Here we are back in October already. I’m afraid there won’t be a full Hallowe’en Countdown this year. However, as this remains — no controversy there — our favourite period of the year, we’ll still be indulging our undying passion for all things moody, creepy and spooky.
For my opening salvo, I’ve chosen to spotlight the striking cover art of a particular horror title of comics’ Golden Age, namely Harvey’s Witches’ Tales (28 issues, 1951-1954).
This is Witches’ Tales no. 1 (January 1951, Harvey). Cover by Al Avison. Read this issue here!This is Witches’ Tales no. 2 (March 1951, Harvey). Cover by Al Avison. Read this issue here!This is Witches’ Tales no. 8 (March 1952, Harvey). Cover by Lee Elias. Read this issue here!This is Witches’ Tales no. 16 (December 1952, Harvey). Cover by Lee Elias. Read this issue here!This is Witches’ Tales no. 19 (June 1953, Harvey). Cover by Lee Elias. Read this issue here!Here we have the miraculously surviving layout sketch by MVP art director Warren Kremer, who designed each of these dark gems, and indeed thousands more, for Harvey Comics. Since it’s preferable to show, not merely tell, here’s a nice brace of them.This is Witches’ Tales no. 20 (August 1953, Harvey). Cover by Bob Powell, né Stanley Robert Pawlowski. Read this issue here!
I now skip over two of my very favourite covers in the series, nos. 21 and 22, having featured them in an earlier post. Do check them out!
This is Witches’ Tales no. 24 (April 1954, Harvey). Cover by Lee Elias. Read this issue here!This is Witches’ Tales no. 25 (June 1954, Harvey). Cover by Howard Nostrand (he always comes to mind when I take the subway in Brooklyn), doing his best Jack Davis impression. Read this issue here!Another surviving layout by the estimable Mr. Kremer.
As far as I’m aware, Harvey horror is renowned for exactly two classic stories: one of them is the innovative Bob Powell tour de force Colorama, originally published in Black Cat Comics no. 45, (August 1953), and widely reprinted since. Read it here, and check out the excellent Kremer-Nostrand cover it bears. And the other? Why, it’s WT no. 25’s cover story, actually entitled What’s Happening at — 8:30 P.M... and having nothing to do with the striking (sorry!) situation depicted above, though also illustrated by Mr. Nostrand.
This is Witches’ Tales no. 26 (August 1954, Harvey). Cover by Lee Elias. Read this issue here!This is Witches’ Tales no. 27 (October 1954, Harvey), another Elias cover. Read this issue here! It’s a competent but disappointing image, and it turned out that there was a good reason for its relative restraint.… and that reason was self-censorship. The writing was on the wall, the dreaded Comics Code was about to come into force, and the Harvey brass — devoid of anything to match EC honcho Bill Gaines‘ brass balls — had opted, to ensure its survival, to preemptively play the squeaky-clean card for the duration. Gone is the soon-to-be verboten term ‘horror’, swapped with the gentler ‘suspense’. The censored cover aside, the issue consisted of timorous reprints from the title’s milder days. No story entitled ‘Dig That Grave’ appears to have been published by Harvey, though it would have been nice to recycle the script with, say, Richie Rich buried alive… which would explain how he became Casper.
It’s interesting, I think, to see how the tone of these covers reflected the industry’s moods: the earliest ones are light and goofy, then things get darker and darker, reaching a zenith of sorts with issue 25’s notoriously gruesome scenario. Then, under the cloud of censorship and public opprobrium, they threw up their hands and eased off the accelerator.
-RG
P.S. While I’m resting on my laurels out here, should you crave more, always more, here’s a most convenient stack of links leading to the only slightly mouldy archive of our past Hallowe’en-themed efforts. Those of you yet blessed with a functioning attention span should find plenty therein to while away the long autumn nights :
