Category: Horror Stories

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Showcase Presents the House of Mystery volume 1


By Joe Orlando, Otto Binder, Jack Miller, Bob Haney, Neal Adams, Arnold Drake, John Albano, Marv Wolfman, Howie Post, E. Nelson Bridwell, Gil Kane, Mike Friedrich, Bob Kanigher, Jack Oleck, Joe Gill, Gerry Conway, Len Wein, Virgil North, Alan Riefe, Francis X. Bushmaster, Lee Elias, Doug Wildey, Carmine Infantino, Mort Meskin, Sergio Aragonés, Bernard Baily, George Roussos, Jack Sparling, Sid Greene, Bill Draut, Jim Mooney, Win Mortimer, Jerry Grandenetti, Bernie Wrightson, Wally Wood, Wayne Howard, Alex Toth, Al Williamson, John Celardo, Tony DeZuñiga, Leonard Starr, Tom Sutton, Ric Estrada, Jim Aparo, Gray Morrow, Don Heck, Russ Heath, Jack Kirby, Nestor Redondo, Lore Shoberg, John Costanza & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0786-1 (TPB)

These days DC – particularly its prestigious Vertigo sub-division – are acknowledged leaders in comic book horror and dark fantasy fiction, with titles and characters like Swamp Thing, Sandman and Hellblazer riding high beside anthological and creator-owned properties all designed to make readers think twice and lose sleep…

As National Periodical Publications, the company was slow to join the first horror boom that began in 1948, but after a few tenuous attempts with supernatural-themed heroic leads in established titles (Johnny Peril in Comic Cavalcade, All Star Comics and Sensation Comics and Dr. Terry Thirteen, The Ghostbreaker in Star-Spangled Comics) bowed to the inevitable.

The result was a rather prim and straitlaced anthology that nevertheless became one of their longest-running and most influential titles. The House of Mystery launched with a December 1951/January 1952 cover date and neatly dodged most of the later flak aimed at horror comics by the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency (April- June 1954). When the industry adopted a castrating straitjacket of self-regulatory rules, HoM and its sister title House of Secrets were dialled back into rationalistic, fantasy adventure vehicles, without any appreciable harm. They even became super-hero tinged split-books (with Martian Manhunter and Dial H for Hero in HoM, and Eclipso sharing space with mystic detective Mark Merlin – latterly Prince Ra-Man – in HoS)…

Nothing combats censorship better than falling profits and when the Silver Age superhero boom stalled and crashed at the end of the 1960s, it led to the surviving publishers of the field agreeing to loosen their self-imposed restraints against crime and horror comics. Nobody much cared about gangster titles, but as the liberalisation coincided with another bump in global interest in all aspects of the Worlds Beyond, the resurrection of scary stories was a foregone conclusion and obvious “no-brainer.” Even ultra-wholesome Archie Comics re-entered the field with their tasty line of Red Circle Thrillers…

Thus with absolutely no fanfare at all issue #174, cover dated May-June 1968 fronted a bold banner heading demanding “Do You Dare Enter The House of Mystery?” whilst reprinting a bunch of – admittedly excellent – short fantastic thrillers originally seen in House of Secrets from the heady days when it was okay and quite profitable to scare kids…

Incomprehensively, these classic yarns are still unavailable in digital compilations, although there’s a new (and rather expensive) hardback Bronze Age Omnibus edition out if you aren’t afraid of wrist strain. If cost is an issue and you don’t mind monochrome reproduction, this classic trade paperback – collecting the contents of The House of Mystery #174 -196 (May 1968 to September 1971) – is still easy to find and impossible to not enjoy…

Starting off with The House of Mystery #174, the opening shot is ‘The Wondrous Witch’s Cauldron’, by an unknown writer and compellingly illustrated by the great Lee Elias. It comes from 1963’s HoS #58, as does the tale that follows it. Equally anonymous, ‘The Man Who Hated Good Luck!’ is limned by Doug Wildey and leads to the only new feature of the issue – one which would set the tone for decades to come.

Page 13 was a trenchantly comedic feature page scripted by Editor and EC veteran Joe Orlando, suitable cartooned by manic genius Sergio Aragonés. It states quite clearly that, whilst the intent was to thrill, enthral and even appal, it was all in the spirit of sinister fun, and gallows humour was the true order of the day.

The comic then continued with an Otto Binder/Bernard Baily tale of the unexpected: ‘The Museum of Worthless Inventions’ (from HoS #13) and concluded with Jack Miller, Carmine Infantino & Mort Meskin’s fantasy fable ‘The Court of Creatures’ (a Mark Merlin masterpiece from HoS #43).

