Insane / A World Gone Mad!

Insanity and madness have taken over THOIA today, and our first tale from the February 1954 issue of Adventures into Terror #28 (art by Al Eadeh of course) might just be the cure you need to finally cut loose and really become something you are not tonight! Followed by an appropriately themed holiday yarn, originally presented in the September 1956 issue of Adventure into Mystery #3.

Happy Halloween, you fiends!

In the Bag! (x2)

THOIA fills your treat bag a few days early this Halloween with a double load of gruesome goodies, and once again it's two Atlas tales that share the same baggy name! First up, a heady little Jim Mooney classic from the July 1952 issue of Spellbound #5, followed by Doug Wildey's wicked take on John Collier's excellent horror short story "De Mortuis" from the April 1954 issue of Adventures into Weird Worlds #28.

 Speaking of Atlas, Marvel just announced another volume from their pre-code Marvel Masterworks series: Atlas Era Strange Tales Vol. 4 hardcover, collecting Strange Tales issues #31-39, coming March 2011!

Midnight in the Wax Museum!

Todays story falls a few years out of the "pre-code" horror era range, originally appearing in the May 1957 issue of Astonishing #61, but Richard Doxsee's art style does a decent job of maintaining that "Golden Age" chill of shadowy mood and atmosphere. The story itself probably draws a bit of inspiration from A. M. Burrage's terrifying short story classic "The Waxwork", and here becomes a creepy little crime yarn with a perfectly predictable, yet still shiver inducing finale.

(Cover art by Bill Everett)

Sorry... Mr. Hopkins!

It's been awhile since I posted a terror tale by my all-time favorite comic creater ever-- Mr. Bill Everett! And here's a good one from ever reliable Atlas Comics and from one of my all-time favorite pre-code series', originally presented in the May 1952 issue of Mystic #8.

Interested in more Bill Everett? Last month Fantagraphics Books released Fire and Water: Bill Everett, The Sub-Mariner, and the Birth of Marvel Comics, click HERE for more info!

Frightful Frankenstein Friday!

Today, 17 blogs will unite for a Web-wide event celebrating a new book by Eisner-award winner Craig Yoe, DICK BRIEFER’S FRANKENSTEIN and the character by that name. Prominent bloggers across the Web will be posting vintage Frankenstein comics, both from Yoe's book, which collects Briefer's top comics, and from the bloggers' personal collections. (More info at the end of this post.)

Author Craig Yoe himself has the very first Frankenstein story from the December 1940 issue of Prize Comics #7 posted at his blog HERE! and then THOIA picks up the pulverized pieces for PART TWO from the January 1941 issue of Prize Comics #8:



For PART THREE in Dick Briefer's Frankenstein Saga, head over to And Everything Else Too! And of course there's lots more fearsome and funny Frankenstein action courtesy of these fine blogs too:

Blog of Frankenstein

Cartoon Snap!

Comicrazys

Four-Color Shadows

Frankensteinia: The Frankenstein Blog

Magic Carpet Burn

Pappy’s Golden Age Comics Blogzine

Random Acts of Geekery

Sekvenskonst

Sequential Crush

Stephen Bissette’s Myrant

The Big Blog of Kids Comics

The Comic Book Bin

The Fabuleous Fifties

The ITCH Blog

DICK BRIEFER’S FRANKENSTEIN: The first volume in Yoe Book's thrilling new series, "The Chilling Archives of Horror Comics," fittingly features the first and foremost maniacal monster of all time... Frankenstein! Dick Briefer is one of the seminal artists who worked with Will Eisner on some of the very first comic books. Briefer created a bizarre, twisted version of the classic Frankenstein that is legend among comic book aficionados. If you like the comic book weirdness of cartoonists Fletcher Hanks, Basil Wolverton, and Boody Rogers, you're sure to thrill over Dick Briefer's creation of Frankenstein. The large format book lovingly reproduces a monstrous number of stories from the original 1940s and '50s comic books. Briefer did both a dark horror take and a more humorous-yet twisted-styling of Frankenstein, and both are powerfully showcased here. The stories are fascinatingly supplemented by an insightful introduction with rare photos of the artist, original art, letters from Dick Briefer, drawings by Alex Toth inspired by Briefer's Frankenstein-and much more!

($21.99, 144 pages, hardcover) is now available in stores and online HERE!

And don't forget to visit http://www.idwpublishing.com/ to learn more about the company and its top-selling books.

Live With a Man

Time to wrap up another THOIA full issue presentation, this time it's the July 1954 issue of Weird Mysteries #11 and what a violent, mean-spirited, satanic shocker this one is-- complete with a gloriously cheap, but fitting ending too!

And hey all you horrorheads, don't miss out on the frightening fun happening over at my other blog all this month too! And Everything Else "BOO!" Too!

The Door

I don't know what these two lovebirds did to deserve a fate such as this, but leave it to the insane July 1954 issue of Weird Mysteries #11 to put them through the endless ringer of torment anyway.