Space Hero Saturdays PLANET COMICS "Fero: Planet Detective"

This Halloween Season, We Give You the Truth about a Major Threat to Humanity!

We thought now is the right time to reveal the awesome secret about vampires and werewolves kept from humanity for centuries!

They're from Pluto!

Really!

While Fero did return in the next issue of Planet Comics, the "vampires and werewolves from Pluto" plotline didn't!

In fact, Fero was, without explanation, now an "interplanetary detective" in a future version of New York City, and stayed there for the remainder of his four-issue run.
This premiere appearance in Fiction House's Planet Comics #5 (1940) is credited to "Allison Brant", a pseudonym used by writer/artist Al Bryant who did almost 400 comics stories during his decade-long career.

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Grimm Fairy Tales presents Vampires and Werewolves

Frightful Friday Fun DRACULA Dracula One-Page Tales #1

While the English-language reprints of the 1970s Spanish Dracula magazine didn't have any Dracula...

...the original Spanish title had these one-page jokes on the back cover!

Both England's New English Library and America's Warren Magazines (who licensed the NEL translated version) left out these entertaining pieces...despite the fact no translation was needed!

Written and illustrated by Alfonso Figueras, these one-pagers now make their American debut!

Be here every Friday in October for more kool vampire humor!

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Dracula

Trade Paperback

(from 1971, featuring the first six issues of the translated-from-Spanish Dracula magazine...but not these Dracula humor strips...nor any Dracula content!)
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Halloween Reading Room DOCTOR HORROR

Let's Begin the Month with Horror, Specifically the Self-Named Doctor Horror...

...who made only one appearance...but what an appearance!

If this had been produced in the 1960s, I'd say the artist had gotten some bad weed before producing the latest issue of his underground comix.
In fact, it appeared in Lev Gleason's Captain Battle Comics #2 (1941), illustrated (and probably written) by Don Rico and read by impressionable young kids throughout America!
Publisher Lev Gleason had already introduced comics' first major super-villain, The Claw, in Silver Streak Comics, and it's possible he posed the suggestion to his artists that they come up with something to top The Claw!
Or, it's possible that with a deadline looming and pages to fill, Gleason assigned Rico to come up with a story in a very brief time frame!
We'll never know the answer.

But that shouldn't stop you from enjoying this startling, surreal story!

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Taylor Illustrated History
Horror Comics
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Wednesday Worlds of Wonder HP LOVECRAFT'S THE CALL OF CTHULHU "Call of Cthulhu" Part 1

  If we're going to present Lovecraft...

...let's start with the seminal tale of cosmic horror by H P!

To be Continued Next Wednesday!
Adapted by Esteban Maroto, who did both script (in Spanish) and art for Editorial Bruguera in 1982.

Howver, Bruguera went bankrupt before publication.

Maroto shopped the material around and it finally appeared in Ediciones B's Capitán Trueno magazine in 1986.
Here are a couple of pages from that adaptation...

In 1990, a new American comics publisher, CrossPlains, made a deal with Maroto to publish the project in English, with the translation supplied by Roy Thomas.

But, due to budget limitations, they printed it in b/w.
That's the version we're running here.
It's been re-published since with another translation, but still in b/w.

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Call of Cthulhu
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Twice-Told Tale of Terror INVASION!

One of the best-known Mars invasion tales is Orson Welles' War of the Worlds radio show...

Edited version

...which this twice-told tale "updates" to the television era!

But, it's radically-altered from it's first appearance, and the original version had never been reprinted!

First the toned-down version, then the original, scarier version...

Original version

 Note in the original version, both the wife and singer on tv show a lot more cleavage!

Edited version

Original version

Again, more cleavage in the original version...

Edited version

Original version

Oddly enough, the wife's cleavage is unchanged, but the look of terror in the last panel is toned down!

Edited version

Original version

Panel four in the original version is much more gruesome than the edited version. 
Note the dialogue balloon is unchanged, even though there's no actual weapons fire in the edited version!

Edited version

 This last page is radically-different! Prepare yourself!

Ready?

Proceed...but remember, I warned you...

Original version

Wow!

The edited pages were from Harvey's Race for the Moon #1 (1958), which was reprinted in Harvey's Shocking Tales Digest #1 (1981)

The original, never-reprinted, story was from Harvey's Witches' Tales #21 (1953)

As you can see, the Comics Code Authority insisted on some major redos, including most of the last page!

What do you think, fans?

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The Chilling Archives of Horror Comics: Volume 2

Bob Powell's

Terror
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Monday Monster Madness MONSTERS TO LAUGH WITH / MONSTERS UNLIMITED & MONSTER MADNESS

Besides comic books, Marvel made occasional forays into the b/w magazine market...

..with this seven-issue 1965-66 title being their longest-lasting Silver Age series!
(Note: with the second issue, Stan Lee's name was added to the cover as a selling point!)

Other mags had used the gimmick of captioning old movie and tv photos for a feature in a magazine...but never an entire magazine!

At this point, the book changed it's title...

...nobody's really sure why, but it seemed to work!

One of the koolest aspects was that Stan Lee wrote the captions...

...bringing the same kitchy vaudville-level humor that he used for decades in Marvel's humor comics!

I'm not sure if declining sales or Stan Lee's increasing workload caused the cancellation!
(Besides his writing/editing duties, he was now the public face of Marvel, giving interviews, making appearances on tv, even touring college campuses where Marvel Comics were the "in" thing!)
In 1973, when Marvel unleashed an entire line of b/w magazines, ranging from horror to kung fu to Planet of the Apes...

...they revived the concept, still written by Stan Lee!

...but this time, the book was the least-successful of the b/w line!
It was re-tooled into a Famous Monsters of Filmland/Castle of Frankenstein format, adding features about both old and current films and tv shows...

...but the alteration didn't help and the book was cancelled.

Marvel tried again, later that year with a Famous Monsters of Filmland/Castle of Frankenstein clone called Monsters of the Movies, which lasted for eight regular issues and an Annual.

Starting next Monday, through the rest of October, you'll be seeing the best (IMHO) of Monsters to Laugh With and Monsters Unlimited!

Don't Miss It!