Hand of Glory / Demon Count

A few more of these ominously fun one page quickies from the original 50's Phantom Stranger series (see our previous post if you somehow missed it), and like said post, all of these are also eerily illustrated by Mort Drucker. Anyone in need of an additional hand at some gory glory need merely CLICK HERE and HERE! after today's post!

How to Spot a Witch!

Just to mix things up a little, here's a handful of superstitious silliness from the annals of "true" human history, aka: Phantom Stranger #3, 4, and 5 to be exact, with everything illustrated by marvelous mad man, Mort Drucker. I've always liked these single / half page filler bits in old horror comics, even if they're nothing but a complete load of tommyrot...

R.I.P. Mort Drucker

We sadly lost another comic book legend yesterday, and today, THOIA pays tribute to the heroic hand and masterfully MAD mind of Mort Drucker, who passed away at the age of 91. It's hard to put into words how much this mans art meant to me from my earliest years as a young MAD magazine reader, up to discovering all of the other great work he created elsewhere later. And speaking of, here's a weird little vampire story he penciled from the July 1954 issue of Strange Tales #30. Also note that my archive contains a few more fine Drucker examples as well, just CLICK HERE, and HERE.













And if you're looking for more madcap Mort, head over to my other blog for classic parodies of Rosemary's Baby, and The Exorcist!

Gone is the Gargoyle

Ger calls this "one of Mort Drucker's earliest", and yes friends, it's another Atlas Tale, and this time it's from my incredibly water damaged copy of the October 1954 issue of Marvel Tales #127. This is seriously a particularly excellent issue, be sure to check the archive for "Skrak's Secret", "Buried Alive!", and "Vampires Also Die!".

"Hack, Hack, Sweet Has-Been" or "What Ever Happened To Good Taste?"

Annnnnd here we go-- I promised you guys something different, and while I have delivered a few MAD Magazine posts in the past, I've yet to submit this kooky spoof that spearheads the Hollywood trend (at the time) of casting glamorous 1920's, 30's and 40's Golden Age actresses into B-horror film roles of the 50's and 60's. Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Barbara Stanwick, the list goes on, and as film history has shown, while they aged gracefully and reached their own "golden years" in life, the youth obsessed film industry either turned their backs on them completely, or cast them in campy trash classics like Trog. Or, in the case of today's post, "Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte" meets "What Ever Happened To Baby Jane?" Some actresses actually prospered in this new age of horror cinema, while unfortunately, others did not. And while I'm not super fond of the stale arsenal of age jokes here that make fun of some of my all-time favorite leading ladies, I certainly do love the magnificent Mort Drucker artwork, as well as the very idea of all these wonderful women coming together for a murderous axe party in a dreary old house! Originally featured in the January 1966 issue of MAD #100, script by Larry Siegel. Enjoy, and we'll see you next month-- IN COLOR!