Reading Room GHOST COMICS "Face in the Shroud"

It's been a while, boy fiends and ghoul friends...

..but during the season when ghosts and goblins dominate pop culture, we felt it was time to rise up out of the coffin and tell a sordid story!

As horror stories go, this tale from Fiction House's Ghost Comics #8 (1953) is fairly mild, but the art by the underrated Bill Benulis and Jack Abel has a couple of kool "camera angles" and storytelling tricks that other artists of the period like Alex Toth and Ross Andru were also experimenting with.

The writer's name has been lost to the mists of time.

BTW, this tale was recently-reprinted (for the first time in over 60 years) in IDW's Haunted Horror, but was oddly-attributed to Don Heck, even though the story is signed by Benulis and Abel in the first panel!

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Reading Room WORLD OF FANTASY "One Night"

Spaceship crewmen on shore leave at a distant port...

...sounds like a recipe for trouble and proof that some things never change!

Like many Baby Boomers (who, ironically, were this story's target audience of 6-13 year old children in 1956), Pete Cooper didn't plan for his retirement!

As a result, he made a gaffe that assured his fate would be exactly what he feared!

Illustrated by penciler Bob Forgione and inker Jack Abel, this never-reprinted morality play appeared in Atlas' World of Fantasy #2 (1956)!

The writer is unknown.

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Sci-Fi Art: a Graphic History

Wednesday Worlds of Wonder IRONJAW "Saga of IronJaw!" Conclusion

When Last We Left the Embodiment of Toxic Masculinity...

...sometime in a post-apocalyptic future, the barbarian known as IronJaw rescues a woman from a group of soldiers, slaughtering almost the entire squad!

But it's not due to altruism or s sense of justice, but simply horniness!

So while he indulges his lust, the unit's sole survivor reports to the king about their attacker...and the birthmark he bore which indicates the barbarian is, in fact, the supposedly-dead heir to the throne!
The current usurpers aren't happy with the news and order IronJaw captured ASAP...

This never-reprinted tale from Atlas/Seaboard's IronJaw #1 (1975) actually serves as a decent example of "world-building from scratch".
And, the writer intended the lead character to be a real asshole...

To say writer Michael Fleisher was "politically-incorrect" long before the phrase was coined is putting it mildly!
If you really want to take a look at how polarizing the guy was in the comics/sci-fi community, click HERE!
Warning: it ain't for the faint-hearted!
BTW, Fleisher ended up scripting extended runs of Marvel's Conan the Barbarian color comic and the Savage Sword of Conan b/w magazine from 1981 through 1985 as well as Marvel's comic adaptations of both the Arnold Schwarzenegger Conan movies!

Wednesday Worlds of Wonder IRONJAW "Saga of IronJaw!" Part 1

In the 1970s, everybody had at least one "barbarian" comic book!

Unlike most of them, set in the mists of "pre-history" millennia ago, this one was in a post-apocalyptic future!

To Be Concluded...

NEXT WEDNESDAY!

Written by Michael Fleisher, penciled by Mike Sekowsky, and inked by Jack Abel, this never-reprinted premiere from Atlas' IronJaw #1 (1975) features what has to be the most-misogynistic, least-moral, comics character ever to be classified as a "barbarian"!
He makes Robert E Howard's Conan look like a Boy Scout...and that's how he was intended to be!
It looks like this tale was originally-intended for use in the company's b/w magazine line, which didn't adhere to the Comics Code Authority.
But, for whatever reason, it was used to launch one of Atlas' first wave of  four-color comic titles, which required some rewriting/redrawing to cut back on the blood, gore and sexual content!

We'll go into more detail next week!

Holiday Reading Room JOURNEY INTO UNKNOWN WORLDS "Lady Who Believed"

If you liked this take on Kris Kringle...

....you'll enjoy this (somewhat) gentler tale of him as a Christmas crime-fighter and defender of the innocent!

This never-reprinted tale is from Atlas' Journey into Unknown Worlds #34 (1955), the first issue published under the restrictive auspices of the Comics Code Authority.

I wonder if it was originally-meant to be as gruesome as EC's legendary "...and All Through the House..."?

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Jingle Belle

The Whole Package

by Paul (Harley Quinn) Dini

and Friends

Monday Mars Madness WORLD OF FANTASY "What Went Wrong?"

You think you've prepared for every contingency...but is that truly possible?

Can anyone always account for the "human" factor?

Illustrated by Bob Forgione, whose credits at Timely/Atlas included a number of sci-fi stories including an issue of Speed Carter: SpaceMan, this never-reprinted tale from Atlas' World of Fantasy #1 (1956) is one of those "average guy inadvertently saves the world" tales that writers (in this case, unidentified) love to tell.

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Mars in the Movies

A History

Reading Room SUPERNATURAL THRILLERS "Headless Horseman Rides Again!" Conclusion

We Have Already Seen...

Upstate New York crime lord "Bones" Bullinger murdered reporter Matt Carter to stop the newspaperman's investigations into the underworld.

But Carter's widow, Kim, and his best friend, private eye Duke Durbano, kept the investigation going.

So "Bones" hired NYC hitmen to kill the pair.

The assassins failed (though they don't know it) and "Bones" (in an elaborate disguise) is about to eliminate them...

Written by Gary Friedrich at the same time as he was co-creating the flaming-skulled motorcyclist known as Ghost Rider, this tale from Marvel's Supernatural Thrillers #6 (1973) was left open-ended with the possibility of the Horseman returning as a "Spirit of Vengeance" to deal with other criminals.

Note: 1973-75 featured the appearances of several avenging supernatural characters including Ghost Rider, Son of Satan, Man-Thing, Scarecrow (aka Straw Man), and the return of The Spectre in extremely-gruesome (for the Comics Code era) tales.

Illustrated by penciler George Tuska and inker Jack Abel, both of whom worked in comics during the horror comics era and were quite familiar with how to tell a terrifying tale!

Be Back on Halloween for a special Treat!

(No Trick, we promise!)

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