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Post by dem bones on Aug 30, 2017 14:07:56 GMT
Actually, I was teasing rather - a couple of those tales are often reprinted and seem to be popular. The whole bunch consisted of "Jack in the Box", "Call First", "Conversion", "Dead Letters", "Heading Home" and "Rising Generation". Think you may have already gathered that Call First is a particular favourite of mine, Conversion and Heading Home not far behind. Rising Generation is the zombies story? Jack In The Box is one I've yet to get around to in JAS's Tales By Moonlight II (maybe later), but the others are examples of what I think of as your EC horrors. Have they been adapted as comic strips?
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Post by ramseycampbell on Sept 1, 2017 12:20:17 GMT
No graphic adaptations yet...
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Post by dem bones on Sept 1, 2017 18:06:24 GMT
No graphic adaptations yet... Such a shame we never got to see 'Ghastly' Graham Ingels tackle Heading Home and the seance story Dead Letters, (just revisited it. Had been so long I had no idea what was coming). Would nominate John Bolton for Rising Generation, Ade Salmon to sprinkle Hammer magic over Conversion, and Randy Broecker would be a good fit for Call First. Still need to schedule that rematch with Jack In The Box. Maybe at half-time if Malta V. England hasn't bored me catatonic.
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Post by ramseycampbell on Sept 3, 2017 7:47:46 GMT
Mind you, I'd have been delighted to be done by Berni Wrightson!
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Post by dem bones on Sept 5, 2017 6:24:21 GMT
Mind you, I'd have been delighted to be done by Berni Wrightson! Mr. Wrightson was my original nomination for Conversion but reluctantly replaced due to potential availability issues. The same applies to Misty's magnificent Shirley Bellwood (sidelined for Horror House Of Blood which isn't on list but strikes me as in keeping with the series. A New Life likewise).
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Post by dem bones on Apr 29, 2018 15:07:16 GMT
Uncredited except where stated. The Marriage Of The Monsters: ( Tomb Of Terror #1, June 1952). "Ha! Look, Groth. Another example of my genius. Do you remember when they threw me out of the convention? Mad, they said. Impossible to bring the dead back. Well, look, Groth. Am I mad? Is not that life you see before you?" Dr. Drakov's original monster, Torg, absconded to the forest, so next he creates a woman to lure it back ... The Living Dead: ( Tomb Of Terror #1, June 1952). An invisible man approaches George in the cemetery, requests the loan of his body for a minute. Root Of Evil: ( Tomb Of Terror #1, June 1952). The only thing slave-driving factory owner Stephen Watson cares about is money. Wife, Gilda, sickened by his avarice finally snaps, shoots him dead, but Watson has the last laugh. Fools always told him "you can't take it with you!" but the greedy bastard proves otherwise. Jim Harmon - Collector's Curse: ( Fantastic Monsters of The Films #2, 1962). Allard knows that Borguous, a newcomer to the village, is responsible for the nightly mutilation murders, but exactly what is he dealing with - a werewolf or a vampire? Trail Of Death: ( Tomb Of Terror #4, Sept. 1952). "They had watched bodies rot to the bone .... people cry out in the most hideous screams .... agony reign in evil splendour!" A city ravaged by the Black Death. Lew Oliver bribes a guard to turn a blind eye while he sneaks through the gate to the outside world ... Devil-Doll!: ( Tomb Of Terror #4, Sept. 1952). When veteran employee Horace Wilkins is laid off at Finch's Doll factory to be replaced by a machine, he retaliates by setting loose a killer wooden doll on his former boss. Honeymoon: ( Tomb Of Terror #13, Jan 1954). The Dannenworth's spend theirs on safari in the Amazon jungle. Roger is an explorer by profession and Nora has pledged to share the life, no matter that she's terrified out of her mind. That first night in the wild, a fog descends on the camp. Nora is transported back two thousand years to the time when she was Princess Tayas of the Incacuevas tribe which, to be honest, I didn't see coming. Abominable Snowman: ( Tomb Of Terror #8, March 1953). Prof. Thad Summers and Steve Jansen scale the Himalaya's in search of the half-man, half-ape. A blizzard overcomes them. Summers dies buried in a snowdrift convinced that the creature doesn't exist. Steve learns otherwise, but would have preferred not to. Jam Session: ( Tomb Of Terror #13, Jan. 1954). Lenny Atom, ace trumpeter, gives the most crazy, wild, really all out gone performance of his life, only to realises it's wasted on an audience of ghosts.
