« There is nothing new under the sun but there are lots of old things we don’t know. » — Ambrose Bierce
Here’s an unusual specimen: a two-headed, twin-gendered Australian cartoonist. Beryl Antonia Yeoman (1912-1970, b. Brisbane, Queensland) formed, in 1937, a cartooning partnership with her brother, Harold Underwood Thompson (1911-1996, b. West Kirby, Cheshire) when they adopted the nom de plume of Anton.
From the sound of it, Beryl was the power behind the throne, as she produced the Anton cartoons on her own during Harold’s active duty in the Royal Navy during WWII. The pair reconvened after the war and created wonderful cartoons for such publications as Punch, Lilliput, Men Only (ha!), Tatler, The Evening Standard (solo Harold!) and Private Eye. Beryl was the only female member of Punch’s exclusive Toby Club.
Today, a charming bistro named in honour of the artful siblings still operates in Wells, Somerset; it features Anton’s art on its walls. How’s that for posterity?
This slyly cozy cartoon made the cut for the splendid 1952 anthology The Best Cartoons From Punch.
And while we’re on the subject of ghostly radio stories, give one of these a try.
From the earliest issues of Love & Rockets (circa the early 1980s), it was quite evident that Jaime Hernandez was a cartoonist of the first order.
At first, he kept the tone of the proceedings fairly jovial; but gradually, a little darkness crept into the ambiance. Not systematically, mind you: it was just the natural course of things. For all that, he didn’t sacrifice one bit of his light touch; he was just expanding his range, the simple process of his artistic maturation.
The first time he fully demonstrated that he could evoke the texture and the essence of terror… was a milestone. In 1989’s Flies on the Ceiling, he stunned readers with a dizzying, yet understated tale that lifted the veil on a murky chapter of Izzy’s past. In the telling, he adroitly looses a startling panoply of techniques and ingredients that this reader wasn’t nearly prepared for. A true brain-singer.
Roman Catholic iconography, traditional Mexican beliefs and rituals, dead-on psychology, awful things hinted at in the margins. An excerpt from Flies on the Ceiling: the Story of Isabel in Mexico (Love & Rockets no. 29, Fantagraphics) [ Read it here. ]Jaime occasionally returns to the realm of the uncanny (we’ve featured him in a past countdown entry), but never treads the same path twice. A few further samples, if you will:
Poor Ray has a singularly vivid nightmare. Hopefully, that’s all it is. This ghoulish entry appeared on the back cover of Penny Century no. 3 (Sept. 1998, Fantagraphics). Story and art by Jaime Hernandez, colours by Chris Brownrigg.
La Bianca: a True Story appeared in the Gilbert Hernandez-edited all-ages anthology Measles no. 2 (Easter 1999, Fantagraphics.)Jaime in a spooky-lite register, for a 1994 Rhino Records spoken-word anthology featuring such titans of the macabre as Boris Karloff, Brother Theodore and Nelson Olmsted.
« Mirrors toins things in revoise! Everything in Mirrorland is opposite! So naturally I’m a tough ghost and you’re a sissy spook! » — Poil in Through the Looking Glass (Spooky no. 121, 1970… read it here)
The Harvey Comics line, in its peak years (from the late Fifties to the mid-seventies, say) was essentially a collection of monomaniacal characters. As Daniel Clowes deemed in his classic lampoon of the Harvey cast, theirs is a Playful Obsession (read it here.)
Richie Rich had his moolah, Little Lotta wolfed down everything in sight, Little Dot found stimulation in… dots, and so on. Casper the Friendly Ghost’s uncouth counterpart, the 30s kid gang-inspired Spooky (complete with Brooklyn accent and « doiby» hat), loved to, well, scare people (and things!) with a hearty « Boo! », Hot Stuff raised the temperature wherever he went. On the other hand, Casper and Little Audrey’s adventures didn’t rely on such gimmicks, possibly from predating the rest of the Harvey gang, originating in animation in Casper’s case, and… folklore in Audrey’s:
« One day, Li’l Audrey was playing with matches. Her mother told her she’d better stop before someone got hurt. But Li’l Audrey was awfully hard-headed and kept playing with matches, and eventually she burned their house down.
“Oh, Li’l Audrey, you are sure gonna catch it when your father comes home!” said her mother.
