The Vampire Soul!

Aka: "The Wisdom of Many, the Wit of One." Written and illustrated by Frank Robbins (plot by Doug Moench), this is an odd, fast paced, and sexy vampire tale from the Dec - Jan '74-'75 issue of House of Mystery #228. Man, I would love to see more of "Martha" in her low cut vinyl top and thigh high go-go boots-- hey, maybe someone out there can resurrect her in her own DC horror mini-series someday! See another incredible (and rare) Frank Robbins vampire fox epic in the THOIA Archive by clicking HERE!

Cabinet of the Living Death / Curse of the Witch

Here are the other two traumatizing tales from the June 1951 issue of Mysterious Adventures #2, no artist credits listed at GCD for either story-- though just as we saw in our last post, another entry from this issue gets the 70's Eerie Pub art make-over, this time by Oscar Stepancich and appears in Horror Tales, Weird, and Terror Tales --and thus "The Cabinet of the Living Death" gets mundanely retitled "Body Snatcher." Some of you may have also noticed the issue cover blurb from our last post that mentioned "terror of the ghoul's corpse"...there is no story in this issue with such title.

Mark of the Tomb / The Unholy Quest

Kickin' off 2014 with a couple of truly terrible tales from the June 1951 issue of Mysterious Adventures #2, a wild Story Comics series that started off a lot weaker than it ended out (two dozen issues later in 1955.) This doesn't mean these stories aren't entertaining though, because they are, in that lo-fi, ultra Z-grade way that bottom barrel B-films entertain. Ed Goldfarb and Bob Baer are responsible for not only the cover art, but also the art in "The Unholy Quest", a tale that would later get reworked by Cirilo Munoz for Eerie Publication's Weird V4#6, and Tales of Voodoo V4#5 --retitled "Black Magic." Another double header from this issue in our next post as well, stay tombed!

Change Partners and Die With Me!

"No one wants to be alone on New Years Eve..." and so begins this eerie tale by Joe Kubert (School of Cartoon Art) from Scholastic Magazine's WEIRD WORLDS #4 from 1980-- a tale that feels a lot like a leftover precode classic if you ask me. Weird Worlds was sort of like Dynamite Magazine in that the content was aimed more at kids, but unlike that series, WW contained articles of a darker, sometimes more science fictiony nature. This issue for example features all kinds of fun junk about zombie movies, UFOs, short fiction stories from John Collier and Henry Slesar, hilarious epitaphs and horror jokes, assorted weird 'n true facts, movie previews (Saturn 3 in this ish) and even lends an ear to "weird" music like Alice Cooper, Devo, and Iggy Pop. I believe WW only lasted 8 issues and fyi: one or two of the other issues I have contain scary comic stories by Steven Bissette.

Anyway, HAPPY NEW YEARS, everyone!

Creature of the Deep!

Golden Age greats Jack Katz and Jack Abel do a little Jack Kirby channeling and team-up for this epic monster-rama from the August 1971 issue of Nightmare #5. Also!-- the gorgeous Boris Vallejo cover I know a few of you were waiting for a large scan of too. Hope everyone enjoyed this look at a really cool Skywald "horror mood" issue, maybe we'll do another one next year (and thanks again to Brian Barnes who gave me this issue a long time ago.) We've got one more tale on deck to round out 2013 while ringing in the New Year... yes, we've lots more-- see ya in a few!