Deadline!

Rollin' out with THOIA's March Madness 2023 Edition, and like our last hilariously macabre post, this terrific Atlas tale also comes from the March 1953 issue of Journey into Unknown Worlds #16. I have a lot of gruesome great stuff lined up all this month, so stayed supernaturally tombed in for all the precode horror (and beyond) that you can handle! 'Nuff said!

The Suitcase!

It's that time of the season again when everyone seems to be completely out of their heads! I know the holidays are definitely a love / hate thing with my family, so what better way to get in the unspirit of things, than with a story that has absolutely nothing to do with xmas! And yes, it's another weird one from the final issue of Adventures into Terror (see our last post too!)

The End of His Service!

Let's try a little change of pace around here for a bit with a timeless futuristic robo tale of man and machine, or man vs. machine... uh, are there actually any stories like this that have a happy ending? From the November 1951 issue of Strange Worlds #5, art credits at GCD list 3 different illustrators on this one: Norman Nodel, John Rosenberger (page 3), and Werner Roth (page 4.)

The Lost City / Tough Guy

Woke up with the first snow of the year on the ground today-- yup, it's definitely winter now-- ugh! Anyway, with that in mind, how about a couple of chillers from the April 1953 issue of Journey into Unknown Worlds #17, starting off with a spooky Sheldon Moldoff trip to The Lost City. And if that story (plus the icy awesome Bill Everett cover) prove a bit too frightfully frigid for you, then let's turn the heat way up and venture way down into the lost paradise-- it's our second sinful feature, highlighted by some super satanic illustrations from the always underrated John Rosenberger.

Hope everyone has a great holiday-- we'll be back next week with at least a few more double features before the koo-koo clock strikes doo-doom on 2017. Stay too-toombed!

"True" Uncanny Experiences: Satan's Hair Salon

Another satanical story that didn't quite make the final cut of my DEVIL TALES collection (available HERE!) comes from the January-February 1953 issue of Skeleton Hand #3. I'm still kind of bummed about it too as I love the idea of our fearless leader of Hades being a hairdresser, haha, but alas, the story itself is a bit similar to another one featured in the book, and you all know how much I love vicious variety! Anyway, it's a short 'n sweet one, so I'll have a larger post up next... in the meantime, why not go getcher hair done up too!

The Beast from the Deep!

In June 1951, The Saturday Evening Post published the short story The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (aka The Fog Horn) written by sci-fi master Ray Bradbury. Two years later in the summer of ‘53 the story became the inspiration for the very loosely based, though none the less fantastic big screen film of the same name, featuring jaw dropping stop-motion FX by master animator Ray Harryhausen. It didn’t take long after the film’s release for Toby Press to jump on the source material the same year, as the October 1953 issue of Tales of Horror #7 hit comic book stands with it’s own excellent, uncredited, though much closer adaptation of Bradbury’s original tale, and drawn by ACG / DC legend John Rosenberger.

(Reprinted / recolored in Seduction of the Innocent #4.)

UPDATE: Mr. Cavin requested a page from the original Toby Press version so here it is, as mentioned I opted for the recolored Eclipse reprint for today's post because as you can see the print job here is practically a quarter inch off target. Other pages look even worse!