The next issue can probably be counted as the true start of this latter-day revenant renaissance, as Orlando revived the EC tradition of slyly sardonic narrators by creating the Machiavellian Cain, “caretaker of the House of Mystery” and wicked raconteur par excellence.

Behind the first of a spectacular series of creepy covers from Neal Adams lurked another reprint, ‘The Gift of Doom’ (from HoM #137, illustrated by George Roussos) followed by ‘All Alone’, an original, uncredited prose chiller.

After another Page 13 side-splitter, Aragonés launched his long-running gag page ‘Cain’s Game Room’ before the issue closed with all-new new comic thriller ‘The House of Gargoyles!’ by veteran scaremongers Bob Haney & Jack Sparling.

With winning format firmly established and commercially successful, the fear-fest was off and running. Stunning Adams covers, painfully punny introductory segments, interspersed with gag pages (originally just Aragonés but eventually supplemented by other cartoonists such as John Albano, Lore Shoberg & John Costanza).

This last feature eventually grew popular enough to be spun off into bizarrely outrageous comicbook called Plop! (but that’s a subject for another day…) and supplied an element of continuity to an increasingly superior range of self-contained supernatural thrillers. Moreover, if ever deadline distress loomed, there was always a wealth of superb old material to fill in with.

HoM #176 led with spectral thriller ‘The House of No Return!’ by writer unknown and the great Sid Greene after which young Marv Wolfman (one of an absolute Who’s Who of budding writers and artists who went on to bigger things) teamed with Sparling on paranoiac mad science shocker ‘The Root of Evil!’

Reprinted masterpiece of form from Mort Meskin, ‘The Son of the Monstross Monster’ – having previously appeared in House of Mystery #130 – leads off #177, and a 1950’s fearsome fact-page is recycled into ‘Odds and Ends from Cain’s Cellar’ before Charles King and Orlando’s illustrated prose piece ‘Last Meal’ segues into dream-team Howie (Anthro) Post & Bill Draut produce a ghoulish period parable in ‘The Curse of the Cat.’

Neal Adams debuts as an interior illustrator – and writer – with a mind-boggling virtuoso performance as a little boy survives ‘The Game’, after which Jim Mooney’s spooky credentials are affirmed with ‘The Man Who Haunted a Ghost’ (first seen in HoM #35) and E. Nelson Bridwell, Win Mortimer & George Roussos delineate an eternal dream with ‘What’s the Youth?’ before ‘Cain’s True Case Files: Ghostly Miners’ closes the issue.

Bridwell contributes the claustrophobic ‘Sour Note’ as lead in #179, rendered by the uniquely visionary Jerry Grandenetti & Roussos.

A next generation of comics genius begins with Bernie Wrightson’s first creepy contribution. ‘Cain’s True Case Files: The Man Who Murdered Himself’ was scripted by Wolfman and is still a stunning example of gothic perfection in Wrightson’s Graham Ingels-inspired lush, fine-line style.

This exceptional artist’s issue also contains moody supernatural romance ‘The Widow’s Walk’ by Post. Adams & Orlando: a subtle shift from schlocky black humour to terrifying suspense and tragedy presumably intended to appeal to the increasingly expanding female readership. The issue ends with another fact feature ‘Cain’s True Case Files: The Dead Tell Tales’.

Going from strength to strength, House of Mystery was increasingly drawing on DC’s major artistic resources. ‘Comes a Warrior’, which opened #180, is a chilling faux Sword & Sorcery classic written and drawn by da Vinci of Dynamism Gil Kane, inked by the incomparable Wally Wood, and the same art team also illustrate Mike Friedrich’s fourth-wall demolishing ‘His Name is Cain Kane!’

Cliff Rhodes & Orlando contribute text-terror ‘Oscar Horns In!’ and Wolfman & Wrightson return with prophetic vignette ‘Scared to Life’ before an uncredited forensic history lesson from ‘Cain’s True Case Files’ closes proceedings for that month.

Scripted by Otto Binder and drawn by the quirkily capable Sparling, ‘Sir Greeley’s Revenge!’ is a heart-warmingly genteel spook story, but Wrightson’s first long tale – fantastical reincarnation saga ‘The Circle of Satan’ (scripted by horror veteran Bob Kanigher) – ends #181 on an eerily unsettling note before #182 opens with one of the most impressive tales of the entire run.

Jack Oleck’s take on the old cursed mirror plot is elevated to high art as his script ‘The Devil’s Doorway’ is illustrated by the incredible Alex Toth. Wolfman & Wayne Howard follow with ‘Cain’s True Case Files: Grave Results!’, after which an Orlando-limned house promotion leads to nightmarish revenge tale ‘The Hound of Night!’ by Kanigher & Grandenetti.

