Horror Comics

I'll stand corrected on the computer color separation issue and won't argue that Pacific Comics often fell on the garish side of things in their recoloring jobs. I also don't particularly mind it. It looks like a very specific period in comics to me, which I remember fondly.

And if you want crazy colors, check out the Baxter paper reprint books that Marvel did around the time of MARVEL PREMIERE. Some wacky stuff going on there.

Oh, and horror-wise: STRANGE EMBRACE. Any good? I have a copy I got cheap years ago and lost in my labyrinthine 'to read' assemblage. Should I dig it out?

The British girls comic "Misty" owns this thread, though the fact that its contents remain unreprinted means I can think of them as being wayyyyyy scarier than they actually were. Not sure what I would now make of the one where a girl is rendered catatonic after (implicit) gang-rape by garden gnomes.

Preacher is not horror. Sandman is goth but not horror. Alan Moore Swamp Thing is goth but not horror. Hellblazer is not horror.

Apart from Misty, all those EC-style titles win.

Misty is fantastic. I have bought a couple of annuals and (aside from spotting Brit luminaries like John Ridgeway) they are flat-out brilliant. Actually, all girls comics are worth re-evaluation.

Alan Moore Swamp Thing is goth but not horror

lol waht

"not horror". right

http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRI3pfLwuCppilNvmop4UL6fIns6KBohQgIFDoa0XwLg4ruUJfKKE0t2G5Duw

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_OpcKuKK7bVM/TQTp-0syktI/AAAAAAAAAEQ/efL94TBiJWg/s1600/swamp29_08.jpg

Moore's Swamp Thing started out as horror, but that was only roughly the first third of his run.

Matt, STRANGE EMBRACE is amazing, rescue it from the stack

Will do, once I get research reading under control.

It's funny, but I've heard people put forth that Moore's on SWAMP THING wasn't horror. They're completely wrong. It turned into outsider SF, sure, but before that? Yeah, cringing horror.

yeah I think the horror stuff (zombies, possession, monsters, ghosts, serial killers, werewolves, vampires, demons, satanic cultists, etc.) is very much front-and-center until the "battle in heaven" and Swampy goin off into outer space.

this showed up in my FB feed today

http://www.raggedclaws.com/home/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/l-b-cole_uncanny-tales-n23_aug1954.jpg

THAT is a cover. Thought it was Kurtzman, but what I could dig up credits Russ Heath on the cover. Beyootiful.

Manga has barely had a mention here so I'll recommend The Drifting Classroom.

I think it's LB cole?

xp

russ heath sounds right - it's too well-drawn to be LB Cole, and it's not Kurtzman's style at all (and besides, he was working exclusively for EC at the time, never drew 'serious' covers for any comics publisher, didn't partic approve of horror comics anyway, even EC's, and only ever produced humour material for Atlas eg 'Hey Look')

heath went on to work with kurtzman on 'little annie fanny', and actually lived in the playboy mansion for a while!

btw, here's a link to a repro of ditko's most famous warren strip, 'collector's edition' - just look at the rendering!

http://johnnybacardi.blogspot.co.uk/2008/02/heres-that-steve-ditko-story-i.html

It's possible that the Vicar is being satirically rockist. I take the point that Sandman stands out a little, but it's an open discussion whether this is because it's added to lists like this to sex them up a bit, or because there is an indie resisitance to adding the popular to the good.

Misty certainly appears to be the real thing, though.

I suspect I am the only person in the world that loves this, but Mark Millar's run on Swamp Thing, with art by Phil Hester and Kim DeMulder, is really great horror.

You're not wrong, it's a good run.

I would have called Joe Maneely on that cover, but I wouldn't put money on it.

def not maneely, his work was far more 'open' (ie not nearly so many solid blacks, and far more linework.) the cross-hatching over the moon looks v. like heath's work at this time, p sure that's the correct credit.

that ditko story is gorgeous!

I sometimes forget exactly how good Russ Heath was (well, is.) The omnipresent blacks and oppression made me think of Kurtzman.

Still waiting eagerly for those EC artist-oriented editions to start coming out from Fantagraphics.

Yeath, Heath is such a superb draughtsman - esp love the duotone strips he did for Warren in the 60s and 70s, and those sexy humour strips that appeared in National Lampoon in the early 70s;

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_ZxirBv0BY6A/SdopCBYLb_I/AAAAAAAAAlc/qSkPMf8k5tU/s400/25+National+Lampoon+Encyclopedia+of+Humor+1973.jpg

that ditko story is gorgeous!

yeah this is amazing - thx for the link

russ heath sounds right - it's too well-drawn to be LB Cole, and it's not Kurtzman's style at all (and besides, he was working exclusively for EC at the time, never drew 'serious' covers for any comics publisher, didn't partic approve of horror comics anyway, even EC's, and only ever produced humour material for Atlas eg 'Hey Look')

― Ward Fowler, Wednesday, August 8, 2012 2:16 AM (12 hours ago)

yeah I was going based on the blog it was posted to, but they probably just misidentified an uncredited cover. cole's stuff is all over the place, and the cool things about that uncanny tales cover overlap with his better qualities (poster-like starkness, reliance on color). but the water detail def gives it away.

here are a couple cool cole covers

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/801743-MaskComics1.jpg

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/592785841_o.jpg

don't want to img bomb the thread, here's a stunning non-horror cole

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/2072893671_1f7f4e5e70_b.jpg

anyway cole could be crude but he could also kick ass

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/Mask2.jpg
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/terrorsofthejungle20fc.jpg
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/BLUEBOLT113.jpg
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/SPOOKSUSP25.jpg
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/ghostlyweird122.jpg
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/1231507-suspensecomics10.jpg
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/terrifyingtales13.jpg
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/1192522-BlueBoltWeird23114Front.jpg
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/947885-gw120.jpg
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/629647-terrors18_small.jpg

