Panning the murky old print stream for the odd glimmering nugget
They Called It… The Golden Age!
That’s the period opening with the advent of the first comic books, in the early 30s, and ending with the release of Showcase no. 4 in 1956 (introducing the new Flash), which signals the passage to the next era, the Silver Age, of course.
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 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 the issue here, and while you’re at it, Bhob Stewart‘s insightful article about Nostrand and his œuvre.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 :
« Taking something from one man and making it worse is plagiarism. » — George Augustus Moore (1852-1933)
A fortnight or so ago, I came across an image that looked… familiar. It wasn’t slick enough to be AI, so I presumed it was a swipe. My first guess was Fiction House’s Planet Comics, but I initially came up empty. Then I realized my error: I was looking for a reproduction of the whole scene, involving both figures.
After a second pass… bingo: two issues of Planet Comics. At least the swiper was consistent: both covers were drawn by the same guy, Joe Doolin (1896-1967), a prolific pulp and comic book illustrator. Check out his interesting biography.
This is Planet Comics no. 26 (Sept. 1943, Fiction House), cover by Doolin. Frankly, it’s easy to imagine this one recycled, with minor changes, as a Sheena-style jungle scene, another of the publisher’s specialties.As for the source of our second figure, here’s Planet Comics no. 57 (Nov. 1948, Fiction House), cover by Doolin.This is Planet Comics no. 59 (Mar. 1949, Fiction House). A mere two issues later, Doolin virtually reused the same pose*, though obviously, he wasn’t so lazy as to not redraw it from scratch. Pretty nifty outfit on the heroine. Who are these bozos? Inbred descendants of the Savage Dragon and Razor Fist? Jeepers.
I mentioned the clumsy swipe in question to a long-time friend and colleague (salut, Éric!), who informed me that the ‘Space Sluts’ had been making the social media rounds (as they would), and that an alarming proportion of commenters had been fooled into thinking the piece was an artifact of some ancient origin, instead of a recent ‘creation’. No great shock there, as your average Joe Schmoe can’t recognize AI slop either when he sees it (but adores it indiscriminately).
I mean, it’s all wrong: the depressing 21st century desaturated colours (denizens of our current dystopian nightmare shun bright, saturated colours (see graphic below) like a vampire eschews garlic), the telltale phoney brushstrokes of digital art, the incorrect cropping (no art would have been published with the space beyond the edges showing), methods of shading, the ‘dust and scratches’ being the same colour as the printed ink,.. I could go on all night, but I’ve got better things to do.
Then there’s the title. The art is insult enough, but was the shaming necessary? On Facebook, some mooncalf pointed out — incorrectly — that ‘slut’ didn’t have the meaning we’re familiar with until the 1960s. Nope (read on), but it likely wouldn’t have made it into print, and certainly not on the cover of a mainstream pulp magazine. I turn to a favourite reference work, Hugh Rawson‘s Wicked Words (1989, Crown) for the nitty-gritty:
slut. A slovenly woman, one of loose morals, a prostitute, HUSSY, or JADE. “He got very drunk and brought back a sluttish girl to the house. He woke me later to tell me that he had rogered her and her mama, too.“ (Evelyn Waugh, Remote People [in Kenya], 1931). An old word, perhaps related to SLATTERN, slut was applied to women long before the nineteenth century, when it sank to the animal level, becoming a euphemism for a she-dog, or BITCH. In very olden times, it was not restricted to women, e.g. “Why is thy lord so sluttish“ (Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale, 1387-1400). The feminine senses developed early, however, and they soon became dominant, which is usually what happens when “bad” words have both male and female meanings. Nowadays, only women are sluts or sluttish, the men having managed to get to escape the derogatory designation, just as they did with, for instance, GIRL, HARLOT, and SHREW.
As a side note, Doolin himself was no stranger to swipes, though technically these were above-board, publisher-commissioned recreations.
