The House of Fear!

As promised, here comes another DC Movie Comic adaptation of a creaky, old Universal fright film classic (see our previous post for Son of Frankenstein in case you missed it!) And this time it's a spooky detective mystery set in a haunted theatre --where murder hath taken the stage! From the August 1939 issue of Movie Comics #5, "The House of Fear" '39 film (not to be confused with the great Sherlock Holmes movie of the same name from 1945) was actually a silver scream remake of Paul Leni's "The Last Warning" from 1928, which was, in turn, an apparent follow-up to Leni's superb 1927 old dark horror house hit, "The Cat and the Canary" --whew! Fun stuff, and just like the Movie Comics version of Son of Frankenstein, hot pink House of Fear here contains the same condensed, cut 'n paste process of colorized, cropped film stills, combined with added artistic elements to keep things as comic book cartoony as possible.

Son of Frankenstein

I promised you something cinematically different for today's post, and here it comes, via the April 1939 debut issue of DC's Movie Comics #1-- Basil Rathbone! Boris Karloff! Bela Lugosi! Lionel Atwill! And Josephine Hutchinson in-- SON OF FRANKENSTEIN! This is a fun, condensed photo comic adaptation of the Universal monster classic from the same year, featuring modified black 'n white film stills from the movie, astoundingly airbrushed into lurid, living comic book color, and in some cases even highlighted with all new illustrated panels, most notably on the final page. This unique DC series only lasted 6 issues, but it did delve into the darker side of Hollywood horror and mystery cinema a few more times too, and we'll take a look at another entry in our next post coming this weekend, please stay tombed...