horror comic books Archives

January 29, 2024January 29, 2024

Ghostly Weird Stories Pre-code Sci-Fi and HORROR Comics Volume One

L.B. Cole’s Ghostly Weird Stories Pre-code Sci-Fi and HORROR Comics Volume One

Today we look at all five issues of the classic L.B. Cole – Star Publications Pre-code HORROR and SCI-FI Comic book “Ghostly Weird Stories Volume One” from PS Artbooks which is available in VG condition.
Ghostly Weird Stories features pre-code horror comic book covers by artist extraordinaire L.B. Cole with interior art by Jay Disbrow, Jack Kamen, Lee Loeb, and others. These precode horror comic books were originally published from September, 1953 to Sept. 1954.
Watch the original video.
All five issues were published between September of 1953 and September of 1954. Issue number 123 with a great LB Cole cover and a beautiful two-page spread Jay Disbrow who did all of the Interior art of the cover stories the first issue of ghostly weird. Issue number 120 September of 1953 with another fabulous LB Cole cover. These are sought after and always red hot in the comic book market.

Night Monster by Jay Disbrow

Jay Disbrow’s Night Monster splash page that also serves as the two page spread on the front inside cover of the volume. Night Monster also appears in my new book SPLASH OF HORROR on sale now.

I love Disbrow’s style in the pre-code sci-fi and horror comics era. Comic book artists who got into the late 1960’s, 70’s and 80’s underground comic scene were heavily influenced by the pre-code comic book artists including Jay Disbrow.
Here is another classic pre-code story “The Mummy’s Hand.” Keep in mind that some of these artists are simply unknown. If you check out the Comics Database you will see that their identities are few and far between. We do know that Disbrow did interior art, LB Cole drew the covers and Jack Kamen drew stories in some issues.
Here is a one page story called The Vengeful Phantom by Jay Disbrow. The Garden of horror is drawn by Lee Loeb. I love this Splash page. His characters are suitably deranged. Here’s another fabulous LB Cole cover for Ghostly Weird Stories number 121. The Case of the Shrunken Heads has a very underground comics vibe to it.

Death Ship L.B. Cole Cover and Jay Disbrow Art

One of my favorite L.B. Cole covers of all time is called “Death Ship” and naturally Jay disbrow does interior art for it. I love the splash page. It’s about astronauts on the planet of death. “Face of death” is another nice splash page in this issue.

Death Pirate appears in the last issue of Ghostly Weird Stories from September of 1954. You can imagine you’re walking down the street you see this on a comic book rack or newsstand. I’d pick this up in a second and of course Jay Disbrow comes in with the cover story called “Homecoming” with an excellent splash page to begin the story.

Summary of Ghostly Weird Stories

Ghostly Weird Stories volume one reprints from PS Artbooks is highly recommended. The reproductions are generally very good and the presentation is first class.
You can buy this volume of Ghostly Weird Stories on sale.

January 15, 2024January 15, 2024

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.

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.
Another 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

One 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 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 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.
The 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.

January 8, 2024January 8, 2024

ECLIPSE Pre-Code HORROR Comic Book Series SEDUCTION Of The INNOCENT

SEDUCTION Of The INNOCENT Pre-Code HORROR Comic Book Series from Eclipse Comics 1985.
Watch the original companion video here.

In the mid-1980’s, Eclipse Comics began publishing a series of pre-code horror comic book reprints called Seduction of the Innocent. The title was taken from the infamous book by Dr. Frederick Wertham, a sad old man who led the charge against comic books in the 1950s. The stories in the Eclipse series were taken from standard comics pre-code titles that included Adventures into Darkness, Out of the Shadows, The Unseen, and Fantastic Worlds.
I don’t believe that any of these Standard comics titles were used in the congressional hearings that helped usher in the dreaded 1955 Comics Code Authority but it is an absolute fact that Standard had some top-notch artists of the day.
Six issues of seduction of the innocent are gorgeous full-color reproductions of great stories from the classic pre-code comic books. Two issues are 3-D reproductions wherein original non-3d stories were given the 3d treatment with mixed results.

