Counddown to Halloween 2024 HORRIFIC "Blood Lust"

Comic Media's primary horror-host, The Teller, passes narrating duties to Victor Vampire... 

...and it's not just because this is a tale about blood-sucking!

Yes, it's another host's origin story, illustrated by Marty Elkin, from Comic Media's Horrific #12 (1952)!

Trivia:

It's never been reprinted or reworked, as a number of other Horrific and Weird Terror stories have been!
The writer's identity has been lost to the mists of time, due to the disappearance of the records of the long-defunct company!

Join us next week as we present another tale your grandparents didn't want your parents to see!

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The Great Comic Book Scare and How It Changed America

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CountDown to Halloween 2024 HORRIFIC "Hating Corpse" aka WEIRD TERROR "Double Murder" aka HORROR TALES "Corpse That Lives!"

Sometimes a title just doesn't do the story justice...

...as this terror-tale from Comic Media's Horrific #4 (1953) aptly demonstrates!

When it was reprinted in the same publisher's Weird Terror #13 (1954), the title and opening caption text were altered...

...but nothing else (except the coloring, which was a normal matter in reprints) was changed!

The original creatives are unknown.

Because the Comics Code Authority had strict rules about gore and horror content, it couldn't be reprinted in comic books between 1954 and 1971.
So it was redrawn by Oscar Stepancich, using the exact same script, for Eerie Publications' b/w magazine Horror Tales #V4N7 (1969).

Which version do you prefer?

Join us next week as we present another tale your grandparents didn't want your parents to see!

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The Great Comic Book Scare and How It Changed America

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CountDown to Halloween 2024 HORRIFIC "The Teller!"

A 1950s horror comic just wasn't complete without a host...

...so here's a slew of the crew from Comic Media horror titles Weird Terror and Horrific (our focus for this year's Countdown to Halloween blogathon), along with their ringleader, the debonair Teller (no relation to legendary Las Vegas-based magician Penn's silent partner)!

How many horror hosts narrate their own origin story?

While the writer for this never-reprinted scare-story from Comic Media's Horrific #8 (1953) is unknown, the art is by the extremely-underrated Don Heck, who did some of his best work for Comic Media's twin terror-titles Horrific and Weird Terror!
He would later be one of the primary illustrators in the Silver Age of Comics working on extended runs of such Marvel series as Iron Man, Ant-Man/Giant-Man and the Wasp, Avengers, Spider-Man, Captain Marvel, and X-Men!

Join us next week as we present another tale your grandparents didn't want your parents to see!

And Have a look at the other Countdown to Halloween 2024 Participants
HERE!

Hearts and Horror TOMB OF TERROR "Rift of the Maggis" / HORROR TALES "Gift of Horror"

We've presented the classic O Henry story "Gift of the Magi" several times at True Love Comics Tales...

...but this version from Harvey's Tomb of Terror #11 (1953) ain't the heartwarming tale of eternal love!

Written and illustrated by the highly-underrated Howard Nostrand,  it has a kool EC Comics vibe thanks to artist Howard's stylistic similarity to Jack Davis!

Due to the restrictions of the Comics Code, the story couldn't be reprinted without partially-rewriting and totally-redrawing it!

So, Eerie Publications  handed it to artist Oscar Fraga with the script reused...verbatim in Horror Tales V7N1 (1975)!

Note: b/w magazines weren't covered by the Comics Code, so Oscar could have gone even gorier...

Happy Valentine's Day!

INVASION! A Twice-Told Tale!

One of the best-known "Invasion from Mars" tales is Orson Welles' 1938 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 that the original version had never been reprinted!

Here's a page-by-page comparison!
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 (in that form) 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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Countdown to Halloween 2023 MONSTER TIMES Unpublished TALES FROM THE CRYPT Cover Art

Here's a Halloween treat...no trick for you guys!

Control-Click on the art to enlarge!

The centerfold from Monster Times #10, featuring the original, unpublished version of the cover for EC's Tales from the Crypt #38 (1953) by Jack Davis!

The published version was censored by EC itself because of the ongoing Seduction of the Innocent "comics cause juvenile delinquency" mania sweeping the US at the time...

...and, while this one is fairly scary, the original was waaaaaay gorier!

Here's the original art for the uncensored, unpublished version...

Note the rubber cement stains on the lower right-hand side of the art!
That's because this "patch" was pasted over that area...

...resulting in this toned-down version...

...which was then photographed at the printer and colored!

When the Monster Times presented this never-seen version, they also arranged to help release it (along with another censored EC cover)...

...as posters!

For the record, this is the published version of the Vault of Horror cover shown above...

Trivia: the reprints of these issues of Tales and Vault both use the uncensored versions of these covers!

Bonus: Here's the advertised Tales from the Crypt poster in all its gory glory!

(Compare it with the published cover at the top of this post!)

This concludes our Countdown to Halloween 2023 presentation!

We hope you've enjoyed reading it as much as we did sharing it with you!

And don't forget to check out the other participants in the

Countdown to Halloween 2023 Blogathon!

They're all Kool Ghouls!