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. 

Web of Evil Part One

WEB OF EVIL – Part 1
Quality Comics. 21 issues from 1952 – 1954.
Quality Comics was famous for super hero titles like PLASTIC MAN, but when they got into pre-code horror comics, their go-to artist, JACK COLE ended up making some of the most sought after PCH comics in the collectors’ field today.
Cole’s electrocution cover for issue 5 is among the most popular covers, selling at hefty prices…if you can find a copy!
It is thought that Cole also wrote some of the stories in Web of Evil, and indeed this series supplied some of the best terror tales in the pre-code period.
Check out VALLEY OF HORROR in issue #8, one of my personal favorites. This story can also be found reprinted in FOUR COLOR FEAR from Fantagraphics and HAUNTED HORROR #5 from IDW.
Watch the Web of Evil Video.
WEB OF EVIL – Part 2
Quality Comics. 21 issues from 1952 – 1954.
We finish our look at WEB OF EVIL with some of the latter issues in the series. By this time, the great JACK COLE was no longer doing covers (or much of anything) with the series, but it is interesting to note that REED CRANDALL, one of the greats from the EC Comics line who would eventually do a lot of fantastic stories for CREEPY and EERIE magazines (Warren Publishing) in the 60’s and 70’s, did the cover for issue number 14 pictured here with the title WITCH OF DEATH.
Charles Nicholas was doing the lion’s share of interior art for WEB OF EVIL for the remainder of the series.
Many thanks to https://www.comics.org/ for additional pics and info.
web of evil 1