But Li’l Audrey just laughed and laughed, because she knew her father had come home early to take a nap. »
The Harvey line’s covers were by far its most precious asset: endless riffs on a character’s particular motif, granted, but spun out in well-designed, nimbly-executed and brightly-coloured scenes… virtually the work of a single creative whirlwind, art director-illustrator Warren Kremer (1921-2003).
This is Little Lotta no. 57 (Jan. 1965). Lotta may have been a glutton, but she was also super-strong.This is Playful Little Audrey no. 71 (Aug. 1967).This is Playful Little Audrey no. 73 (Dec. 1967).This is Hot Stuff Sizzlers no. 43 (Nov. 1970).This is Casper the Friendly Ghost no. 149 (Jan. 1971).This is Spooky Haunted House no. 9 (Feb. 1974). Note that Spooky’s girlfriend’s actual name is ‘Pearl’… he just pronounces it ‘Poil’. Upon occasion, the ‘tuff little ghost’ essays the rôle of the spookee rather than his usual spooker (or is that “spookist”?)This is Little Dot no. 156 (Dec. 1974). I’m not sure what the kid’s so terrified of… maybe he’s never had the measles?
This is Wendy, the Good Little Witch no. 87 (Apr. 1975). [ds: these just might be edible mushrooms.]In all cases, artwork by the legendarily prolific Warren Kremer. As we demonstrated last year, the Harvey house style hardly was the only range he could draw in.
A favourite trope of tentacular obsession in comics is populating stories with monsters boasting exceptionally long arms (sometimes more than one pair) that they can wind around stuff with ease. In other words, monsters with tentacle forelimbs. You’d have to abstain from comics altogether to never encounter that of which I speak (or stick to slice-of-life comics, I guess). A little demonstration is in order.
Here’s a trick question: what kind of being lives on planet Octo? Duh: Octo-men! The following Flip Falcon story, illustrated by Don Rico (and not “Orville Wells”, despite claims to the contrary), was printed in Fantastic Comics no. 17 (April 1941).
Interesting that “dog” is used as a slur even on planet Octo, despite there clearly being no canines around.Nasty little brutes, aren’t they?
The Super-Tests of the Super-Pets! (scripted by Edmond Hamilton, penciled by John Forte and inked by Sheldon Moldoff) is every bit as goofy as it sounds. I actually enjoyed reading it, much to my own amazement. Anyway, while Proty II (Chameleon Boy’s pet) transforms into quite a few creatures to pass the super-test, he clearly favours tentacular forms (and who could blame him?) This was published in Adventure Comics no. 322 (July 1964).
Speaking of Proty II and ectoplasm, a dozen issues later, the Legion decides to visit his home planet, which is just full of these jello-marshmallow doughboys, Protean citizens all. Part I: The Unknown Legionnaire and Part II: The Secret of Unknown Boy! (both parts scripted by Edmond Hamilton, penciled by John Forte and inked by Sheldon Moldoff) were published in Adventure Comics no. 334 (July 1965).
To terrify Proteans, whose appendages are borderline tentacles, Saturn Girl decides to conjure up a… monster with tentacles.In case you didn’t believe me that Proteans have “tentacles”.The shape-shifting Proteans turn into more streamlined versions of themselves, with more pronounced tentacles. I swear, everyone is obsessed.
Next, I’d like to regale you with a fight scene illustrated by Murphy Anderson (yum!): Scourge of the Human Race!, scripted by Gardner Fox and published in Hawkman no. 15 (August-September 1966).
Isn’t it a lovely last panel?
If I Can’t Be Clark Kent… Nobody Can!, published in Action Comics no. 524 (October 1981), scripted by Martin Pasko, penciled by Curt Swan and inked by Frank Chiaramonte, offers us a nice helping of tentacles.
If I should see an octopus Lift its arms out of the sea Or see its shadow rising up Cross the rooftops above the streets I’d follow those dancing limbs To the spinning edge of the sky Where all the boats fall off the world Into the octopus’s eye
« Each time I enter this fog, it feels as though icy fingers were clutching at me! »
Étrange aventures, a squarebound quarterly digest (roughly 5 x 7 inches, 164 pages), was one of many titles published in France by Arédit / Artima between 1966 and 1984 through its Comics Pocket imprint. Étranges aventures was one of the collection’s flagship titles, with a healthy run of 79 issues from July, 1966 to March, 1984. Its contents were mostly repackaged and reformatted translations of various DC and Marvel (and the odd Charlton) comics in black and white, but with fun painted recreations of the original covers for the twenty-or-so issues. At under fifty cents a pop, they presented a bargain to the cash-strapped aficionado, thrifty access to scarce and/or pricey items.
