HAUNTED HORROR Pre-Code Comic Book Reprints From YOE Books

YOE Books Pre-code HORROR Comic Book Reprints – Part One
Yoe book’s Haunted Horror pre-code horror comic book reprint series began circa 2012 with editor Steve Banes, Clizia Gussoni and Craig Yoe.
Watch the original video here. 
pre-code horror comics reprints haunted horror

Haunted Horror Creators

Contributing editors included Tillman Courth, Mike Howlett, Toxic Tommy O’brien, and Jim Vadeboncoeur. The full color reprints are really quite good.
For instance, the story called “City of Fearful Night” drawn by none other than the great Bernard Baily, from Worlds of Fear number two, January 1952. For this series, they put together a variety of different stories from various publishers so you didn’t have one issue which was “Worlds of Fear” featuring stories from that title. You had a variety of issues which would have a story from Chamber of Chills, The Unseen, Beware! Terror Tales, etc. The reproduction as far as i’m concerned is really quite good so I don’t have any complaints with the way that they randomly put stories together in these horror comic books.

Artists and Stories in Haunted Horror

Haunted Horror number 15 featured an awesome bernard bailey cover from Weird Mysteries number four.
haunted horror nightmare come true by iger shop robert webbAnother issue has “Nightmare come true” from Journey into Fear number nine, september, 1952. Art by Iger shop with a majority of the work done by Robert Webb. Webb loved to do these these like circular panels like this and his faces and and bodies had a certain look.
Mark of the Brute from Weird Terror number 11 with art by Don Heck who would go on to do a lot of stuff for Marvel superheroes and so forth. Here he is in the early 1950’s doing pre-code horror comics.
Haunted Horror number 16 features that fabulous George Roussos cover from Out of the Shadows from Standard Comics.

The Editors as Horror Hosts

craig yoe is forelock the warlock in haunted horrorOne of the great things about Haunted Horror is that they had the three editors, Banes, Gussoni, and Yoe all had their own horror host characters who introduced the stories. For example, this is Craig Yoe As Forelock the Warlock drawn by Angelo Torres.

Giant Ants and Mummies

In one of the classic pre-code horror stories, “the Black Death,” giant army ants attack and devour humans. The story was originally from Fantastic Fears number four with art by Iger Shop and redrawn in a 1960s issue Weird magazine for Eerie Publications.
the mummy horror comic book hostThe Mummy was a horror host used in many of the Beware! Terror Tales issues published by Fawcett in the early 1950’s. This particular story called “Search into the Unknown” was drawn by Maurice Gutworth, a very popular pre-code horror comics artist who did a lot of work for Fawcett.

L.B. Cole and Mr. Karswell

For Haunted Horror number seventeen we have an excellent reproduction of a great L.B. Cole cover. Every one of his covers are fantastic but this one from Spook number twenty-five, July, 1953 is gorgeous.
mr karswell steve banesMr. Karswell aka Steve Banes is another Haunted Horror host with a rather Creepy magazine style look done by Art Fuentes. The first story “To Death” is from Dark Mysteries number fourteen, 1953, art by John D’Agostino.

Mister Mystery number one september of 1951, a story called “Revolt of the Fingers.”
This is from Beware! Terror Tales once again.  Here is the Mummy introducing the story for the november 1954 issue of Beware! Art by Bob McCarty, a really great artist.
bob mccarty artist precode horror comicsThe colors are quite cool and I love his style. IDW-Yoe Books’ reproductions are sharp, I have no complaints whatsoever with these.

We will continue with part two on Yoe books next week.
Haunted Horror Books on SALE. 

Pre-code Horror Comic Books from Standard Comics

Standard Comics pre code horrorSTANDARD COMICS presents OUT OF THE SHADOWS – 10 issues from July 1952 to August 1954.
A ton of great artists did pre-code horror comics for STANDARD including Alex Toth (also known for animation designs for Space Ghost, Sealab 2020 in the 1960’s), George Roussos who penciled the great spider creature cover pictured here (he drew comics for EC as well), George Tuska, Vince Colletta and Jack Katz.
Several of these issues are highly sought after and demand big bucks in the collectors’ world.
standard comics pre code horrorADVENTURES INTO DARKNESS from Standard Comics – 10 issues from August 1952 to June 1954.
Standard employed some of the best artists from the pre-code era including George Roussos, Ross Andru, Mike Esposito, Jack Katz, Alex Toth, Nick Cardy and George Tuska, just to name a few.
The awesome skeleton shadow cover (The Man Who Could Not Die) for issue number 10 was drawn by Ross Andru who is probably best known for his work on The Amazing Spider-Man comics from Marvel.
The stories in this series tended to be more classic horror in nature and we some excellent pieces of original art from some of the stories in Adventures into Darkness on ghostclinic.com.
pre-code horror comic book The UnseenTHE UNSEEN
Standard Comics – 11 issues from June 1952 – July 1954.
Featuring the usual lot of artists and writers from the other Standard horror titles such as Alex Toth, Ross Andru, Mike Esposito, Jerry Grandenetti, Abe Simon, Irwin Shapiro, Jack Katz, George Roussos.
There are some great stories in this title and we’ll present some original art with the next post.
The Wailing Woman by George Roussos in issue #9 is based upon the classic hispanic horror tale of “La Llorona,” wherein Mexico City is haunted by the “Wailing Woman.”
Some images and scans from Heritage Auctions and Comics.org.
Watch the Standard Comics video.
pre code horror comic books