Still struggling a bit with books (some of them have bloody big words in, you know), but happily I've rekindled my love for comics. Anyway, I'd like to make myself useful around the place so I'm going to do a few comic reviews. This is the Vault Of Evil, so I thought I'd make a start by looking at some old horror comics.
(I might include some non-horror stuff as well, if I think it might be of interest - but I'll try and steer well clear of science fiction...)
Any comics fans will doubtless be familiar with the Comics Code. For those who aren't (familiar or fans), the Comics Code Authority was set up in 1954 as a regulatory body/moral guardian to uphold standards of decency in comics and basically censor anything they didn't want those more impressionable than themselves to see.
The whole thing really came about following the appearance of some articles by psychiatrist, Dr. Frederic Wertham, M.D. (including "Horror in the Nursery" in
Collier's Weekly!) and the eventual publication of a book,
Seduction of the Innocent.
In his book, Wertham railed against the evils of what he called "crime comics" (although he also included horror, and even superhero comics in this description). I'm possibly oversimplifying his theories, but essentially he asserted that comics were a corrupting influence on the young, encouraging juvenile delinquency and promoting sexual deviancy (yes, he really did suggest that Batman & Robin were 'an item', and that any female as physically strong and independent as Wonder Woman was clearly a lesbian - but then we'd always suspected that, hadn't we?). All this led to much shock, moral outrage and general consternation amongst politicians, parents and concerned citizens alike. Parent-teacher groups met to read comics, be frankly appalled that this sort of filth was being circulated to their children, and then finish up the evening by reviving the popular Nazi pastime of book-burning. A Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency was set up and, before long, distributors and wholesalers wouldn't touch comics with the proverbial pole. Hardest hit were comics publishers like Bill Gaines' E.C. Comics, who specialised in corrupting young children. The Comics Code sounded the death knell, excuse the melodrama, for horror comics, which (apart from a few titles such as Warren's
Creepy and
Eerie - in a magazine format which circumvented the code) wouldn't dare show their faces again until the early seventies.
So that's how things ended, but how did they start?
One of the earliest horror comics was Avon's
Eerie Comics (no connection with the later Warren title). Avon Publications began in the early 40s, producing paperbacks, digests, pulps, and by the middle of the decade, comics. Most of their titles at this stage were westerns and romance, but they also produced this little oddity. Odd because there was no apparent market for horror in comics at the time. Horror was popular in films and radio shows, but they were aimed mostly at adults. It wasn't really seen as being something for the kids - although kids, then as now, presumably loved nothing more than being so frightened that they nearly wet themselves (also my main reason for reading horror, and it's been a close thing on more than one occasion I can tell you...). A company called Prize Comics launched a series of
Frankenstein Comics around the same time, but it was a 'funny', cartoon-style strip (at least initially), so Avon really were pretty much out there on their own.
Eerie Comics No. 1 (Avon, January 1947)
You can't really complain about that cover, can you? Unfortunately, I can't tell you who the artist was. These comics generally didn't bother with things like artist and writer credits, presumably on the assumption that nobody really cared.
"The Eyes Of The Tiger"
Not a bad start. It's a dark and stormy night job, and Dr. Manton is visiting a creepy mansion to give its owner, the eccentric Carl Cattler, the once over. Creepy Cattler, who keeps a stuffed tiger on his lawn (nothing odd about that surely), needs a medical examination for an insurance policy which will allow him to leave all his money to... his beloved cats. What should have been a formality, turns out to have serious complications when the doctor discovers that Cattler has a heart condition which could see him shuffling off the old mortal any minute. When Dr Manton refuses to pass him as fit, Cattler isn't best pleased, and neither is one of his beneficiaries - a real tiger called Flame.
It's all a bit much for the good doctor, who faints dead away, but little does he know that Flame was only playing. He's actually just a big pussycat who sleeps curled up at his master's feet at night - or at least that's what his master thinks...
Luckily, Cattler keeps a revolver handy and, following a chase through the old house to reach the safety of the thick-panelled Blue Room, he's forced to shoot Flame dead. But is Flame really dead? Is he even a real tiger? What sort of tiger can't be killed by mere bullets?
No further questions, your honour.
I thought this was quite good. It's old school, you know, it's not
Saw III or anything... but I enjoyed it.
"Dead Man's Tale"
Society gent, Myron Morgan, drops dead on a fox-hunt. Serves the bastard right, you may say... but he wasn't always a toff, satiating his bloodlust at the expense of some poor, defenceless little animal...
It began 10 years earlier in the Mojave desert. Morgan stops off at a deserted gas station, shares a soda with an old tramp, and then offers him a lift in his less than reliable motor. Half an hour later they break down in the middle of the desert, and not a drop to drink for miles around.
Luckily, the old tramp always keeps a bottle about his person - Christ only knows where about his person, but beggars can't be chosers...
But this is no ordinary firewater, this is "witch-doctor stuff". Unless that old Indian was a liar and a charlatan, you take one swig of this, make a wish, and whatever you wished for comes true. Wishing his broken-down old jallopy was a brand-new limousine, Morgan has a swig and, before you can say "I bet I know what's going to happen next...", his wish is granted.
Good stuff. So what's the catch? Well, as long as the bottle is never emptied, you're fine... but as soon as that last drop is drunk, it's game over. Goodnight Vienna. Alas poor Yorrick. "I don't like the look of him at all...". Not to point too fine a point on it, you're dead. Fair enough, that doesn't sound too bad a deal, thinks Morgan (who was always a bit of a bastard if we're going to be honest), and just imagine what you could do with a bottle like that... of course, things would be a lot easier if the old tramp was out of the way...
The years pass and, as you might expect, Myron Morgan's fortunes take a turn for the better - he becomes rich and successful, marries a beautiful woman (mug), who, in return for a couple of mansions, a few dozen servants and a yacht, provides him with a beautiful daughter (of course, it's all going to end badly you know... I could have told him that...).
Myron isn't worried though, he's got everything he ever dreamed of - until one day he takes the mysterious old tramp's mysterious old bottle out of his safe, and discovers... the liquid is almost gone!
Bollocks!
What's he going to do? Wish for some more, brilliant! Doesn't work... dilute it with water! Waste of time. Take the bottle to a chemist, have him analyse the contents, and then make some more... it might just...
"No problem!" says Fremi, the famous chemist, it's just some simple snake-oil concoction. He can knock up barrels of the stuff. Result! If it works...
It doesn't. Nothing for it but to lock the last few precious drops away, and make sure nobody ever touches it. But before he can carry out his plan, Morgan's beautiful wife distracts him with plans for her latest party. All their rich friends are coming round tomorrow to kill a fox, and everything must be perfect. So, the next day, they all get dressed up and go off for a relaxing afternoon of pointless bloodshed, leaving Morgan's beautiful, and inquisitive, daughter to amuse herself back at the house. Perhaps she'll just have a look in Daddy's safe... what's this? A horrible, dirty, old bottle that looks like the sort of thing a horrible, dirty, old tramp might keep in his trousers... surely, Daddy won't mind if...
(Personally, I blame his wife. If he hadn't listened to her...)
This was another pretty good one - and with its sort of twist ending and funny undertakers at the beginning, it's not a million miles from the kind of thing that E.C. would make their name with a few years later.
Right, what have they got for us next? "A U.S. bomber, on a regular charting and aerial exploration flight from its base in the South Pacific, runs into an unforeseen storm... struggling to remain aloft, little do the airmen know the horrible fate that awaits them on THE ISLAND OF THE MAN-EATING LIZARDS!"
You're not interested in that, are you? Yeah, alright, I'll get back to you later...
