What Walter Saw / The Miracle

A couple of fast 'n fun Atlas quickies today that I had on file (saving for future filler), the first tale by Edwin Goldfarb and from the June 1952 issue of Adventures into Terror #10, and the second from Bill LaCava and the February 1952 issue of Adventures into Terror #8. And later this week I have some crazy ass Dark Mysteries tales lined up for you... in the meantime I'll be re-cooping from my disasterous car accident yesterday-- wah!

And don't forget about our DRAW ME CONTEST going on NOW! Get your entries to me by this Friday... check last Thursday's post "The Gypsy Curse" for more details!

The Head-Hunter of Pirates Peak

In my opinion, Bobby Benson’s B-Bar-B Riders #14 (1952) sports one of THE most quintessential Dick Ayers pre-code comic book covers ever. All the elements are there: sexy damsel in distress strapped to table (bondage), knife wielding maniacal hunchback, hick hero swinging to the rescue, and of course a wall full of gory, decapitated, shrunken heads with their eyes sewn shut--- there’s even a skeleton in shackles! Open the cover and Page One cruelly smacks you with a grisly splash of even more severed horrors, and this time some headless bodies to boot! Whether you’re a fan of westerns or not, I think you’re going to like this one, mostly just cuz it’s loads of corny gruesome fun!

And thanks again to ebay specialist Michael at Top Quality Resellers for hooking me up with this awesome issue, and at such a great deal too!

And don't miss our DRAW ME CONTEST going on now! Get your entries in by this Friday... see last Thursday's post "The Gypsy Curse" for all the details!

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Vintage ADS

The Hand of the Ancient Evil!

A sinister, severed hand floats through the air and into the room, and clutched in its demonic claw dangles the rotted corpse of a once beautiful woman! Here we have one of the more strangely inspired variations on the ever classic "Monkey's Paw" tale by W.W. Jacobs. Even stranger though is the thick lined, stylized art on this one, not at all like the slick, more refined, traditional ACE styles that I've featured here at THOIA over the years... it's kind of weird and clunky at times, but for those reasons I kind of like it too.

From the January 1953 issue of The Beyond #18

And don't miss out on our DRAW ME CONTEST which started Thursday... check the last post for all the details (at the end of "The Gypsy's Curse" story!) Sad news too on the passing of George Tuska (1916 - 2009) R.I.P.

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True Tales of the Supernatural #36

The Gypsy Curse + CONTEST!!!

THOIA reader Ian Docherty recommended today's story for us all from Standard Comic's December 1953 issue of Adventures into Darkness #12. He even sent me the scans, but since they originally came from elsewhere I thought I'd just go ahead and re-scan them from my own collection so as to not step on anyone's cursed toes. Says Ian, "Besides having the funniest opening panel ever, it has a pretty good ending too. Don't know who the artist or writer is but between them they created a classic!"

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THOIA DRAW ME CONTEST!

Yes, it's contest time again! We had great fun in our last one, blaspheming Bob Hope in a variety of horrific stylings... and in today's story post (above) you witnessed how someone could take a beautiful young lady and give her "The Gypsy Curse" of ugliness... and thus, now it is your turn! See the vintage ad below? Don't just draw her--- RUIN HER!! Give her the THOIA treatment and make her SCARY. Or make something scary happening to her. It's your choice-- YOU ARE THE ARTIST.

All entries should be emailed to me directly at karswell@hotmail.com no later than Friday October 23rd (one week from today.) All entries will then be posted for judging by YOU the readers sometime the following week... the winner will then be announced on Halloween Night. Prizes include: a THOIA tee-shirt, horror DVDs, leftover Halloween candy and anything else I can scrounge up from a shallow grave. So have some fun with it! Be creative! Be an asshole! Be anything you want to be and--- DRAW!

Edge of Darkness

Witchcraft Week continues with a moody entry from Standard Comics' November 1953 issue of The Unseen #12. It's probably not historically correct either like some of you were complaining about in our last post, but Mike Roy's fun style and his occasional textless panels really brings this one alive.

THOIA NEWS!

The Horrors Of It All recently entered in at number 116 in the Wikio Literature blog catagory rankings, (this is one of the new categories created by Wikio for the month of October.) Wikio is "the number 1 news aggregator and blog-indexing website in Europe, indexing nearly 200,000 English-language sources," so of course THOIA is incredibly honored to be on this list (and so near the Top 100 too!) Thanks to Charbel Sfeir for emailing me the news, and of course to all you readers who continue to sadistically support THOIA. ---Karswell

For more info click HERE!

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Vintage AD

Terror of the Burning Witch

For all your endless toil and trouble, THOIA pays you back with a week o'witchcraft, and starting it off with a hot one from the February 1952 issue of Mysterious Adventures #6.

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A sexy, non-burning, cheesecake witch more your cauldron of tea?