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Post by dem bones on Oct 23, 2019 19:28:27 GMT
Anon - The Ghostly Diners: (Eerie #7, June-July 1952). A house on Royal Street, New Orleans whose dining room windows are permanently boarded. It is haunted by the ghosts of a French plantation-owning family who fell foul of their slaves and died in agony.
Anon - Hounds From Hell: (Eerie #7, June-July 1952). Belter, a New Zealand ranch hand with night vision and "an unusual way with sheep" and the ability to see in pitch darkness, is tormented by a disembodied hand and six phantom hounds.
Anon - A Haunting Story: (Doll Man #19, Nov. 1948). Star performer Agatha Aiken is crushed beneath a heavy sandbag fallen from the rafters during a performance of One More Murder at the Yellow Barn playhouse, New England Hills. The police say "accident" but Darrel Dane, aka Doll Man, isn't so sure. Dane compresses his molecules to hide in a flower basket destined for the dressing room of the one person to benefit from Agatha's death - her understudy, Arliss Granger. Can a talking rose persuade Miss Granger to confess?
Anon - Revenge from the Grave: (Doll Man #38, Feb, 1952). Felix Landow masquerades as the ghost of Artie Platt, recently executed on Death Row, to put the frighteners on a pair of ruthless gang leaders. Unfortunately for all three, Felix, an amateur impersonator and skilled make-up artist, is a little too convincing in the role.
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Post by ripper on Oct 31, 2019 16:07:59 GMT
I can remember coming across some one-two page text stories in comics back in the 70s. I used to read the Warren, Skywald, Stanley Morse etc titles when availability and pocket money permitted. It's a bit fuzzy now, so I can't exactly recall where I saw them. I have a feeling that the Alan Class titles may have included text stories as well, and as their strips were reprints from the 40s, 50s and 60s, I assume their text stories would also have been reprints.
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Post by helrunar on Mar 28, 2021 1:13:29 GMT
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Post by dem bones on Oct 14, 2021 7:05:33 GMT
OFF WITH THE HEAD!
Horror From the Tomb, Sept 1954.
That's what the wild Paris crowds would shout when Henri would climb the steps of the guillotine. Off with the head! He would turn and shake his great shaggy head at them and his thick lips would ripple back in a smile that exposed his black and broken teeth. A giant of a man, over seven feet tall, his brain was as weak as his back was strong. In only one thing did he excel — his control over Madam Guillotine. He would caress the blood-soaked wood of the deadly machine and croon a love song as he filed a razor edge on the monster blade.
When the tumbril pulled up, carrying its helpless victim, his manner changed. He was the executioner now — cold and grim.
As the chant of the mob echoed in his ears he would drag the quivering wretch onto the platform. His filth-encrusted hand would force the victim's neck into the bloody notch, an instant later the blade would strike home and another head would roll into the waiting basket.
When a woman was to be executed, his manner changed. He loved the ladies although they despised him. He would gently pull the long hair back from the quivering neck and, with gentle care, prepare the fainting maiden to meet the blade.
Perhaps it was this weakness that gave Mimi the courage to do what she did. A weak knock on the door of his hovel, one evening, brought the monster Henri to his feet. He shambled forward, a foul oath on his lips, and flung the door wide. He stopped paralyzed — this was a vision from outside his cruel world. He had seen girls like this many times, but always as they were about to die. Here was one in the flesh. Beautiful she was, and her golden hair fell full on her long cloak that covered her graceful figure. Her lips quivered as she spoke, but she had courage.
"My father, Le Comte de Sachri, is in the prison ... will you help me save him? Here is gold ... everything I have."
