Web Terror Stories

[dem bones]

Web Terror Stories

A short-lived (eight issue) attempt at a 'Sex & Sadism' revival from New York based Candor, Web Terror Stories ran from August 1962 to June 1965, by which time everybody had probably had enough.

The debut featured stories by John Jakes ('My Love - The Monster' - "My sweetheart feeds on flesh") and Marion Zimmer Bradley along with a host of unknown (?) and/ or, possibly pseudonymous chances. The first is the 'best' of those few I've seen, although the Womens Liberation Movement probably didn't see it that way. Franz Rauch's "Miss Inquisitor" sees a girl with a morbid interest in the tools of torture get to sample their effectiveness first hand. Lawrence Frey's full blown S&M fantasy, "Victim Wanted: Female" and Leslie Manette's 'The Girl In The Iron Collar' ("A feminist learns the facts of life") are par for the course - you see, all these uppety gals really wanted all along was an ultra-stern, masterful partner to put them in their place! Sometimes, the patent leather boot is on the other foot: Alistair Bogaert's "The Leather Mask" - which, surely, could only have been written by an Englishman - finds Tory MP "Bircher" Middleton" feted by S&M enthusiasts for his uncompromising views on corporal punishment while Rip Kelly's "Repent At Leisure" warns "His beautiful bride had a honeymoon of torture planned for him!"

Amongst all this gleefully kinky fun and games, you even get the occasional straight-ish horror story. Bradley's "Treason Of The Blood" is notable for it's humane vampire, Angelo, who's been chained up in the Castle dungeon by former lover Contessa Teresa. So why, despite his incarceration, do the villagers still continue to die in droves? Eric Ashley performs proto-Guy N. Smith duties with "Venus Of The Claws" ("Carlo's adherence to family tradition doomed Katherine to a ghastly fate among the spider crabs"), while the marvellously-monickered Christine Crewell poses the immortal question: "Was it fantasy or had the hideous, crawling thing actually moved?"

[gigasahab]

I've been interested in Web Terror & its sister title Shock Mystery ever since I first read about them in RKJ's "The Shudder Pulps" book. I've got a respectable collection of 1930s weird menace pulps but I'd never seen either of these much later 1960s "revivals". The copies available online were priced not so much out of my means as out of what seemed reasonable compared to what proper 1930s weird menace was selling for.

Now that I've read two copies of Web Terror, the weird menace connection seems quite remote to me. The "sex & sadism" are there, sure, but none of the structure or style of the shudder pulps.

I've just bought a copy of "Shock Mystery" on eBay so I'm looking forward to taking another look.

I am planning to scan it cover-to-cover and just wanted to check if a link to the complete thing would be well-received here? I've noticed that you guys tend to deal in reviews rather than "sharing"/"piracy" (delete as appropriate).

[dem bones]

Thanks for the offer, gigasahab. Much as I'd love to see a copy of Shock Mystery I'm not so sure pro-boards would share my enthusiasm. But I don't suppose the odd cover scan could hurt (otherwise we'd have already been booted off).

Yeah, I guess the Shudder Pulp link is fairly tenuous but I worked along the lines of, "If it's OK for Jones ...." They're interesting - and very entertaining - in their own smutty way though, don't you think?

I've three issues of WTS: really must get around to them soon.

[gigasahab]

Much as I'd love to see a copy of Shock Mystery I'm not so sure pro-boards would share my enthusiasm.

No worries! I wouldn't dream of barging into somebody else's community & imposing my own debased morals

My most recent full pulp scan, a copy of a 1938 Dime Mystery, has showed up on the Komics-Live forum for anybody who wants to looks for it there, and I'll make sure that the Shock Mystery becomes available by the same route.

[dem bones]

Thanks for recognising us for the frightfully proper and wholesome guys we are.