Great cover design, but one drawback -- at first I thought those footprints were, uh, gross objects falling out of Catsidekick's body. xpost

I guess that's another giveaway on that uncanny tales cover, cole's depth of field is not that well-developed. it doesn't matter much when he does stuff like that mask cover, which really pops.

also if cole did that uncanny tales cover the moon would be bleeding into the sea and the boat would be shaped like a psychedelic banana of death

here's a heath cover for uncanny tales, actually credited so we don't have to debate

what happened to harry? dunno, looks like he's into acid now

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/Uncanny48Heath.jpg

Holy shit, that one is amazing. I want a big poster of it!

sorry carl agatha if I turned this into the horror comics cover thread

Wow, those are great, great, great. Why are covers from sixty year old comics so much braver than what we're getting today?

all the discussion of swamp thing reminded me of my fave man-thing issue, night of the laughing dead, where the ghost of a clown who commits suicide helps man-thing defend hippies from rednecks

http://powerrecord.blogspot.com/2007/11/man-thing-night-of-laughing-dead.html

and that power records blog reminds me of the greatest thing to ever happen to 6 year old me

a story of DRACULA the WOLFMAN and FRANKENSTEIN

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/storyofdracula01.gif

http://powerrecord.blogspot.com/2008/05/story-of-dracula-wolfman-and.html

sorry carl agatha if I turned this into the horror comics cover thread

― vincent black shadow giallo (Edward III), Wednesday, August 8, 2012 9:52 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It's okay! It will take me a million years to get around to reading all the recommendations that have caught my fancy so far, and these covers are pretty cool.

oh yeah, cole's work def has an elemental power and kick to it - see also ppl like jay disbrow:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4PAfibQR8xg/TgCiXOTshYI/AAAAAAAAR98/-KW6Kkx_AO8/s1600/1308664042scan0033.jpg

and matt fox:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VSiKZP_C_bw/TonwEP4kiCI/AAAAAAAAAJE/nBXDdEuL_lI/s1600/02_wtcov_1946_07.jpg

these ppl are def a big influence on those underground artists, like rory hayes or s clay wilson, who were well into their horror comix

Yeah, I'm sorry I questioned you on the whole computer coloring thing. I bow to your much superior knowledge of comics history.

And now I have a ton more names to look up and get into. There are worse fates.

lol p sure you and sic and forks and and others can kick my ass when it comes to knowledge of 'modern' comics

but the point, as always, is SHARING this shit

keep meaning to mention on this thread that kirby's SPIRIT WORLD mag has just been given the hardcover reprint treatment by DC, complete w/ the unpublished second issue. first issue featured some of kirby's last collage pieces - here's one of the originals (in the mag it was printed in blue ink only!):

http://www.whatifkirby.com/sites/default/files/comicpages/sw1_pgs2-3_a.jpg?1279079331

That was what, very early 1970s? Run it today and people wouldn't bat an eyelash.

these ppl are def a big influence on those underground artists, like rory hayes or s clay wilson, who were well into their horror comix

― Ward Fowler, Wednesday, August 8, 2012 6:48 PM

if you took the 10¢ off the cover of cole's mask #1 and told me it came out of SF in '68 I'd believe it

yeah I saw that Kirby book in the store a couple weeks ago. pretty nuts.

While we're repping for Swamp Thing runs (and I agree that Millar's run was good, and among his best work), I'll go ahead and make this my 100th recommendation on ILC of Veitch's solo run, which was solidly horrific in that typically surreal Veitch fashion. And it crossed over pretty heavily with the (previously mentioned) Delano run on Hellblazer, which collectively makes for one of my all-time favorite chunks of comics.

Getting back to Carl's first question, I have this and it's a pretty good compendium of a lot of type of stuff that's being discussed. Ranges from 1940s to 21st century. You could probably find things you like in it and then explore futher.

http://www.amazon.com/Mammoth-Book-Best-Horror-Comics/dp/0786720727/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1344537217&sr=8-1&keywords=best+horror+comics

and that power records blog reminds me of the greatest thing to ever happen to 6 year old me

a story of DRACULA the WOLFMAN and FRANKENSTEIN

I checked this out from the library on a regular basis. I can still repeat lines of dialogue.

xpost yeah MM, SPIRIT WORLD is fairly early into jack's 70s DC stint (so still inked by vince coletta, unfortunately.) there was also the companion title, IN THE DAYS OF THE MOB, and a complete SOUL LOVE magazine prepared but never printed, and which sadly isn't in this new h/c - i'm guessing that jack's attempt at an african-american/blaxploitation romance anthology wld prob need a fair amount of contextualising, these days:

http://images.ha.com/lf?set=path%5B4%2F2%2F4%2F8%2F4248385%5D%2Csizedata%5B450x2000%5D&call=url%5Bfile%3Aproduct.chain%5D

i seem to remember being p disappointed by that Mammoth Horror collection, when i browsed through it - v poor black and white repro of out of copyright material and duff newer stuff. it's a shame, cos the Mammoth Book of Crime Comics, edited by Paul Gravett, is really excellent. In the UK at least these titles have been widely remaindered, btw.

one last post - wish i knew a lot more abt non-english language horror comics. in the uk in the early 70s there was a short-lived full colour magazine called DRACULA that reprinted some p choice, v psych horror strips by ppl like estaban moroto and this guy, enrik sio, who was doing some wild stuff with colour:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-aF-Ofat7rvw/Tuh9wmKt64I/AAAAAAAAEgQ/QOmwm5PGPhg/s1600/Enric-Sio-6_baja.jpg