Henri looked for an instant at the gold - then grabbed it. At the same time he reached out and crushed the girl to him. He kissed her with slobbering lips. For an instant she remained before she pulled away.
"I will free him," he said, "but you must return tomorrow with more gold!" Mimi nodded, then fled.
The following evening Henri met her at the door: an awful grin was spread across his features. His hand was behind his back.
"Give me the gold, for I have set him free!"
Trembling, she reached into her reticule and brought out a deerskin bag. "This is all I could get — my friends helped — it is all gold." She handed it to him.
When the helpless Mimi had payed him he brought his hand from behind his back and showed her ... it was her father's head!
"See, he is free now! What greater freedom is there than death!" His laughter was drowned by her screams as he put his arms about her. He laughed again at her puny strength; how could she dare to resist him.
And then his foot slipped, slipped in Le Comte's blood, as if the old man had reached from the grave to aid his daughter. At the same instant Mimi pushed against him. Off balance he tottered, slipped, and fell into the gutter — just as a coach roared down the narrow street. The horses galloped by and Mimi screamed, a mad insane scream, half laughter.
She, a small girl half his size, had done what thousands longed to do. The monster Henri was no more, a wheel of the coach had taken off his head.
The man who had beheaded thousands had literally lost his head to a woman.
THE END
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Post by dem bones on Oct 15, 2021 7:56:59 GMT
Another from same source.
Revenge From The Grave
Horror From the Tomb, Sept 1954.
Bells ... bells ... the sound of them, vibrating and clamorous shakes the old church tower, the sound moves down through the crumbling stones into the earth below. A faraway, distant sound that touches so lightly at my coffin in the graveyard. But I hear it... I know what that sound is... I have been waiting for it.
With infinite pain I send the command to my leg ... move ... by force of will I command the rotten flesh, the cold, crumbling flesh that is my body. The bells are calling and I must answer, my corpse stirs in its mouldering tomb. I have waited for those bells, an infinity of time have I lain here in the icy grasp of the grave and waited for those merry wedding bells. My arm moves ... the bare bones rattle on the coffin lid. Those bells, wedding bells...she's getting married, the daughter of the man I hate. The daughter of the man who killed me! Revenge! The very thought gives strength to my tattered limbs. I push against the wood and hear its sudden splintering. My fingers are in the cool soil now, they claw their way upwards ... they break through the surface.
FREE... free at last, after these years in the grave I am free to wreak my revenge.
On shriveled, dead limbs I stagger towards the big house on the hill; the house that should be mine.
Ten years ago I stood in the darkened library of that house and quietly opened the safe. I had a plan ... a foolproof plan that should have worked ... and would have worked except for one accident.
Roger Barton was my partner - and a fool! He had no head for business: he was too honest. While I bled the firm dry he talked of 'security' and 'honesty' in business. We made some money, but not enough to satisfy me. We could make millions — and he settled for pennies.
It was then that I got the idea for the plan. I made forged certificates of sale, showing that Roger Barton, not I, had been cheating the company. When they were found in his possession he would go to jail for my crimes. I would take over the entire company and have the stolen money.
A foolproof plan — but one little thing went wrong. I went to Roger's house late one night and slipped in through the terrace window. I had the forged papers, all I had to do was plant them in the safe.
Cursed fate! Roger couldn't sleep that night. He came down the stairs and saw me over the safe. Thinking only that it was a burglar he shot me — killed me there in the library with the forged papers in my hands. With my dying breath I cursed him — cursed him and his daughter. And now the curse is fulfilling its destiny. His daughter is being married today, the church bells ring for her. It is the moment of greatest happiness - I shall make it his moment of greatest horror. I must kill him now, he must die in fear ... screaming and cursing the way I died.
I push my way through the door to his study... he is sitting at the desk ... a smile on his face. I look at him. I scream a terrible scream that shatters my powdery lungs. He has escaped me. Roger Barton has won again - he is beyond my reach. He is dead, he sits there smiling, dead of heart failure. Joy has overpowered him at his daughter's marriage, I cannot frighten him to death ... he has died of HAPPINESS!
The End
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