Just registered with komics-live.com/

[dem bones]

Web Terror Stories #1 (Candar, August 1962)

Arthur P. Gordon - Orbit of the Pain Masters
What was the breaking point of an Earth person?

John Jakes - My Love: The Monster!
My sweetheart feeds on flesh.

Marion Zimmer Bradley - Treason Of The Blood
Count Floresi's word was that of a vampire.

Gary Roberts - Chains Of The Conqueror
He would tame the she-beasts of Rome.

Leslie Manette - The Girl In The Iron Collar
A feminist learns the facts of life.

Lawrence Frey - Victim Wanted: Female
No experience required - and no hope expected.

Franz Rauch - Miss Inquisitor
Such a strange hobby for such a nice girl!.

Cameron Pye - Nightmare Hall
Awaken to terror, my chosen one!.

The artwork was often of the highest standard. Criminally, the person responsible for this illustration for Orbit Of The Pain Masters is uncredited.

Arthur P. Gordon - Orbit of the Pain Masters: To conquer, they had to learn the breaking point of the Earth people!

Long Island. Twenty-two year old Linda Carter is taken aboard a spaceship by the Gl'en, three foot, bow-legged, big headed hairless bastards from across the galaxy. They're planning a war on Earth and want to know how much pain the human body can endure before it surrenders. There follows the obligatory few pages of torture - nothing particularly noteworthy by WTS standards - before her boyfriend Dave Sarnes realises what's happening. When the sheriff shrugs off his "Martians!" theory, Dave contacts the Gl'en and arranges a meeting. Their leader makes the mistake of calling him a "specimen." In the ensuing struggle, Dave shoots all the aliens, captures the saucer and rescues Linda .... but will Earth be prepared for the imminent invasion?

Leslie Manette - The Girl In The Iron Collar: It took a time machine to teach a feminist the facts of life.

"Lydia Anselm was one of those modern, drivingly brilliant college women who have seized upon the present day total emancipation of women to push her way forcefully into the world of science." She has also "used her curvaceous figure to distract her fellow workers" and - unforgivably - learned how to operate a slide rule "with the best of them", so she's well overdue a head de-swelling! Being pushy into the bargain, she persuades Prof. Tomkins to consider her above the others to test drive his time machine. Tomkins sends her back 500 years to the Middle East where she's enlisted into the Harem over a cruel Prince for three hours. Naturally, she has to show off, so the surly fellow has no option but to strip her to her undies, suspend her upside down and thrash her soundly. If only she'd stayed home and done her little dusting - but they won't listen, will they?

Marion Zimmer Bradley - Treason Of The Blood: She could hold the vampire captive, but how could she avenge herself on this type of monster?.

What on earth is Marion Zimmer Bradley doing in here? As you'd expect, her contribution is somewhat incongruous, though she does her best to enter into the spirit of things. Under the impression that he is responsible for the deaths of her father, brother and sister, the Contessa Teresa keeps a vampire, Angelo Count Fioreci, chained up in the dungeon of the Castle Speranza where she tortures him with a silver-tipped whip on which she's scratched the crucifix. After three months of this, the Count - who is actually a noble, humane character who never kills those he feeds on - is close to death and makes a dreadful revelation as to why the villagers are still dying despite his incarceration. A competent blood-sucker but in this company it reads like Carmilla.

Lawrence Frey - Victim Wanted: Female: Discipline was her only salary, complete obedience her only reward.

Young Dierdre Wilson answers the Sorens' advertisement for a maid in a Toronto newspaper. A diligent girl, it takes her some time to notice that the pictures framed on the wall are all of young women tied up and helpless before masked nasties. When she finds the room in the cellar - fitted out with a stocks, pillory, rack, cage and what have you - she thinks its time to give in her notice. But her employees won't hear of it.

Franz Raunch - Miss Inquisitor: "A New one, Frederick, just as you promised. How good you are to me!".

Much to Fred's discomfit, his fiancee Sally is forever reading and talking about the Spanish Inquisition, salivating over pictures of the torture instruments for hours at a time. It's plain unhealthy!

