Hemlock Shomes and Dr. Potsam in "The Morgue Moider Mystery", and "The Case of Tintype's Will", and finally (whew!) Spookington Castle!

After the mention of "comedy gold" in our previous post comments, I thought that it was finally time to maybe put together a "Funny Friday Frolic of Frights" here at THOIA. But then I ran out of time yesterday, and decided that "Spoofy Slapstick Silly Saturdays" had a better ring to it (but does it?) So here we go with 3 highly hysterical Hemlock Shomes and Dr. Potsum Golden Age filler stories from Fox Publications-- because who of course is better to spoof and slap silly than everyone's favorite detective duo-- Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson! The stories (in scrollin' order below) originate from: The Green Mask #2, Mystery Men Comics #1 and #2, and are all funtastically written and illustrated by Fred Schwab.

The Werewolf Burial

It's Wednesday again already, and you know what that means-- werewolves! This is a totally bizarre, and somewhat unique spin on the 'ol hairy scaries, mixing in a ghosts 'n graveyard plot to create something unlike any other lycanthropy tale ever told here. Okay, our hero, Steve, seems to figure things out a little too smoothly at one point, but it's still a wild horror-mash romp through the haunted countryside as only ACG could unearth and unleash 'em. From the December 1951 issue of Adventures into the Unknown #26.

Horror on Canvas

GCD notes that today's Baffling Mystery contains: "Unusually and uniquely bad artwork for Ace." And that it: "Could be a swipe artist's singular try." If you ask me though, the insane art (uncredited) only adds to the nightmarishly bonkers nature of nearly every single aspect of the story. See what you think, because it's still entertaining as Hell regardless... from the January 1952 issue of Baffling Mysteries #6.

Waltz of the Vampire

The blood screaming image at the bottom left of page one below contains another panel I've seen taken out of context and shared all over the www for the last few years, so if you were ever curious about where it originally came from then look no further, --or look in the April 1941 issue of Blue Ribbon Comics #11. This is also another weird war era hero vs. horror tale that we've occasionally been looking at here at THOIA to variety things up a bit, annnnd if you're not familiar with spooky supe "Mr. Justice", then CLICK HERE to find out what his actual deal is. But this is a fun, fast paced frolic of fear with vampires and nazis, plus a 40's style musical dance number even! Maybe we'll look at another Mr. Justice story before the month is over, stay tombed...

ZOMBIE!

Time for the grandaddy, livin' deader of 'em all-- "ZOMBIE!" by Stan Lee and Bill Everett. And yep, like most of the Everett illustrated stories featured here over the last week or so, this classic can also already be found in the THOIA 2010 Archive HERE, but it's the black 'n white reprint version... I'm not sure how we went this far without the original color version. And along with that iconic cover (also by Bill), this is a fabulously fitting, and extra eerie way to end our monstrous Menace Fest-- hope everyone enjoyed it! Lots more on the way, stay tombed! From the July 1953 issue of Menace #5.

On With the Dance!

If you've been a member of any type of social media platform for the last few decades, ie Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, etc., then you know at this point that "doom scrolling" for some eye pleasingly quick entertainment imagery is pretty much the norm in this age of increasingly shorter attention spans. The smaller anthology horror tale, as the kind featured regularly here at THOIA, play out well to this kind of audience, and even better (unfortunately) when someone takes a single panel out of context from one of these stories and posts it all over the internet for an even quicker laugh. And that's all fine I guess, but it kind of sucks that most people will never bother to dig a little deeper for the rest of a truly great Stan Lee / Russ Heath tale, like this one for example from the April 1953 issue of Menace #2. These isolated panels (first image below) have been floating around the web for years-- but now you finally get to know the full story!