Howard Nostrand

This Spooky October: Witches’ Tales

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« Hocus, pocus, witching stick! Stand and stare, obey me, chick! » — Engelbert Humperdinck, Hänsel und Gretel

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 :

Hallowe’en Countdown VIII

Hallowe’en Countdown VII

Hallowe’en Countdown VI

Hallowe’en Countdown V

Hallowe’en Countdown IV

Hallowe’en Countdown III

Hallowe’en Countdown II

Hallowe’en Countdown I

Tentacle Tuesday: Glittering Lure of the Golden Age

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The source of tentacles in Golden Age comics seems inexhaustible – every time I think I have reached the bottom of the well, I find myself awash in cephalopods. That being said, a lot of these octopusoid appearances are one-panel cameos, and even when the tentacles linger for a few pages, the shitty printing, questionable scans or bare-bones art don’t exactly incite me to use this material in a Tentacle Tuesday. Today’s crop is all Golden Age, running the gamut from 1939 to 1952, and composed of pages/covers I can enthusiastically endorse.

George (of Harry J. Tuthill’s The Bungle Family, ‘one of the most under-rated comic strips in the history of American cartoonery’ according to Art Spiegelman, ‘one of the top hundred comics of the 20th century‘, according to The Comics Journal) may be thoroughly bundled up in tentacles, but he still keeps a sort of prosaic calm that I admire.

Feature Comics no. 23 (August 1939, Quality Comics). Cover by Ed Cronin. As for Charlie Chan, he was originally a private detective in a series of novels by Earl Derr Biggers, from which a number of movies were made. Opinions are divided about whether he was a breakthrough Asian character (tired of Yellow Peril stories, Biggers conceived him specifically as an alternative to stereotypical, ‘sinister and wicked‘ Chinese) or perpetuated a lot of the same preconceived notions that were circulating at the time (and, alas, are still with us today).

Just look at the canines the red devil is ready to plunge into Black Hood’s leg! Throw in a fanged octopus, and this cover has as much action as one would possibly want. Sadly, nothing of the sort actually goes on in this issue.

Top Notch Comics no. 16 (June 1941. Archie Comics). Cover by Al Camy.

Robotman and his Robot dog are a worthy topic of discussion in themselves, especially when Jimmy Thompson is involved (see Robotman and Jimmy Thompson: Golden Age Comics’ Best-Kept Secret), but for now these two pages will do nicely!

Page from Fisherman’s Luck, published Star-Spangled Comics no. 41 (February 1945, DC).
This page from Boy Meets Robotdog was printed in Star-Spangled Comics no. 75 (December 1947, DC). I would certainly come to this house!

We really like Howard Nostrand at WOT, though so far he has been woefully under-featured in our posts!

This page is from The Man Germ, scripted by Nan Barnett and illustrated by Howard Nostrand. This story was published in Chamber of Chills Magazine no. 13 (October 1952, Harvey Comics).

Finally, I have a soft spot for these tiered layouts that Rugged Action employs… especially when an octopus with tender, moist eyes is moonlighting in one of them.

Rugged Action no. 1 (December 1954, Marvel). Cover by Carl Burgos.

~ ds

Tentacle Tuesday: « There I was, just minding my own business… »

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« It is a mistake to fancy that horror is associated inextricably with darkness, silence, and solitude. » ― H.P. Lovecraft

I’ve actually had a friend tell me that he sees tentacles wherever he goes because of my Tentacle Tuesdays. Hey, I’m not making this up – tentacles *are* everywhere. Whether you’re in a well-lit room, with reassuring noises of the city filtering through the windows, or in a city centre, cushioned from harm by the comforting presence of a crowd… repairing a TV set, kissing a date, heading over to the pub for a well-deserved drink… some cephalopod horror is but a blink away. Fie, fie, foul apparition!

What better beginning to this post than… TERROR VISION!!! (“Aiiieeee!“, to quote the man.)

ectoplasmChamberofChills19
A page from Terrorvision, with very nice art (and possibly plot) by Howard Nostrand, printed in Chamber of Chills Magazine no. 19 (September 1953, Harvey).

Things go from bad to worse for our repairman…

ectoplasmChamberofChills19-terrorvision

Normally I wouldn’t post yet another page from the same story, but I like the art so much that I have to share.

ectoplasmChamberofChills19-terrorvision2

I’ve already mentioned German horror comics in the shape Spuk Geschichten (see Tentacle Tuesday: A Torrent of Teutonic Tentacles). Its mother publication, Gespenster Geschichten, also has its share of tentacles. For now, I will limit myself to this one cover:

geschichten-geschichten-545
It’s a cruel thing to do to a man who was just thirsting for one piddling stein of cool beer. I hope they all got better acquainted and are clinking glasses together in the next scene… but I doubt it. Gespenster Geschichten no. 545.

One would be justified in thinking that roofs are generally quite octopus-proof, but nope, this one is either a talented climber or just unimaginably huge.

ChamberOfChills03A
Chamber of Chills no. 3 (March 1973), pencilled by Alan Weiss and inked by Frank Giacoia.

FinalFrontier1-JohnJacobs
A street may look peaceful and quiet, but that doesn’t mean a shag rug tentacle isn’t stealthily creeping towards your leg. Far Frontier no. 1 (1984), drawn by Lee Carlson.

As a bit of an aside, there’s a really fun account of one collector’s quest for John Jacobs stories written for Madison Comics over at Kirby Your Enthusiasm (link: Finding John Jacobs). Far Frontier no. 1 has a few of those, and apparently they’re quite perverse and brain-melting. An excerpt of the essay in question to whet your appetite:

« I first became aware of [John Jacobs] through a review by noted comics writer Jan Strnad in The Comics Journal #94 of Dr Peculiar #1. I read and re-read it dozens of times and marveled at the samples of his primitive pencilled art. My mind tried to absorb a comic that had heavy religious overtones plus a healthy dose of T&A (with a monster rape/cannibal fetish). The reviewer theorized that John Jacobs’ mind must be like a bowl of maggots. »

As an editorial aside, I am inclined to trust Strnad on this, both because I really like his writing and because Kirby Your Enthusiasm‘s summary of Jacobs’ plots confirms the maggots theory.

Kid Eternity #13
Pucker up, darling, for your goodnight kiss. Kid Eternity no. 13 (June 1994), cover by Sean Phillips.

~ ds