Meet the Cowled Lady

And now for the last post of March 2010! From the November 1953 issue of Web of Mystery #12, it's time to meet the cowled lady! Yes, it's unlikely you've read a goofier monster story than this one all month here, seriously! FYI: don't forget about THOIA's "Deadly Duplicates" contest going on until midnight Wednesday (see our previous post--- "6 of Me on the Prowl" for all the details!)

Has Max Cheney (aka "The Drunken Severed Head") finally really lost his head?!! He's just uploaded his first horror comic scan post, a great Skeates and Acala werewolf tale from DC's March 1973 issue of Secrets of the Sinister House #10, click HERE for Castle Curse!

6 of Me on the Prowl

Today's Ace tale comes from the Nov. '53 issue of Baffling Mysteries #18, and begs the question: "What would YOU do with 6 deadly duplicates of yourself?" The best comment response wins a special THOIA treat. And sorry, THOIA tee shirts are SOLD OUT, but I promise this will be a damn fine prize none the less!

So let's hear it--- from all 6 of you!

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Baffling Bonus Quickie (same issue)

PLUS! Max Cheney (aka The Drunken Severed Head) interviews 9 horror bloggers, including myself, nominated in this years RONDO'S for "Best Horror Blog of 2009." And not a single one of us took this Q&A seriously.... click HERE!

The Man Germ / The Things!

Jay A. from PA requested some Harvey horror while inquiring about a story he vaguely remembers where "some dude travels through the bloodstream of a giant." I hope The Man Germ fits the bill! Plus-- rounding out the post with a pest infested tale of rampaging insect terror... both stories come from the obnoxious Oct. '52 issue of Chamber of Chills #13.

NEXT: "Do you know what horror--- REAL horror--- means?

The Re-Post with Iron Teeth: The Gorbals Vampire Myth

There's an endless amount of confusion swirling around in the news lately about The Gorbals Vampire origin (thanks BBC), as well as recent misinformation on a couple of worthy comic book related blogs. Wading through it all it became obvious to me: time to drag out the Hy Fleishman tale "The Vampire with Iron Teeth" again.

I originally posted the scans below here at THOIA last year (CLICK HERE for that post), yet somehow over 6 months later this still isn't enough proof that a bunch of comic book spooked school kids in 1954 started The Gorbals Vampire legend (?!) People for years have blamed horror comics on this now famous incident, the same incident that sparked the enforcement of new comic book censorship laws in Scotland. But equally lame are the conspiracy kooks who for decades have claimed that "vampires are real" and that no such comic book story about a "vampire with iron teeth" ever existed, so this lingering doubt in Glasgow persisted, only adding more fuel to the vampire myth. It seems wild to me that until I posted this story back in Sept '09, no one up to that point in 60+ years had ever managed to find a copy of this comic book or come forth with it as proof--- I even have the thanks of one John Maclean of the Glasgow Press who says THOIA's post officially puts an end to all the theories that have plagued Glasgow for over half a century!

So if you're unaware of the full, fascinating story, CLICK HERE first, and then check out the scans. Seriously people, there are no such things as vampires. And this did not originate from a horror movie, or an EC story... though it could have possibly come from the bible, right?

Nah. It came from the 1953 issue of Dark Mysteries #15.








UPDATE: Artist Hy Fleishman's daughter Roberta has left a comment at the BBC Radio Scotland Blog:

At 12:27pm on 25 Mar 2010, Roberta Fleishman wrote:

I was first informed of this 1954 story last fall. I was in contact with John Maclean of the Glasgow Press who was convinced that a comic book story for which my father was the artist - "The Vampire With Iron Teeth", Dark Mysteries #15, 1953 - was the source for the hysteria that day. Whether or not the comic book story was the impetus for the response by the school children, the reaction to censor comic books was no different than the same response in America during the 1954 Kefauver hearings in the United States Senate. Also Steve Banes in his blog http://thehorrorsofitall.blogspot.com/ comments about the connection between the gorbals vampire and the 1953 Dark Mysteries story. I think there is more to the connection between the comic book and the September 1954 reaction in Glasgow than previous investigators have realized. Roberta Fleishman
Find out more on April 12th when BBC Radio Scotland airs The Gorbals Vampire story, or leave your own thoughts and comments at the BBC by clicking HERE!

Additional links about The Gorbals Vampire:
http://www.southernnecropolis.co.uk/page71.html

http://www.randomhouse.co.uk/catalog/book.htm?command=Search&db=main.txt&eqisbndata=1905211627

http://www.heraldscotland.com/sport/spl/aberdeen/the-gorbals-vampire-hunt-1.623152

The Fiend in Fur

Time to head to the timberland burial grounds for a weird 'n wild werewolf / ghost tale, this time from the Jan-Feb '51-52 issue of Forbidden Worlds #4. George Wilhelms is one of my favorite ACG artists, furfectly setting the mood with his atmospheric art... and though this one of course contains the typically hopeless goofball romantics we've come to know from the ACG writers (the final panel is downright horny), they still manage to squeeze in as many chills 'n thrills and rollickin' sound effects to make the journey worth it--- YAANGH! WAM! SPLANG! CRASH! OHH! GARRRGH! AAOOOO! YAANGH!

Plus a nice Lon Chaney Jr. swipe on the cover of this issue too!

(It's almost as if he's saying "YAANGH!")

The Ghost Still Walks (Re-visited)

We talk alot about reprints / remakes around here, for example the way Eerie Publications revived a ton of great 1950's Golden Age pre-code stories 20 years later, and in the process intensified the horror by expanding upon certain visual elements with more insane levels of gruesomeness in the art (and story.) But as we clearly see in today's post, Marvel went the opposite approach with 70's color horror reprints of their own pre-code Atlas tales:

"The Ghost Still Walks" originally appeared in the May 1952 issue of Adventures into Weird Worlds #6, and was later reprinted / revised for the Dec. 1973 issue of Dead of Night #1, (see THOIA Archive HERE for reprint post.) As you can see from the example above, this isn't just white ghost robes turning purple, these putrid Golden era ghouls are horrific, rotten, dripping, slimeball messes, vs their much tamer / lamer remake appearance... and I hope artist Joe Sinnott threw a goddamn fit over it.

The Phantom of Lonesome Swamp!

Aka: Redneck Hillbillies in the Haunted Bayou! Time for a wild Lou Cameron classic, and some of you may have noticed that I've now posted the entire Feb. '52 issue of Mysterious Adventures #6 (the last 3 posts, plus check the archives for Terror of the Burning Witch.) And if you're wondering about the cover blurb story "Ghostly Terror in the Cave" well, search me... I reckon somebody goofed.