This issue was a relative exception, cover-featuring an original work (or at least not an American one), the sort of material the publisher usually reserved for its more “serious” titles. These were often comics adaptations of horror or suspense novels issued earlier by mother company Les Presses de la Cité under its Fleuve Noir imprint. Graphic novels? Exactly.
« If… if this giant is real…it must stand over twenty meters high! » « That’s a mighty big ‘If’, Barney. Let’s take a closer look at him. » He pulls from his pocket a small but powerful flashlight… « Too late… the mist has hidden him. » Cautiously, they climb through the sinister fog… « Here’s the entrance… if the door isn’t locked or blocked by rust! » « It takes quite a bit to frazzle my nerves… but this situation has given me cold sweats! »« Welcome to the giant’s lair. He who has had the courage to venture this far will regret not having been cowardly, for he will find death. »Prosaically, the whole affair turns out to be the work of unscrupulous special effects experts, vulgarly after some jewels. All this imaginative and diabolically elaborate work and expense for some shiny baubles! Still, it’s all about mood.
Writer and artist unknown. And nationality, for that matter. In places, the artwork has clearly been resized and adjusted, and switches back and forth between halftone and line art reproduction. So the lasting mystery lies not in the story, but in its provenance.
« It’s well we cannot hear the screams we make in other people’s dreams. » — Edward Gorey
It was inevitable that the eminent Edward St. John Gorey (1925 – 2000) would grace my Hallowe’en countdown… but surely I deserve credit for holding out until midway through the third edition. Instead of the excellent but overexposed The Gashlycrumb Tinies, here’s an excerpt from what is, to my mind, his most ominous tale, The Willowdale Handcar or The Return of the Black Doll (1962), « In which three Pilgrims find mystery abort peril and partake of religious community. And the discerning Reader discovers Meaning in their Progress. » Last February, when I noted Mr. Gorey’s birthday (see that post here), I pledged to return to this specific work, and I wasn’t speaking with a forked tongue… at least not that time.
Gorey’s work largely remains open to interpretation, whether it’s stating something of import or just being coy. Still, not wishing to deprive anyone of the thrill of discovery, I’ve excluded the tale’s beautiful concluding panel. The entire story (I’ve provided seven of its thirty illustrations, not counting the cover) is available separately or as part of the classic 1972 collection Amphigorey (in the company of fourteen of his other works).
In closing, a quote from the man that sums up the essence and appeal of this « at once deeply vexing and utterly hilarious, darkly mysterious and amusingly absurd* » yarn:
« All the things you can talk about in anyone’s work are the things that are least important…. You can describe all the externals of a performance – everything, in fact, but what really constitutes its core. Explaining something makes it go away, so to speak; what’s important is what’s left over after you’ve explained everything else. »
And if you should find yourself in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, don’t pass up the chance to visit Gorey’s house! http://www.edwardgoreyhouse.org/
« Here’s to the thugs and maniacs who fill each book with concepts so damnable, so putrescent, that they make the EC horror magazines of yore seem like mere cocktail napkin doggerel. I salute you. Now I’m going to take a bath in quicklime. » — Harlan Ellison toasts Death Rattle (1986)
In the 1980s, with the Comics Code Authority in its death throes, you’d think horror comics would have made a massive comeback. Well, they did… and they didn’t. Since there had been plenty of black and white magazines to operate outside of the Code’s restrictions, bringing bloodshed and mayhem to colour comics made the much-anticipated liberation a bit of a non-event. For my money, the truly interesting horror material opted for different approaches, now more experimental, then rather whimsical, at times clinical, sometimes abstract. Underground comix publisher Kitchen Sink, surviving thanks to its eclectic spirit, revived its early 70s horror anthology in 1985, an adventure that this go-round lasted eighteen issues and unleashed cutting-edge, nostalgic, shiver-inducing, thought-provoking and gut-busting efforts by such talents as Richard Corben, Rand Holmes, P.S. Mueller, Jack Jackson, Stephen Bissette, Mark Schultz (his Xenozoic Tales were introduced in Death Rattle 8, in 1986), and, on this unsettling cover, Charles Burns.
