Kirby Reading Room / Tales Twice Told BLACK MAGIC "A Beast is In the Streets!"

We Showed You the 1970s Redrawn for Extra Goriness Version On Tuesday...

...now here's the original by...do we really have to tell you?

Penciled and inked by Jack Kirby, this story from Prize's Black Magic #25 (1953) may have been scripted by Kirby as well.

Unfortunately, records are incomplete, and we will likely never know!

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Simon & Kirby Library: Horror!

(which includes this story)
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Reading Room / Tales Twice Told TERROR TALES "Flesh Ripper"

We Present Another Pair of Stories with the Same Script...

...drawn two decades apart, this time with the re-worked, gorier, version first!

Taking the script almost verbatim from the original 1953 four-color comic book, Argentinian artist Martha Barnes totally-redrew the story, using different "camera angles" and lighting effects as well as re-imagining the visuals for the creature in Eerie Publication's Terror Tales V6N6 (1974)!
It's damn near impossible to figure out where the tale was derived from!
But you'll see the original version...by one of the "Big Names" in the field...on Thursday!
Note: Martha Barnes was the premier female horror/crime/war illustrator in the Argentinian comics industry from the late 1940s to the late 1970s.
Besides Eerie Publications, she also did work for another American publisher, DC Comics, on G.I Combat!

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The Worst of Eerie Publications
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Reading Room / Tales Twice Told STRANGE WORLDS "Sabotage on Space Station 1"

Tuesday, we presented a 1970s tale with a 1950s flavor...

...now you'll see where that "flavor" came from!

Damn, we humans are good at this sort of world-saving stuff, eh?

This Norman Nodel-illustrated tale from Avon's Strange Worlds #7 (1952) could have been the basis of an episode of Space: 1999 or Classic Star Trek with just a couple of tweaks!

As to why it was reworked...

Eerie Publications had been using photostats and negatives from defunct comics companies as the source material for their b/w magazine line.

About a year in, they started using South American artists eager to break into the comics market and American artists like Dick Ayers and Chic Stone (who were losing work as the Silver Age ended and comics companies cut back their lines) to re-do old stories with a more contemporary style.

Some illustrators totally-redid the art, using new "camera angles" and clothing/technology designs reflecting contemporary tastes.

In this particular case, artist Cirilo Munoz just lightboxed and re-inked the Nodel artwork!

Editor Carl (Golden Age Human Torch) Burgos eliminated the opening captions and modified a couple of captions and dialogue balloons, but otherwise left the unknown writer's original script intact.

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Mysteries in Space

The Best of DC Science Fiction Comics
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Reading Room / Tales Twice Told WEIRD WORLDS "Terror on Station One!"

Here's an early 1970s sci-fi space opera tale...

...that reads and "feels" like a 1950s sci-fi space opera story!
And there's a good reason for that!

Wonder why this Cirillo Munoz-rendered tale from Eerie Publications' Weird Worlds V1N10 (1970) feels so...out of date in an early 1970s magazine?

Perhaps because it's almost a line-for-line, panel for panel, re-do of a 1950s story!

Be here Thursday to see the original four-color version by a different artist!

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The Worst of Eerie Publications
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Reading Room / Tales Twice Told AMAZING ADULT FANTASY "Why Won't They Believe Me?"

Stan (the Man) Lee felt a good story...

...such as this one from Atlas' Amazing Adult Fantasy #7 (1961), was worth repeating...

Scripted by Lee and illustrated by his Spider-Man co-creator Steve Ditko, the tale was typical of the "gotcha" snap-ending stories made popular in mass culture by Rod Serling on The Twilight Zone, but done a decade earlier in comics by the EC Comics horror and sci-fi/fantasy books (though usually with more gore).

Lee re-used (and expanded) the plot almost a decade later when he re-did it with another Silver Age legend, as you'll see Thursday...

Reading Room / Tales Twice Told BLACK MAGIC "Buried Alive!"

Tuesday, We Presented the Later Version of This Tale...

...now, we show you the earlier version created by one (possibly two) Silver Age comics legends!

Illustrated by Steve (Spider-Man/Doctor Strange) Ditko, the writer of this tale from Prize's Black Magic Comics V4N4 (1954) is unknown.

It could be either Jack (King) Kirby or Joe Simon, or both, since they were the editor/art director team of the Simon & Kirby Studios which packaged Black Magic and several other books for Prize Comics!
But we don't know for certain!
(And if I have to explain who Jack Kirby is, you're not a regular reader of this blog!)
One thing we are certain of...while both stories used the same script (with a couple of modified word balloons), Ditko's version runs six pages, while Munoz's remake is seven pages long!
Don't believe me?
Click HERE and compare!

Which one do you, dear reader, believe is an example of better storytelling?

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Steve Ditko Archives Vol 1

Strange Suspense

(Which reprints this story...but in black and white)

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Reading Room / Tales Twice Told WEIRD "The Dead Live"

 Usually, in "Tales Twice Told" we present the original story first...

...but this time, we're going with the later, reworked version from the same script first!

Illustrated (or is that re-illustrated by Cirilo Munoz, this tale from Eerie Publications' Weird V8N4 (1974) is a re-working of a story from 20 years earlier that, up until then, had not been reprinted...despite the fact it had been illustrated by a major Silver-Age artist!
Trivia: that original tale remained hidden under the cowbwebs of history until 2008.over a half century later, and only in black and white!
But you'll see that story from 1954, in brilliant color, right here on Thursday!

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The Worst of Eerie Publications

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