Luckily he has a reclusive sister who is a sadistic nutcase with her own dungeon, so Sally gets to experience the whole slow-death-in-torment trip first hand!

Just dug out #8 which, if anything, is far less tasteful but - oh joy! - there's a death-by-crabs story in it!

[redbrain]

If I'm any judge of facial expressions seen in profile, the lady doesn't look especially distressed.

[Johnlprobert]

It looks more like an illustration for a story about an experiment in celluloid cross-fertilisation:

I took Octave Mirabeau's 'TORTURE GARDEN' and crossed it with BUTTON MOON - behold the result, gentlemen of the Curiosities Club!

[dem bones]

Web Terror Stories #8: (June 1965)

Mark Bergstrom - The Night Of The Huntress

She killed the Baron, and she was a bronze statue!

Alistair Bogaert - The Leather Mask

Meeting his admirers was a painful lesson for "Bircher" Middleton.

Michael Beloit - Dr. Fang's Garden Of Pain

His daughter and his garden were the magnificent but deadly offspring of his depraved fancies.

Hilda Reeves - See You In A Nightmare

When his nightmare came to life, his dream world collapsed!

Eric Ashby - Venus Of The Claws

Carlo's adherence to family tradition doomed Katherine to a ghastly fate among the spider crabs.

Blake Burnham - The Whipping Cure

The sauna bath was supposed to be relaxing, but for Harry it was sheer torture.

Randall Mattia - Lash Of The Avenger

Athanasic's revenge was sweet, but was it worth the price he had to pay?


No-one could accuse the Webbies of improving with age that's for sure. God knows, the first issue had its moments of misogyny but this selection makes the debut look relatively subdued in comparison. Mind you, the ladies get the chance to avenge their sisters in the likes of Alistair Bogaert's The Leather Mask, essentially a fem-dom fantasy masquerading as a horror story. More of the same for a newly wed in The Whipping Cure after Harry slaps wife Ruth and tells her - "Don't try and look down on Harry Gibbons from the top of your fancy college education - because I'll pull you right down off it every time!" Oh no, not so! Dr. Fang's Garden Of Pain is Hawthornes wonderful Rappaccini s Daughter rewritten by a very bored pulp hack.

If you can imagine Horror Stories shorn of the rubber monster masks and Scooby Doo plots then you've a fair idea of the common or garden Web Terror Tale.

[dem bones]

Web Terror Stories (Vol. 5 No. 1, February, 1965)

Aurelia Mulhare - The Pain Tree
She sought excitement, and found it at the Sign of the Skull!
Bursell Bradshaw - The Angel Of Hell
Lil uncovered the Great Mystery of the art world, and it de­stroyed her.
Clement Duffy - Mr. Borealis
If Tony didn't know better, he would have sworn the woman was Sarah, his dead wife.
Ramon Aguilera - Footlight Vengeance
He ruled the Theater with an iron hand, until it struck back!
Henry Cranford - Prey On Me
Cripps came to St. Brynn for a vacation, and discovered a Garden of Evil!
Charles Patterson - My Love, My Prisoner
Antonio was poisoned by the deadliest poison of all: his own imagination.
Christine Crewell - The Curse Of The Borgias
Was it fantasy, or had the hideous, crawling thing actually moved?
Rip Kelly - Repent at Leisure
His beautiful bride had a honeymoon of torture planned for him!
Justin Lamont - Come Kiss The Lash
The black leather lash kept time as he sang his song of pain!
Denham Kelsey - Murder: Scene One
The brutal questioners went a step too far!
Pete Brown - Satan's Spawn
"I never thought I could be cruel to any living thing."
Ernestine Durrell - Glutton For Punishment
He set a diabolical trap for his prey — his wife!

The cover may be disappointingly sensible in comparison to the previous pair, but otherwise it's business as usual in the whacky world of Web Terror Stories! Where is the 2009 equivalent?

