bob Forgione, who went on to work for Dell, Marvel and DC, and the second volume relies nearly as heavily on comics legend Steve Ditko, who has two complete solo issues. Bob Powell and E.C. contributor Sid Check also make appearances.
Four Color Fear reprints many of the best stories Harvey Comics published, but there are more gems to be found in the line. PS Artbooks has reprinted the whole shebang, which is available in hardback and trade paperback editions. Harvey’s horror titles can be neatly divided into two separate eras: Before Sid Jacobson and After Sid Jacobson. Jacobson came onboard in early 1953, and immediately began reshaping Harvey’s moribund horror titles. While E.C. rarely featured vampires and werewolves, and studiously avoided ghosts and the Devil, Harvey (along with many other publishers) frequently had all of them in every issue. Stories typically consisted of the protagonists perpetrating or enduring evil for several pages, all in service of a limp twist at the end (the guy sold his soul to the Devil in the first panel, and the Devil wound up with it in the end? You don’t say.). Jacobson, who was new to the industry, came in and looked to E.C. for inspiration. He recognized a rare talent in young artist Howard Nostrand, who could impeccably ape both Wally Wood and Jack Davis, and he became a devotee of Harvey Kurtzman’s stationary-camera technique. Jacobson also unleashed Lee Elias, who created some of the Pre-Code era’s most spectacularly gruesome covers in a style that suggests Johnny Craig inking Jack Davis pencils. Mad-inspired humorous horror stories began to appear in all four Harvey horror titles, with Witches Tales becoming a completely humorous horror comic in 1954. Black Cat Mystery and Chamber of Chills remained straight horror with the occasional humorous story, and Tomb of Terror moved into sci-fi horror, also with humor mixed in. With three slim TPB volumes, Tomb of Terror is the best entry point here. Nostrand and the legendary Bob Powell are both well-represented in Tomb of Terror, and occasional E.C. artist Sid Check makes a few appearances as well.
Marvel predecessor Atlas Comics was run by Martin Goodman, who never met a comics trend he wouldn’t jump on. Horror comics were no exception, and Atlas churned out nearly 20 titles spanning close to 400 issues. The now-defunct Marvel Masterworks series collected the Atlas horror titles Journey into Mystery, Menace and Strange Tales in beautiful dust-jacketed hardbound volumes. The relatively short-lived Menace is a good jumping-off point here. Why is that? Well, if you guessed Stan Lee at the helm as writer/editor, you win a No-Prize! Like the Sid Jacobson era at Harvey, Menace draws heavily on E.C. for inspiration, but instead of the Crypt Keeper, we get Stan the Man himself providing the second-person narration. The artwork is a cut above most of the other E.C. imitators as well. Russ Heath has several spectacular stories, Gene Colan has a good one that looks like he was paying a lot of attention to what Al Williamson was doing, and the hyper-prolific Joe Maneely has several stories that give a nod to Jack Davis. Fans of Silver Age Marvel will recognize plenty of other artists here, such as Joe Sinnott, John Romita, Bill Everett and George Tuska, and Bob Powell turns up yet again. The only real drawback to the Marvel Masterworks series is that the art has been cleaned up and recolored to within an inch of its life, which robs it of some of its original charm.
Where Not To Start:
Several publishers offer collections of a single artist’s work in Pre-Code horror. Bob Powell, Steve Ditko, Howard Nostrand, Joe Simon & Jack Kirby and Wally Wood all have books collecting their work. Although they are undoubtedly worthwhile (who wouldn’t want all of Wally Wood’s non-E.C. crime/horror stories collected in one place?), they tend to obscure the wild and wooly variety of Pre-Code horror. They’re best left to hardcore geeks.