Jim Vadeboncouer Introductions

In each issue there is a segment called The Horror, the History by Jim Vadeboncouer, a well-known authority in the realm of pre-code comics who sadly left this mortal coil in 2023. His book on the life of Everett Raymond Kinsler who drew comics for avon in the pre-code era is highly recommended.
Seduction of the Innocent Comic Book Covers
The covers of the non-3d issues is a mixed bag. Issue number one with cover art by Reed Crandall taken from the interior story is great. Issue number two with the cover taken from fantastic worlds number five art by Murphy Anderson is very tame for a Seduction of the Innocent cover. Issue number three has a cool panel from the story Werewolf by Mort Meskin and George Roussos from Out of the Shadows number 14. Issue number four has an interesting Alex Toth cover and issue number five cover by Alex Toth is a fine classic crime cover. Issue number six rounds out the whole affair with you guessed it, another Alex Toth cover, perhaps my favorite of the bunch called “Look into the Eyes of Death.”

3-D Comic Book Covers

The 3D issues are kind of a toss-up. Eclipse had the excellent idea of getting two stellar artists to do the covers. The spicy Dave “Rocketeer” Stevens cover for number one is fantastic and I wish that was in 3d! Issue two features a great Bernie “Swamp Thing” Wrightson cover. I highly recommend these issues for the covers alone because in reality the covers are better than the 3-D attempts inside. The problem is they took ordinary pre-code horror stories and processed them for 3D using modern 3-d processing techniques. Some of it works, some of it doesn’t.

Joe Kubert 3-D House of Terror

They may have drawn their inspiration from the fantastic 3d pre-code horror comic book titled “3D House of Terror” published by Saint John in 1953 featuring a surprisingly tame cover by Joe Kubert.
The 3d stories inside more than make up for the lack of cover “wow.” interior art by kubert and enrico bagnoli the first story drawn by Kubert called “Picture of Evil” has an intense splash page that is amazingly three-dimensional. According to comics.org this is the only story that was done for the issue or should i say not previously published elsewhere.

1950’s 3-D Comics Vs. Modern 3-D Comics

The other stories were originally published in Saint John’s Weird Horrors and Strange Terrors comic books, however, they are still better looking 3D than the Eclipse 3d series. It is possible that the kind of 3d printing technique used in the 1950s was superior after all 3d was very popular during that period in both comics and movies so it is likely that the folks doing it were on top of their game that being said i still recommend the 3d seduction of the innocent comics from Eclipse and I consider the one through six non-3d reprints essential for the pre-code horror fans. Trust me, you’ll be oggling that Dave Stevens cover for more than a few minutes.

This concludes part four of this series. Watch the original Eclipse Seduction of the Innocent video. Thanks for reading and watching!

December 19, 2023December 19, 2023

Mysteries Weird And Strange Six – March 1954 Superior Comics pre-code horror comics

precode horror comics mysteries weird and strange — horror comic books precode golden age

Mysteries Weird and Strange Number Six – March 1954 Superior Comics pre-code horror comics. Full video here.
We look at the classic precode horror comic book Mysteries weird and Strange number six published in September 1954 by the Canadian company Superior Publishers limited.
From 1947 to 1956, Superior publishing produced dozens of different comic book titles and a total of 443 issues during that 9-year period. Their pre-code horror titles included strange Mysteries, Mysteries weird and strange, and journey into fear. Most of the art in these titles were done by Jerry iger’s famous Iger shop which consisted of such artists as Jay disbrow, Matt Baker, Ken Batefield, Robert Webb, and writer editor Ruth Roach among others.
Iger shop worked as a factory producing perhaps a dozen comic books a month for various Publishers and other titles such as Haunted Thrills, Voodoo, Mysterious Adventures, Strange Fantasy, Fantastic Fears, and more. Typically, no specific artist is credited with a story because many artists worked on specific things related to a story in a factory like setting.
We begin with Mysteries Weird and Strange number six from March 1954. The copy I have is coverless but complete so we can take a good look at all the stories. All of these synopsis are taken from Comic Book Plus, a great website you need to check out for fantastic digital reproduction of these precode horror comics.
Howling Horror. Synopsis: on a trip to the mountains writer Adam hunt makes the acquaintance of lonely Vicky barow something is uncanny about her because she keeps dogs with men’s names.
Next up, Swamp Vengeance. Synopsis: trouble in the bayous! Jake karna kills a man for some precious animal pelts but is blackmailed by eyewitness Bell. Karna murders her too by throwing her to the alligators. Belle however returns as a vengeful ghost.
Then we have a text story called The Kill which is two pages long. Synopsis: a sentenced man sneaks back into the courthouse to stab the judge who punished him. The judge’s chair comes to life and crushes the evildoer.
The next tale is Evil Disguise. Synopsis: Sam wants to give his friend Tom a scare. He asks him to come to the cemetery where he’s ordered some actors to appear in costume. The men are confronted with real fiends from the grave!
Death Rehearsal. Synopsis: Peter Edison wants to commit the perfect crime with the help of his attorney Tom Ferris. He plans a murder scenario for his philandering wife but does he know that Ferris is the man that his wife is seeing?
And that wraps up Mysteries weird and strange number six. In part two we will look at strange Mysteries number Seven from September 1954. You can see the entire video here.