« The publisher of Fiction House, Thurman T. Scott, was notorious among pulp artists for repeatedly demanding additional revisions before granting final approval of his cover art. Most pulp publishers understood that good covers resulted in good sales, but Thurman T. Scott was obsessed with perfecting an unbeatable formula for maximum sales. The most obvious element of his formula was a big sexy pin-up. This same mania is reflected in the bizarre reappearance of Fiction House pulp covers on Fiction House comics. »
At left, Planet Stories no. 11 (Summer 1942, Fiction House), a cover painted by WOT? favourite Norm Saunders; at right, Planet Comics no. 45 (Nov. 1946, Fiction House), a line art remake by Doolin.At left, Planet Stories no. 14 (Mar. 1943, Fiction House), a cover painted by Jerome George Rozen (1885-1987); at right, Planet Comics no. 40 (Jan. 1946, Fiction House), a line art remake by Mr. Doolin, with a couple of minor modifications tossed in.
-RG
*I expect more from Doolin than from, say, Ross Andru, who used the same basic pose on every single 1970s cover he drew, and I’m barely exaggerating.
« New Year’s Resolution: To tolerate fools more gladly, provided this does not encourage them to take up more of my time. » — James Agate
And another one gone… another one bites the dust, in the immortal words of John Deacon. Adios, 2025.
To send off the annum, and instil some hope into the ceremony, I turn to the superlative Carl Barks (1901-2000), « The Good Duck Artist », and this classic — but not overly familiar — ten-pager from Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories no. 173 (Feb. 1955, Dell)*, scripted, pencilled and inked by Mr. Barks and lettered by his wife Garé, a superb artist in her own right. Take it away, folks!
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The boys’ ironic recycling of the giant bird stilts is a brilliant touch.
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One of Barks’ most refreshing innovations is that he steered Donald’s nephews away from the typical, simplistic ‘little devils’ characterization they were saddled with at their conception. Barks made them crafty but essentially noble, in marked contrast to their Unca Donald. The issue of WDC&S that our story premiered in didn’t feature a New Year’s-themed cover, so here’s an earlier one, from none other than Walt Kelly. This is Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories no. 88 (Jan. 1944, Dell).
At the end of this wretched, truly merciless year, I dedicate this post to our beloved cat, Barnabas, who left us — peacefully — just this afternoon. May he be 2025’s final innocent victim.
*However, I opted for the superior reproduction values — trust me — of the reprint featured in Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories no. 623 (Apr. 1998, Gladstone). Kudos to Susan Daigle-Leach for the tasteful latter-day colouring.
« Before he can become a wolf, the lycanthrope strips naked. If you spy a naked man among the pines, you must run as if the Devil were after you. » — Angela Carter (1940-1992)
First of all, Happy Hallowe’en! On this finest of occasions, I bring you a wonderfully novel take on the hoary theme of the werewolf, handled by one of the truly unsung — save, it would seem, but some of his most distinguished peers* — draughtsmen of the Golden Age, namely Emil Gerswhin (1922-1999).
And yes, *that* George. Just like, say… the Partches, Virgil and Harry, genius clearly ran rich throughout the Gershwin line.
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I wasn’t alone (Steve Bissette saw it too) in concluding that the terrific Mitch O’Connell just has to be Mr. Gershwin’s most direct — and worthiest — artistic progeny.
*By « distinguished peers », I mean the likes of Alex Toth, Al Williamson and Stephen Bissette. The latter wrote, in his introduction (essential reading alert!) to PS Artbooks’ Adventures Into the Unknown Volume 4 (March 2013, PS Artbooks): « Like almost all of the ACG horror comics, Gershwin’s work was the antithesis of the festering, tactile rot that made celebrated Pre-Code genre artists like Graham Ingels, Jack Davis, and Basil Wolverton so indelibly iconic: horror comics you could almost smell. Gershwin’s imagery is comparably sterile, even antiseptic, but his storytelling is as direct and no-nonsense noir as the best of Johnny Craig, his energetic pen-and-brush work as crisp and razor-sharp as Jack Davis‘ (sans the grit and grue and bits of meat and dirt spattering every motion), his staging as audacious as that of any cartoonist of his day. »
Bissette goes on to quote Williamson on Gershwin: « Oh, God, Gershwin was good. … he and [Ogden]Whitney were their best ever! A real draftsman, a solid cartoonist all-around. You should look him up, you could learn a few things. »
As for Toth, check out — his handwriting’s always a treat to see — what he wrote to Emil’s daughter Nancy over the course of their correspondance.
