The Ring of Horror

Time to "ring" in the New Year with our first post of 2019 here at THOIA! And oooo boy, does this story ever contain the most annoying ghost in the history of horror comics! Jeez Louise, dude-- STFU already! Yes, you'll definitely want to re-kill him long before he goes through his ridiculous actor / waiter costume changes mid tale. But to be totally fair, he's pretty annoying before he dies as well. And hey, at least nobody's makin' it out alive in this one, and I don't think that's really much of a spoiler as this is a Pines comic after all.

From the January 1953 issue of The Unseen #8.

















PLUS: A bonus half-pager from the July 1954 issue of The Unseen #15, art by Gene Fawcette.

Sons of Satan!

The earliest issues in Trojan’s entertaining Crime Mysteries series contained cover blurbs promising “Chilling Tales of Crime and Terror!” and occasionally the series delivered big with the horror chops. Today’s pick is like kid’s stuff though compared to the last two tales we’ve had here but it possesses a groovy satanic gimmick and features the heroically named Lance Storm (a re-occurring character in the CM run) battling his evil arch nemesis Professor Zarno and his devil-garbed gang of goons. This isn’t rocket science folks, just good ‘ol crime bustin’ fun from page one, and the cover of this issue is one of my all time pulp-ish favorites!

From the May 1953 issue of Crime Mysteries #7

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Bonus one-page quickie from Ace Comics' Hand of Fate series.

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With God (AD)Not to reign on anyone’s satanic parade today but here’s a wildly inappropriate, completely out of place religious ad that one could commonly find in pre-code comics… this one for example can be found in Dark Mysteries #13 on the inside cover page opposite the insanely evil, gore soaked opening splash for Horror of the Mixed Torsos! Let’s see, shall I open a whole new world of faith and spiritual understanding through Jesus Christ, or scare myself silly with brutal acts of depraved torture and dismemberment?

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Coming Next in July: We’ll be spending the entire month celebrating the first year of THOIA! (July 12th is the actual anniversary.) And to mark this momentous occasion we’ll be featuring not one, not two, not three, but 4 FULL ISSUES! Add to that a entire week of zombie tales, a sci-fi weekend, and more! This could be our scariest, hairiest month ever!

And starting tomorrow its the complete Dec/Jan '52-'53 issue of Eerie #10 featuring stories and artwork by Everett Raymond Kinstler, A. C. Hollingsworth, Harry Lazarus, and more! Here’s a preview…