December 15, 2023

Voodoo Number 15 May 1954 Pre-Code Horror Comic Book

Today we’re looking at a reprint of Voodoo number 15 from May June of 1954. Pre-code horror comics, all stories, no ads published by classic Comics library.
Watch the full video here.
It is just the comics only, there are no ads which is kind of unfortunate because I love the original ads in these comic books. It’s not a facsimile, it’s just reprinting the actual stories themselves and as you can see the quality is mixed to say the least. You find that the contrast has been kicked up so you lose detail and the images look darker. Sometimes they’re a bit fuzzy as you can see with the voodoo cover on the left so it’s just not that sharp unfortunately but this particular issue of voodoo 15 has some great stories in it and I got it on Amazon for three dollars. I had free shipping with a couple of other items so nothing to lose there folks. Keep in mind that the art in Voodoo was primarily by Iger shop, published by Ajax Farrell.
Iger shop was composed of a variety of artists including including Matt Baker, Jay disbrow, Robert web, Ken batefield, and Ruth roach was the editor for Iger shop.
First up we have “Doomed.” “On a sweltering slim covered rock not far from the infamous penal colony of Devil’s Island there is another more horrible Island. Here is washed up the human debris that is too horrible for even the devil. Nobody but murderers are sent to the Rock and it is here that an American reporter is trying to get a story about the Doom knife.” As you can see, the high contrast takes out detail the images are a bit darker in spots.
A very average reprint but then folks we have “Nightmare Island” with one of those great Splash Pages featuring the girl stuck in a mouse trap with a giant rat. If you want to see a better reprint of nightmare Island and this fabulous splash page I highly recommend Voodoo volume 3 from IDW and yoe books because you’re going to get a much better reproduction.
“In the end, three humans and a brute who belonged in a nightmare were all caught in the terrible spin snapping snare of the big rat trap nightmare Island.” The woman goes outside and sees a dog house in the backyard. “Why it’s a dog house, how nice. I love dogs and they love me and a nice friendly dog will make this place seem less Grim. Here doggy, nice doggy!” Suddenly from the dogghouse there rushes a slavering ravening horror with long needles sharp teeth and jaws flecked with foam the chain strains to Breaking Point as it tries to get it Lucy. “A big rat!” there you go folks that’s what I’m talking about right there is only Iger shop can give you. The ending- “The man steps back into the trap feels the trigger spring just as he sinks the axe deep into the furry gray skull the big rat which gives a death Screech. The Trap Springs with terrible force and the lamp shatters on the floor. The man screams for a long time before he dies, but fate is merciful he dies before the Flames can reach him the giant rat is dead too. There is only the crackling of the fire and the howling of the other animals as they sense death.”
Next up “Hammer of evil.” “This is a crazy story but let’s pretend that you are there an imaginary jury and it is up to you to decide put yourself in this doomed man’s place and meet Kolla the atavar.” They find this woman encased in a chunk of ice and of course she gets thawed out and it’s Kolla the atavar and she’s a little Savage.
The last story in Voodoo number 15 “Dead Man’s pajamas.” “When is a murder not a murder? a good question so said the police and one they could not answer until John Foster famous private investigator risked his life life to supply the solution. Your skin will creep as you read this mad story of a dead man’s pajamas!”
Voodoo was one of the most daring books featuring not only suspenseful stories and excellent Artistry but the graphic horror that made parents fear for their children’s sanity.
Unfortunately the final printed product is very average and nowhere near the quality for example of PS art books or IDW-Yoe Books. I hope you enjoyed this video and as always please like and subscribe. Watch this video here.