Again, our spotlighted tale isn’t the cover feature, but I nonetheless felt it my sacred duty to share this unusual beauty by Ken Bald (1920-2019). This is Forbidden Worlds no. 34 (Nov.-Dec. 1954, ACG), the title’s final Pre-Code issue. In 1955, FW would return to the stands after nine-month hiatus and take its final bow in 1967 after a sprightly run of 145 issues.
-RG
P.s. And while I dodged the headache of our traditional countdown this year, nothing — least of all me — is preventing you from raiding the boneyard of our past efforts, shameless ghouls that you are. Here are some handy links to put you into Hallowe’en orbit for a good long while :
« The sacred is found boring by many who find the uncanny fascinating. » — Mason Cooley
I’ve expressed many a time my ambivalent affection for Golden Age Atlas horror comics: in short, despite their slapdash, often incoherent writing, they had a solid stable of artists (which makes the thin writing all the more disappointing); but most of all, they generally had eye-catching covers, splendidly coloured (easy a task to underestimate!) and blessed with a light touch absent on the insides.
Today, I’ve picked out my favourite covers from Uncanny Tales (fifty-six issues, 1952-57). Enjoy!
This is Uncanny Tales n. 5 (Feb. 1953, Atlas), cover art by Bill Everett, colours — consistently fine! — presumably by Stan Goldberg in all cases.This is Uncanny Tales n. 6 (Mar. 1953, Atlas), cover art by Bill Everett.This is Uncanny Tales n. 13 (Oct. 1953, Atlas), cover art likely a collaboration by Sol Brodsky and Carl Burgos.This is Uncanny Tales n. 17 (Feb. 1954, Atlas), cover art by Bill Everett.This is Uncanny Tales n. 18 (Mar. 1954, Atlas), cover art by Russ Heath. For a gallery of further Heath spookies, check out this entry from last year. This endearingly goofy one is Uncanny Tales n. 20 (May 1954, Atlas), with cover artist Robert Q. Sale giving it his best Joe Maneely imitation.Surely the leading candidate for “Most understated Marvel cover of the 1950s”… if not of all time. Stan must have been away from the office. This is Uncanny Tales no. 23 (Aug. 1953, Atlas); Art by Russ Heath. I’m understandably reminded of that old-timey jibe, « Walk East until your hat floats ».This is Uncanny Tales n. 27 (Dec. 1954, Atlas), cover art by Max ‘Carl Burgos‘ Finkelstein.And one post-Code entry, since it’s so outstanding. This is Uncanny Tales no. 48 (Oct. 1956, Atlas), Another subtle one by Russ Heath, but in a totally different register. Kudos!
While that chain of events is a fascinating bit of history, what I’m here to celebrate is a sequence of classic covers by recent — 2024 recent — Will Eisner Comic Awards Hall of Fame inductee Creig Valentine Flessel (1912-2008). Flessel produced eighteen of the first nineteen Detective Comics covers (the premiere issue bore a striking, but rather primitive drawing by associate editor Vin Sullivan), visibly gaining assurance and verve as he sped along. By my reckoning, however, it’s only with the eleventh issue that he solidly hit his stride, which he never let up until the assignment passed into other hands… and then came Batman.
Anyway, here they are: no hand-holding, no patronising, superfluous captions… just graphic purity — and sweat-soaked, pulpy thrills galore.
This is Detective Comics no. 11 (Jan. 1938, DC).This is Detective Comics no. 12 (Feb. 1938, DC).This is Detective Comics no. 13 (Mar. 1938, DC).This is Detective Comics no. 14 (Apr. 1938, DC).This is Detective Comics no. 15 (May 1938, DC).This is Detective Comics no. 16 (June 1938, DC).This is Detective Comics no. 17 (July 1938, DC).This is Detective Comics no. 18 (Aug. 1938, DC). Even as a relatively sheltered white teenager, I could easily tell that Sax Rohmer‘s Fu Manchu stories were racist (and sexist as well) « Yellow Peril » tripe… even in the context of their era, they went the extra mile. This is Detective Comics no. 19 (Sept. 1938, DC), Flessel’s final cover for the title.
