Halloween Horror DO YOU BELIEVE IN NIGHTMARES? "Man Who Crashed into Another Era"

Here's a short story featuring dinosaurs, illustrated by Steve Ditko...

...just before his stint on Charlton's Gorgo!

Ok, so it was the old "It's only a dream" scenario.

You got to admit, it's well-done!

From St John's Do You Believe in Nightmares? #1 (1957), a short-lived anthology produced just before St John went out of business.

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Halloween Horror FANTASTIC "Dinosaur in Grandfather's Barn"

You know how kids are always "seeing monsters" in closets, garages and/or barns?

Well, maybe you should listen to them once in a while...

This tale from Youthful's Fantastic #8 (1952) is illustrated by long-time comic artist Henry Kiefer, a fine arts-trained illustrator who's best known for his work on Classics Illustrated.

The writer is unknown.

BTW, despite being #8, this is actually the first issue of Fantastic.

Before this, it was Captain Science!

(And the lead tale in this issue was the last Captain Science story.)

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Halloween Horror TALES OF HORROR "Beast from the Deep"

The Halloween Season has Begun...

 ...so let's kick off the celebration with the only comic adaptation of one of Ray Bradbury's best-known stories (albeit uncredited by the publisher), from Minoan/Toby's Tales of Horror #7 (1953), based on the short story "The FogHorn".

Wow!

The comic's printing job is terrible, even for the low standards of comic books of the era!

For the sake of clarity, we're presenting the b/w original art for six of the seven pages!

Missing Page

Ironically, the comic tale is a far more faithful adaptation of the story than the movie Beast from 20,000 Fathoms which came out at the same time!

Though the writer of the comic is unknown, the artist was John Rosenberger, who spent the 1950s to late 1970s doing work in every comics genre from romance to superhero to horror for almost every publisher in the field!

This was one of the last comic adaptations of Bradbury's work in the 1950s.

The earlier ones were done by the legendary EC Comics crew, and initially, were also uncredited and unpaid...until Ray Bradbury found out!

HEREs an article detailing what happened next.

And Be Back Next Friday for Another Startling Saurian Story from the 1950s!

CountDown to Halloween 2024 WEIRD TERROR "Wage-Earners" aka TALES OF VOODOO "Devil's Zombie"

There's lots of talk this election year about "job creators"!

But the wise politician (and everybody else) should worry about the ones on the other end of the food chain, as Henry Mason discovers...

This tawdry tale from Comic Media's Weird Horror #1 (1951) was illustrated by C A Winter.

The writer is unknown.

C A Winter aka Charles Allan Winter aka Chuck Winter was a major contributor to comics from 1939 to 1957, doing penciling and inking on several hundred stories in every genre from horror to sci-fi to funny animal at almost every company.

Before comics, he worked in advertising.
Though it couldn't be reprinted, due to the restrictions of the Comics Code Authority, which had cracked down on such over-the-top material after the "Seduction of the Innocent" controversy of the 1950s, the script was re-used verbatim in a redrawn version for inclusion in a b/w magazine...where the Comics Code didn't apply!

Golden/Silver Age artist Dick Ayers rendered this story for Eerie Publications' b/w magazine Tales of Voodoo #8 (V3N3) in 1970, just before the Comics Code loosened up restrictions on various monsters and bloodletting in color comics...which would've permitted reprinting the original comic tale in a four-color comic book!

We hope you enjoyed our contribution to Countdown to halloween 2024!
And, please, if you're over 18, avoid letting our country go to hell...and VOTE on November 5th!!!

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 & Horror MENACE "Fake!"

Remember the old adage "Don't judge a book by it's cover"?

 Here's the codicil; "It goes both ways"!

Illustrated by Al Eadeh, this tale from Atlas' Menace #10 (1954) follows the classic trope of golddigger tripped up, not by her own greed, but by the fact her husband (who still loves her) is not even human!

Remember, the target audience for horror (as opposed to romance) comics was 8-14 year old boys, to whom girls were "yukky".

They were also the audience for whom Lois Lane , the nosy reporter who was always trying to either expose Superman's secret identity or trick the Man of Steel into marrying her, was the typical woman!

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