February 17, 2022

Pre-Code HORROR COMICS Movie on Sale NOW

Get the Witch Tales blu-ray featuring terrifying pre-code comic tales of horror along with a FREE COPY of Horror Anthology Movie vol. 1 DVD ON SALE NOW with FREE DOMESTIC SHIPPING.
Witch Tales has stories adapted from Harvey’s Chamber of Chills, Ajax Farrell’s Haunted Thrills, and Story Comics Mysterious Adventures with a spine tingling wrap around featuring a seductive witch making her own special conjuration on Halloween eve!
Available now on Ebay and Etsy.

September 10, 2021

Golden Age Horror Comics Doc At Florida Film Festival

Filmmaker Mike T Lyddon’s new doc about golden age pre-code horror comic books titled HAUNTED THRILLS will be screened as an official selection at the GAINESCON Film Festival in the Tampa Saint Petersburg area of Florida.
The film will screen Friday, November 19th or Saturday the 20th at the Studio Movie Grill, an amazing movie theater where you can dine while watching first run movies. Film festival winners will be announced on November 20th.
This two day event features real indie films in the genres of action, sci-fi, fantasy, and horror.
“I was very pleased to get HAUNTED THRILLS on the festival board at Gainescon as an official entry and I plan to attend the event.” Lyddon said. “It’s great to break the ice at the start of fall festival season and I couldn’t think of a better event than Gainescon to begin the journey.”

This short documentary is a companion piece to Lyddon’s previous feature film WITCH TALES that contains stories adapted from those awesome pre-code horror comics of the 1950s.
Lyddon’s film will play several festivals before being officially released on RUMBLE and subsequently on Youtube and a few other platforms.

September 17, 2020

Pre-Code Horror Comic Book Stories Come To Life in Witch Tales

Fans of 1950s pre-code horror comic books will love the stories presented in WITCH TALES, a feature length horror anthology film based upon Golden Age comics of the late 40s and early 50s.
And now, RPLLC is having an EBAY HALLOWEEN MOVIE SALE!

The HALLOWEEN HORROR ANTHOLOGY BUNDLE features the WITCH TALES blu-ray and the HORROR ANTHOLOGY MOVIE DVD together for one low price with Free shipping in the U.S.
Play the HORROR TRIVIA GAME and enter to WIN MOVIE PROPS from WITCH TALES.
The two movies give you over 3 hours of eerie and creepy horror tales perfect for a chilly night this Halloween season!
Visit our Ebay page and buy the awesome Halloween Horror Anthology Bundle today!

December 12, 2019December 12, 2019

Pre-code Horror Anthology Movie Wins Big at Film Festivals

Cuentos de la Bruja aka Witch Tales, the latest feature film by Mike Lyddon, has ended it’s year long festival run having been selected in 13 film festivals worldwide winning 6 awards including best feature film.
Witch Tales, also known as Cuentos de la Bruja, was filmed in Peru. Mike Lyddon is currently editing the English language version of the film. The Spanish language version is an official selection in one last festival, Horror On Sea, taking place in January, 2020.
The film has three stories adapted from the lesser known pre-code horror comic books of the 1950s. Lyddon is a big fan of those comic books and is also working on a documentary called Haunted Thrills which will hit the festivals in 2020.
He has also just sold his first short story, “Thing in the Shed,” which has been published by Deadman’s Tome in the collection titled “Monster Party” and is available here.
For more information, please follow the Reel Progress page on Facebook, and the flagship site, horroranthologymovies.com.