Flessel would turn up all over the place. Gary Groth writes, introducing his definitive, career-spanning Flessel interview:
« Flessel never became an auteur with a truly recognizable narrative voice or characters that he could call entirely his own. He was so skilled and versatile that he became an artistic chameleon, a commercial propensity that served him well throughout his career. He wrote and drew stories for the earliest published comic books: More Fun, Detective Comics and Adventure; worked for the advertising firm of Johnstone and Cushing; assisted Al Capp on Li’l Abner and worked with Charlie Biro on Crime Does Not Pay in the ’50s; spent the ’60s and early ’70s drawing David Crane, a comic strip about a minister in a small town and segued seamlessly into an eight-year gig doing The Tales of Baron Von Furstinbed for Playboy. »
Detail (the whole spread would have been impossible to scan properly) from one of Flessel’s long-running series of Eveready Batteries adverts, done in the employ of the celebrated Johnstone and Cushing ad agency (this one’s from 1951). On his The Fabulous Fifties blog, Ger Apeldoorn showcases a number of these lovelies — check ’em out!Flessel turned up as Jerry Grandenetti‘s inker on my favourite issue of Joe Simon and Grandenetti’s much-maligned, short-lived but quite charming Prez (no. 4, Feb.-Mar. 1974, DC). Notwithstanding the — intentionally — fanciful elements of the Wild in the Streets-inspired social satire, old hand Simon had a much firmer grasp on how politics actually work than did any of the earnest, self-consciously ‘relevant’ comics writers of the day. And one can only sigh nostalgically at days when the worst thing that might slither into the White House was a mere vampire…
Flessel’s ability to depict ladies of the buxom and comely variety had certainly played a role in his landing a gig assisting Al Capp on Lil’ Abner for a couple of years in the late 1950s. At the time, Capp spent much of his time touring college campuses and berating the younger set, as was his wont.
Said virtuosity in the light-hearted and erotic stood him in good stead for an eight-year gig on The Tales of Baron Von Furstinbed for The Playboy Funnies; this one’s from the January, 1983 issue of Playboy Magazine. And here’s another, for good measure.
In closing, a brief exchange from The Comics Journal interview — please do go and read the whole thing, it’s a gem!
GROTH: I have a note that you had something to do with Superboy from 1958 to ’59.
FLESSEL: I did one. You know, it’s frightening; it’s like going out and drinking a lot of martinis and doing a job and not remembering.
« Dick’s Monster was something to behold. Whatever possessed him to put the creature’s nose up on the forehead is beyond us — but it worked, making it possibly the weirdest Frankenstein Monster ever done. » — Ray Funk and Al Dellinges, 2005
Golden Age cartoonist Richard “Dick” Briefer (1915-1980) had a special fondness for Dr. Frankenstein’s creation. Between 1940 and 1954, he wrote and illustrated scores of the Monster’s further adventures, both as tragedy and as farce… with equal aplomb.
This is Frankenstein no. 7 (May-June 1947, Prize), the lighter version.In a darker vein, this is Frankenstein no. 27 (Oct.-Nov. 1953, Prize), the darker one.
Having left the troubled comics industry after its censor-imposed purge in the mid-50s, Briefer put together an exquisite proposal for a daily newspaper strip featuring the Creature and his pals, thirty-six strips in all. Here’s a handful of them. Don’t you wish comic strips were half as well written and drawn nowadays?
In a 1979 letter to Al Dellinges, Briefer recalled « Frankenstein, the comic version, was always a joy, and I have some superb samples of a projected daily strip that had been turned down by syndicates in the past. At this stage in my life, even though ‘horror’ is ‘in’, I’m too lazy to start sending it out again. »
For further reading on this subject, do seek out the inaugural volume in Craig Yoe’s ‘Chilling Archives of Horror’ series, Dick Briefer’s Frankenstein (2010, IDW).
« His deadline-flouting attention to detail was so ambitious that, whenever one of his jobs was delivered, editor Archie Goodwin reported, everyone gathered around to see what “that crazy bastard Heath” had done. » — Michael Dean
In my opinion, Atlas comics generally weren’t very good. But they remain fascinating because of one impressive asset: the line boasted no less than four absolutely top-notch cover artists, namely Joe Maneely, Bill Everett, John Severin… and Russ Heath. It may seem like nothing, but that was a truly phenomenal assemblage of talent in one place at one time. However, the writing was pedestrian and the second-stringers were, well… second-rate. But oh, some of those covers…
Today, we’ll coyly peek at some of Mr. Heath’s horror covers.
