From the March 1955 issue of Mystic #36 (the very last precode issue from this series before they added the hideous comic code stamp of approval *gag!) And leave it to Jay Scott Pike to illustrate one of the most gorgeous bad girls of them all... she actually kind of reminds me of a Silver Age era Buscema gal! Anyway, be careful what you wish for, already!!
If you've been a member of any type of social media platform for the last few decades, ie Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, etc., then you know at this point that "doom scrolling" for some eye pleasingly quick entertainment imagery is pretty much the norm in this age of increasingly shorter attention spans. The smaller anthology horror tale, as the kind featured regularly here at THOIA, play out well to this kind of audience, and even better (unfortunately) when someone takes a single panel out of context from one of these stories and posts it all over the internet for an even quicker laugh. And that's all fine I guess, but it kind of sucks that most people will never bother to dig a little deeper for the rest of a truly great Stan Lee / Russ Heath tale, like this one for example from the April 1953 issue of Menace #2. These isolated panels (first image below) have been floating around the web for years-- but now you finally get to know the full story!
Got myself a terrifying trim the other day, which reminded me of this hair-raising little story from the July 1953 issue of Chamber of Chills #18. Super duper, Jack Davis-esque art by Howard Nostrand as usual, and a truly creepy cover by lurid 'ol Lee Elias... yep, you've definitely come to the right place this eerie evening for a grave and a scare-cut!
Time for a hysterical visit to hillbilly Hell, from the August 1954 issue of This Magazine is Haunted #19. I'm not exactly sure the writer of this tale understands how scarecrows work (ain't they supposed'ta scare the crows away?!), but in any event, it sure leads to one endless string of perfectly entertaining precode insanity and ultra violent supernatural vengeance from beyond the corn(field.) BRANG it on!
Vince Napoli was one of those precode artists whose work at first appears weirdly wonky, and even amateurishly flimsy at times. But the more you look at it, the more it begins to take on a brilliantly eerie, otherworldly vibe. It's as lanky and surreal as it is uneven and bizarre, and thus, it's the perfect illustrative style for a nightmarish tale of terror like Wish for the Dead, (from the January 1953 issue of Beware #13.) Faces distort wildly as sinister supernatural forces take over, spectral clawed hands reach out from the black beyond, --and in my favorite panel of the whole story (page 7, panel 2) a partially open door reveals the spookiest set of disembodied eyes ever put to a comic book page! The sloppy coloring and cheap print job on this Trojan comic is typically an unfortunate tragedy, but it also adds an ominous underground zine edge to the freak-out stranglehold of funeral-esque atmosphere. This is the kind of unique soul transference story that THOIA was created for, please enjoy...