This is Death Rattle no. 10 (April 1987, Kitchen Sink). Cover by Charles Burns, coloured by Pete Poplaski.
Before this cover, and speaking of clinical horror, Burns had earlier provided one of Death Rattle’s most harrowing gut-punches in issue one’s Ill Bred: a Horror Romance. I wouldn’t want to give away too much, but here are a few samples from this queasy masterpiece of gender fluidity, body horror and (justified) insect fear, seemingly inspired in equal parts by David Cronenberg films, Japanese art prints and Burns’ personal demons. Not for the queasy, but peruse it here if that ticks any of your happy boxes.
« Egad! This looks like it’s straight out of a horror movie! »
How deep and searing a trace the Universal Monsters cycle has left on popular culture: you see its mark on everything from literature to breakfast cereal. It’s nothing new in the cartoons, of course: Warner Bros, with the Looney Tunes, had their lugubrious fun with, for instance, Boris Karloff and Peter Lorre archetypes. So it’s no great shock to eventually witness DePatie-Freleng‘s The Pink Panther getting in on the monstrous act.
Nice bit of mood setting, isn’t it? This hails from The Pink Panther no. 31 (January, 1976). This being Gold Key, writer and artist uncredited and unknown. Any ideas?The issue in question… interesting colouring touch, most likely accidental: the only white space on the entire cover is the “PINK POWER” title.
Incidentally, we’ve checked out The Inspector in an earlier post.
« Is it true your first concert is going to be at a cemetery? »
By the summer of ’74, the Archie brass was getting sick of those no-account Didit Brothers (You know, Dan, Dippy, Dick and Clyde) and their groupie Fran the Fan, so the Madhouse Glads were tossed out on their collective ear in favour of… a horror anthology. It made sense: in the 1970s, there was considerable overlap (largely female, but not exclusively) among readers of, say, The Witching Hour, Betty and Me, and Romantic Story.
The final fate of Fran the Fan? This is Mad House no. 95 (Sept. 1974, Archie); cover art by Gray Morrow. Read the issue here.
It’s fair to assume they were envisioning a companion title for their Chilling Adventures in Sorcery / Red Circle Sorcery. This was something different for Archie, all right: they sought out top talent, but in a fairly consistently sober visual style. Gray Morrow‘s photo-based approach was the baseline, and small wonder: he was the editor. The bulk of the stories was penned by Marvin Channing, and while the ‘twist’ endings weren’t exactly fresh, some of these tales were surprisingly nasty and nihilistic.
Page two from The Terrible Trident!, written by Don Glut and illustrated by Vicente Alcazar.Page three from the cover story, The Happy Dead. Written by Marvin Channing and illustrated by Doug Wildey. Whoever handled the colouring here was smart and discerning.
However, this version of Madhouse lasted but three issues before the book was returned to its original, pre-Glads format. Sorcery endured for nine issues, the first three done in the Archie house style, with narration by Sabrina, the Teenage Witch. By the end of 1974 (with a book cover-dated February, 1975), the experiment was over. But these things come in cycles, don’t they? Witness the recent Afterlife With Archie… which incidentally reprinted much of this material.
And in other media, amidst the current glut of Archie product, one finds a direct scion of a timid, decades-ago exploration, Netflix’s Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.
« Behind every tree there’s a new monster. » — Todd Rundgren
Now how can you go wrong with a genre-melding title like this? Did publisher Hillman Periodicals decide it was entirely too much of a good thing, and nip it in the bud? Who wrote and drew the darn thing? Nearly seventy years on, these are not easily-answered questions.
Anyway, the lone, unnumbered issue of Monster Crime Comics rolled off the presses in the fall of 1952, it’s a pretty scarce item, as they say in the trade, and it features the sordid tales of The Crutch to Paradise, Another Hallowe’en, The Boss of Ice Alley, Oregon Tiger, The Canvas Tomb, The Cold Doorstop, and The Two-Legged Newspaper.
« A low print run and high price for the time (15 cents!) combined to make this one-shot among the rarest of the era’s crime comics, with perhaps 20-100 copies surviving. The over-the-top cover contributes to the book’s fame, particularly because it has nothing to do with the contents. Pre-Code crime comics from Hillman, possibly printed to clear out a backlog before the publisher ended its comics lineup a few months later. » [source]
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