This is Marvel Tales no. 104 (Dec. 1951, Atlas); colours, in every case, by Stan Goldberg.This is Astonishing no. 9 (Feb. 1952, Atlas).This is Suspense no. 14 (Feb. 1952, Atlas). This one’s especially intriguing: there’s so much going on, yet it’s not overly busy… the mark of a first-rate cover designer.This is Journey into Mystery no. 1 (June 1952, Atlas). By now, I have a sneaking suspicion that Mr. Heath liked his ladies… on the buxom side.This is Adventures into Terror no. 11 (Aug. 1952, Atlas).This is Spellbound no. 3 (May 1953, Atlas). Yes, it’s the worm.This is Strange Tales no. 18 (May 1953, Atlas).
I’ve always had a soft spot for Tony DiPreta’s striking style. When it came to Atlas’ material, it was generally a case of lousy writing and interesting art. But DiPreta could somehow lend credence to the dodgiest semblance of a plot, because he could smartly provide it with just the right tone. I’ve featured this unfairly obscure illustrator a couple times in the past, so you may want to start there: first, the sublimely ridiculous The Hidden Vampires, then the Tinseltown satire Skull-Face.
I was pleased, in reading a rare interview with the artist, to hear him confide that « In the 1950s I did some comic book work for Stan Lee and others. That was pre-Code horror stuff and I loved it. Some of the illustration I did for crime and horror stories in that period is among the best work I’ve ever done. » Amen!
Aside from an expensive, low print run ‘Marvel Masterworks’ hardcover, this story has never been accessibly reprinted. And so enjoy this scarce gem!
The original appearance: this is Journey Into Mystery no. 12 (Sept. 1953, Atlas). Cover art by Max «Carl Burgos » Finkelstein.
« Fascism will come to America wrapped in a flag. » — Sinclair Lewis
With the exception of its daily strip incarnation (1941-44), principally ghosted by Jack Cole, the early years of Will Eisner’s The Spirit never drew me in. Next to the work Eisner produced upon his return from WWII, the first years seemed tentative and inchoate. It didn’t help that the original artwork — or even quality photostats — of the material had not survived, and so reprints were consequently hobbled by dodgy reproduction.
The other day, a most generous friend presented me with the second volume of Will Eisner’s The Spirit Archives — he had a spare copy — and, not wishing to look a gift horse in the mouth, I duly proceeded to read it. I should state that DC Comics’ complete reprinting of Eisner’s magnum opus is a definitive one, so the pill was far easier to swallow this time.
I was particularly taken with one gem near the end of the volume. And since America is currently awash in fascists and Brownshirts, Eisner’s political parable seems unnervingly apropos. See what you think!
Like it says at the top of page one, The Tale of the Dictator’s Reform was originally published on June 22, 1941. The United States’ December 9th entry into the war was still several months away.
This episode was cited as a solid favourite of his lone surviving The Spirit assistant*, the mighty Jules Feiffer (born 1929) in his pioneering work of comics history, 1965’s The Great Comic Book Heroes. Mr. Feiffer wrote: « Eventually, Eisner developed story lines that are perhaps best described as documentary fables — seemingly authentic when one reads them, but impossible, after the fact. There was one about Hitler walking around in a Willy Lomanish middle world: subways rolling, Bronx girls chattering, street bums kicking him around. His purpose in coming to America: to explain himself, to be accepted as nice guy, to be liked. Silly when you thought of it, but for eight pages, grimly convincing. »
When the story finally was reprinted — some sixteen years after Feiffer’s tantalising plot summary — in Will Eisner’s The Spirit no. 32 (Dec. 1981, Kitchen Sink), associate editor Cat Yronwode added: « Indeed, the story is all that Feiffer said of it and more. He forgot to mention that The Spirit fixed Der Fuehrer a nice bag lunch, for instance, and obligingly flew him home after his American sojourn. It’s been a long time coming, but at last we can proudly bring you this little gem, possibly the most eccentric political homily ever produced in the comics form. Enjoy it, but don’t ask for more of the same. It’s unique. »
-RG
*the next-to-last Spirit assistant, Don Perlin, passed away earlier this month. He had pencilled three stories over Feiffer’s layouts in 1951, late in The Spirit’s run.
