Midnight Massacre

Load up those tommy guns, ya dirty rats, it's time for a HOLE new way to send ya's screaming into 2024! Yep, while most of you will be drinkin' it up and smoochin' in the New Year tonight at midnight, THOIA and AEET has a whole different evening scheduled for ya! Two terror tales from the same great Atlas issue, spanning both of Mr. Karswell's blogs to ring out the old-- and creep in the new! So after you finish todays story here, click the banner at the end to head over to AEET for an even creepier celebration, from the June 1953 issue of Astonishing #25. HAPPY NEW FEARS, everyone!

Silence! / Don't Make a Ghoul of Yourself!

Time for a Double Dip of Dick-- Ayers that is, --by anonymous request! What's up with all of you anonymous people lately?! Oh, and since Brian Barnacles snarkily screamed at me for "more Atlas!", it's now time to kill two kooky bird brains with one post! First up, from the June 1952 issue of Astonishing #14, it's a weird and (shhhh! mostly) wordless tale of terror, followed by a ghastly graveyard ghoul-o-rama from the August 1952 issue of Astonishing #16. I've even rounded it all out with an excellently eerie cover by legendary Bill Everett! We're sort of spiraling out of control here at THOIA, so stay tombed for more as 2023 slowly winds down... down... dowwwwwn...

The Whisper of Egypt

Here's a weird little Egyptian oddity recommended to me by "anonymous", featuring a particularly vicious panel of gory crocodile violence. I'm not sure I would have recognized this as Dick Briefer art, if not for the mysterious, sunken-eyed man who shows up at the bottom of page two (he looks distinctly Briefer-esque and right out of Dick's Frankenstein comic series!) Anyway, it's a fun little filler tale from the August 1952 issue of Airboy #102. Everyone have a nice xmas?

The Throwback!

Like our previous post, here's another weird Fiction House entry, this time from the Winter 1953 issue of Ghost Comics #9, and with art by Bill Discount. It's a kooky circus freak tale that quickly devolves into a time-warped tale of prehistoric cavemen and cavewomen gone wild! Prepare yourself for--

The Soul Stealer

Shifting gears now as we run screaming from old-time horrors, and head right smack dab into the jungle for some zombified voodoo doll madness. From the Fall 1953 issue of Ghost Comics #8... say, does anyone recognize the illustrator? There's some really interesting art in this one.

The Tell Tale Heart

Here we go with the last of the Edgar Allan Poe "Famous Tales of Terror" stories, and today's entry can originally be found in the December 1945 issue of Yellowjacket Comics #6. Ready for a shock? GCD credits the clunky art to a completely unrecognizable Rudy Palais. If this is indeed him, then he greatly improved stylistically in the next decade, like on a miraculous selling of his soul level. Like whoa...

The Fall of the House of Usher

Apologies for the delay, but I'm finally back up after a week of crummy internet connection. I was also attempting to dig up some better quality scans of this particular story (they're pretty small rez, still very readable though), as my usual / occasional donator hasn't been available, so we'll just have to make due with these "Famous Tales of Terror" images for now. From the December 1944 issue of Yellowjacket Comics #4, and starring Edgar Allan Poe himself even!

The Pit and the Pendulum

Continuing with the Edgar Allan Poe entries of "Famous Tales of Terror", this time around from the November 1944 issue of Yellowjacket Comics #3. There are a lot of nightmarishly fun visuals here, and hey, if you need help decorating for a Halloween party next year, be sure to refer back to this story...