[dem bones]

A weird one and no mistake, is Web Terror Stories. It began life in March 1957 as Saturn, a straight SF-Fantasy digest, morphed into Saturn Magazine Of Web Detective Stories before a suicidal third incarnation as a weird menace pulp twenty years after the event. Having read the first issue of WTS, I'm sure the readers thought they knew where they stood - wall-to-wall unashamed misogyny: essentially Horror Stories minus the Scoobie Doo endings - but it seems the Web committee could never sit still for long and by 1965 the stories would as likely feature female-on-male sadism. As mentioned above, John Jakes and Margaret Zimmer Bradley contributed to the debut, but that, presumably was before they saw the rest of the content and from then on in it seems to have been house authors all the way (though I've not seen the credits for all eight issues). Have just been dipping into February 1965's offering for the first time in maybe seven years and if, overall, it's not quite as ridiculously entertaining as the debut, I can't help but feel an entirely misguided affection for the likes of:

Rip Kelly - Repent at Leisure: Six-times married Baby Dickerson arrives at the party wearing a black silk bikini, rubber boots and a rifle across her shoulder. Baby, "the richest chick in these parts", is in husband-hunting mode, and her eye falls on barman Harry Burgess. The briefest romance, a honeymoon in Jamaica and then it's back to Baby's remote mansion in the mountains where the new Mrs. Burgess has a surprise or several in store for her spouse. Like Harris, her armed guard and partner in violent S&M games. Like her private zoo, stocked with some of the deadliest creatures on earth. Like her fondness for stringing up and flogging her mute Indian maids when she thinks hubby is asleep. And then there's Harry's predecessor, poor, insane Trevor, locked behind an iron gate, preparing to fight for his life (and a substantial cash settlement) versus Baby's half-starved jaguars. Surely she's not fixing to set Harry a similar challenge?

Ernestine Durrell - Glutton For Punishment: It's been twenty years since Craig Carver's Hollywood heyday when he wooed the fans as Bolo The Jungle Man alongside Missa, the slave girl, and a chimp. Now Carver wants out of his marriage to fabulously wealthy Lydia and he wants out fast, because blouse bursting Enid won't hang around forever. But Lydia clings to him like a limpet. No matter that he's forever beating her, "the girl with the Golconda smile" never once reports him to the police. She must be some kinda kink or something. Anyway, it's no good. Today is his forty-fifth birthday and he owes himself a treat. Later, when Lydia takes her ritual dip in the pool, a rigged electric cable says she is going to fry.

Ramon Aguilera - Footlight Vengeance: "What did idiotic audiences know about the theatre? Give them a few laughs, show them a few half-naked cows prancing around in a chorus line and they went home happy. A fine spectacle the theatre would be if St. Clair were not alive to protect the theatre-goers from themselves!" Notable in that it is quite possibly the only WTS to feature no women characters whatsoever. Feared theatre critic Eric St. Clair is astonished to receive an invitation to a special midnight premier of the latest Ernest Hatteras extravaganza. It was St. Clair's splenetic review that doomed previous Hatteras travesty The Sea Beyond to instant oblivion, but evidently he exhausted his anger in upsetting a plate of food over Eric's head in a swanky restaurant. Well, if the talentless hack is stupid enough to expect an easier ride this time, he's mistaken - St. Clair has already prepared an impartial slating of The Critic before he's set foot in the Pantheon Playhouse!

Ten minutes into the play and, much to his annoyance, St. Clair has to grudgingly concede that the hooded cast are making a decent fist of such inferior material. Hatterass has paid more attention to detail than usual - the elderly chap they're beating to death with whips and paddles is the spitting image of his rival at The Globe, that moronic old fool Peter Emerson, who, come to think of it, also gave The Sea Beyond a good mauling. Yes, it's all rather enjoyable, admits St. Clair. I wonder what's coming in Act II?

