Fifty-Fifty! / Hate!

You can't deny that when we have an Atlas Fest here at THOIA, it's always a damn good time! And because a few of you axed for it, we'll close out the month with another double header (or is that a beheader?!) Bill LaCava proves that hate is stronger than blood, with a very cleaver, errr, a very clever classic from the August 1952 issue of Marvel Tales #108. But first up, a rather dividing tale of divorce and doom from the May 1953 issue of Marvel Tales #114. The Atlas Tales site thinks this is a team-up art attack from Jack Hearne and Bill Savage, and that sounds savagely good to me too-- either way that you slice it! Hope everyone enjoyed this month of Atlas, you can look forward to another mix of macabre stories from some of the other finer precode publishers, and maybe even a surprise or two as we slide into super September already (?!!), inching closer and closer to Halloween!! Stay tombed...

The Voice from Venus

Time to take it to the stars for a story of outer space love, all wrapped up rather nicely in some over the top insanity and isolation as only Robert Q. Sale can do it! RQ unloads a startlingly bonkers one here, so sit back and tune in to a true terror tale of tomorrow-- and b-b-b-beyond! From the February 1954 issue of Journey into Unknown Worlds #24.

Maskless Axeman

Not to be confused with "Assless Chaps Man" (the alter ego of Brian Barnes), Maskless Axeman was the very first entry in the super cool, but brief "Fantastic Feature Films" anthology back-up filler tales from the earliest days of Novelty's hero-driven, Target Comics. It's a clever concept, as if we just walked into the the theater as a film is starting, --we can even see the backs of the heads from the people seated in front of us. We also get the title card and cast listing highlighting a handful of the same reoccurring actors and actresses, most notably "Orson Black" swiping Lon Chaney's moniker as "The Man of a Thousand Faces." There was around a dozen or so of these created, mostly self-contained, crime driven adventures, with a few based on literary classics like Treasure Island and Gulliver's Travels, and of course a few with some downright gruesome great horror overtones like the one in today's post, via the February 1940 issue of Target Comics V1#1 (and listed on GCD as the 666th comic entry, no less!) June Tarpé Mills, one of the first major female comic artists of the Golden era, provided the art for all but two entries, and she does a superb job with the heroes, heavies, and especially the Hollywood-esque hotties, as equally evident in the other story I have featured over at AEET HERE today as well-- check it out after today's blood soaked THOIA story! 

The Coward & The Choker

And the midnight toker! Just jokin'-- it's "Super Blood-Soaked Saturday Shocker" time again, with a deadly double header of gagging gore and blood thirsty, brutal betrayals! Yes, just in case anyone thought THOIA was turnin' soft over our expansive 18-year run here on the 'ol interwebs, well, --think again! Two terror-packed tales full of dismemberment, dickish dames, and dumb dudes a'danglin', and despite some less than stellar scan quality here, both are from the rather awesome August 1954 issue of Mysterious Adventures #21. The savage illustrations in the first story are by bad boy Bill Savage himself, and followed by the always radical Ross Andru on our rockin' second tale. Plus! A real crowd-pleaser of a cover by Hy Fleishman! Have a gory great weekend everyone, with lots lots morgue to come-- so stay tombed!

Secret In the Wall

Who would've guessed that one of the simplest, most eerie precode horror stories of all time could come from a crime comic book? Yep, buried within the pages of the February 1955 issue of Crime and Punishment #71 (to be exact), lurks this crumblin' corpse classic of isolation and insanity. Ya know, sometimes less is more as Big Bad Bill Walton slugs every perfectly efficient panel right outta the park with just 4 suspense-packed pages, in a way that would typically take EC comics nearly twice as many words and pages to do...

Premonition!

Nope, it's not your imagination, --and you're not dreaming it! It's also not a premonition, even though it actually is, but what I mean to say is that we're looking at stories from the unbearably yellowed pages of the January 1954 issue of Weird Mysteries #8-- and yep, here's another one to make you pull your hair outta your head in macabre screaming madness! Hope everyone's having a splendid Friday the 13th too!

I Killed Mary

Well, if you were paying attention in the intro of the previous post, then you probably saw this one coming next. Even more shocking than the story itself is that somehow, in all these years, I've never posted this original January 1954 issue of the Weird Mysteries #8 version until now (though I did post the very graphic Eerie Pub re-title / remake a few times in the THOIA Archive HERE, and we put it in Haunted Horror #22 too.) So how well does this story hold up today as a reflection of modern society ie: high schooler frustration levels, teen suicide, clueless parenting etc? Spot any Jack Davis swipes?

Bride of the Brujo!

Brian's rockin' birthday salute in our previous post temporarily interrupted my planned Ripley-O-Rama, so here's the next installment for "Brujday Tuesday the 13th", comin' atcha from the October 1970 issue of Ripley's Believe it or Not #22. Featuring some cool transformation panels from Golden Age great, John Celardo, plus: burning at the stake, holy water in the face, a disintegrating body, tragic madness, and more! Yep, this story has a little bit of everything, including another gaspingly gruesome George Wilson cover painting to totally knock your fuzzy slippers off! A few more choice "believe it or whatevs" on the way too, so stay bruj'd...