[dem bones]

When covers were proper covers ...

This, borrowed from Galactic Central, is from the June 1960 issue of Sproul's Web Detective Stories (10 issues, Juy1959 -Sep-1961), immediate precursor to Web Terror Stories. If you'd like to read a sample WTS, you'll find downloadable pdf's of Lawrence Frey's Victim Wanted Female and Leslie Manette's The Girl In The Iron Collar' on the I ♥ kinky capers thread.

[dem bones]

Jun 29, 2021 15:44:30 GMT andydecker said:

I never fail to marvel that even fringe magazines like Web Terror Stories managed to get somehow great cover art.

Which makes this one even more of a let down.

Web Terror Stories (Candar Publishing Co., April, 1964)

Emory Connor - Mistress of the Six Gates of Horror
Taut with terror, they gazed upon the mask which hid the cruel smile of the Black Dragon Woman!
Herbert Price - Hell's Harem
The haughty Kuala vowed to marry Mr. Right — but how wrong she was!
D. H. Symonds - Nightmare Island
It was just a silly dream. Wasn't it?
Alex Burn - His Majesty, the Fiend.
Louis Was King of torture.
Arthur Winston - Dance with the Devil
There is no finer witch than you!
Kent L. Bowman - Drums of Torment
Was it pain — or madness — the Medicine Man read in Kitty’s eyes?
Emily Bond - The Purifying Lash
The handsome stranger in the fog — was he friend or fanatic?
Robert Rossner - Angel of Evil
Leora the fair, Leora the sly, Leora the dead!

Herbert Price - Hell's Harem: The spirited Arab charger Ahmed rode was almost as black as his demon-possessed soul!.

Downfall of Princess Kuala, "whose beauty, intelligence and haughty demeanor were fabled from the great northeastern desert to the Red Sea." Kuala insists that she will only marry if her husband is prepared to forego the customary harem and make do with her alone. Twenty-nine and still unwed, she falls in love with handsome Sheik Ahmed, who is known to favour one wife at a time (it's not his fault that his partners are in the habit of dying).

Unfortunately for her, Sheik Ahmed takes a shine to Samira the erotic dancer and whisks her away to his palace of pleasure and pain. Kuala strays out into the desert to summon a D'jin and demand three wishes, the first being that the Sheik no longer feels desire for her rival, Samira. It all ends in quintessential WTT whips and chains fashion. As does;

Emily Bond - The Purifying Lash.: What unspeakable diabolism lurked behind the compassionate eyes of the 'kind' stranger who rescued her from the sordid London alleys?

Janet Grey, destitute and driven to prostitution to escape a brutal stepfather, is taken under the wing of a Good Samaritan she propositions near Hyde Park Corner. "My name is Charles Jason. Please look upon me as a friend." Charles and muscular manservant are ever bringing home fallen girls for rehabilitation. They've three manacled in the dungeon even as we speak.

Should anyone wish to read the issue, it's available via Luminus

And may God have mercy on your soul.

[andydecker]

Jul 10, 2021 17:29:09 GMT dem bones said:

Which makes this one even more of a let down.

Web Terror Stories (Candar Publishing Co., April, 1964)

Should anyone wish to read the issue, it's available via Luminus

And may God have mercy on your soul.

You are right. This looks like something out of 2021, only nowadays published by a big publishing house.

[𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr]

Jul 10, 2021 19:17:21 GMT andydecker said:

Jul 10, 2021 17:29:09 GMT dem bones said:

Which makes this one even more of a let down.

Web Terror Stories (Candar Publishing Co., April, 1964)

Should anyone wish to read the issue, it's available via Luminus

And may God have mercy on your soul.

You are right. This looks like something out of 2021, only nowadays published by a big publishing house.

It looks like a gig poster for the sort of bands people on here would go to see.
I wouldn't, being of refined taste. Obviously.