In collaboration with Oleck, Grandenetti opens #183 with ‘The Haunting!’ after which, courtesy of Baily ‘Odds and Ends from Cain’s Cellar’ returns with ‘Curse of the Blankenship’s’ and ‘Superstitions About Spiders’ before Wolfman & Wrightson contribute ‘Cain’s True Case Files: The Dead Can Kill!’ and the canny teaming of Kanigher with Grandenetti and Wally Wood results in the truly bizarre ‘Secret of the Whale’s Vengeance.’…

The next issue features the triumphant return of Oleck & Toth for a captivating Egyptian tomb raider epic ‘Turner’s Treasure’ whilst Bridwell, Kane & Wood unite for barbarian blockbuster ‘The Eyes of the Basilisk!’

House of Mystery #185 sees caretaker Cain take a more active role in the all-Grandenetti yarn ‘Boom!’, Wayne Howard illustrates the sinister ‘Voice from the Dead!’ and prolific Charlton scribe Joe Gill debuts with ‘The Beautiful Beast’: a lost world romance perfectly pictured by EC alumnus Al Williamson.

The next issue tops even that as Wrightson limns Kanigher’s spectacular bestiary tale ‘The Secret of the Egyptian Cat’, whilst Adams produces some his best art ever for Oleck’s ‘Nightmare’: a poignant tale of fervid imagination and childhood lost. Nobody who ever adored Mr. Tumnus could read this little gem without choking up… and as for the rest of you, I just despair and discard you…

Kanigher & Toth deliver another brilliantly disquieting drama in ‘Mask of the Red Fox’ to open #187, and Wayne Howard is at his workmanlike best on ‘Cain’s True Case Files: Appointment Beyond the Grave!’, before John Celardo & Mike Peppe render the anonymous script for period peril ‘An Aura of Death!’ (although to my jaded old eyes the penciller looks more like Win Mortimer…)

Another revolutionary moment occurs with #188’s lead story. Gerry Conway gets an early credit scripting ‘Dark City of Doom’: a chilling reincarnation mystery simultaneously set in contemporary times and Mayan South America, as the trailblazer for a magnificent tidal wave of Filipino artists debuted.

The stunning art of Tony DeZuñiga opened the door for many of his talented countrymen to enter and reshape both Marvel and DC’s graphic landscape and this black and white compendium is the perfect vehicle to see their mastery of line and texture…

Wrightson was responsible for time-lost thriller ‘House of Madness!’ which closes the issue whilst Aragonés opens the proceedings for #189, closely followed by Kanigher, Grandenetti & Wood’s ‘Eyes of the Cat’ and ‘The Deadly Game of G-H-O-S-T‘ (from HoM #11: a 1953 reprint drawn by Leonard Starr) before another Charlton mystery superstar premiers as Tom Sutton illustrates Oleck’s ‘The Thing in the Chair’.

Kanigher & Toth team for another impeccable graphic masterwork in ‘Fright!’, Albano fills Cain’s Game Room and Aragonés debuts another long-running gag page with ‘Cain’s Gargoyles’ before this issue ends with Salem-based shocker ‘A Witch Must Die!’ by Jack Miller, Ric Estrada & Frank Giacoia.

HoM #191 saw the debut of Len Wein, who wrote terrifying puppet-show tragedy ‘No Strings Attached!’ for Bill Draut, as DeZuñiga returns to draw Oleck’s cautionary tale ‘The Hanging Tree!’ before Wein closes the show, paired with Wrightson on ‘Night-Prowler!’: a seasonal instant-classic that has been reprinted many times since.

Albano wrote ‘The Garden of Eden!’, a sinister surgical stunner made utterly believably by Jim Aparo’s polished art, Gray Morrow illustrates Kanigher’s modern psycho-drama ‘Image of Darkness’ and superhero veteran Don Heck returns to his suspenseful roots drawing Virgil North’s monstrously whimsical ‘Nobody Loves a Lizard!’

Wrightson contributes the first of many magnificent covers for #193, depicting the graveyard terrors of Alan Riefe & DeZuñiga’s ‘Voodoo Vengeance!’, whilst Draut skilfully delineates the screaming tension of Francis X. Bushmaster’s ‘Dark Knight, Dark Dreams!’

For #194, which saw House of Mystery expand from 32 to 52 pages (as did all DC’s titles for the next couple of years, opening the doors for a superb period of new material and the best of the company’s prodigious archives to an appreciative, impressionable audience), the magic commences with another bravura Toth contribution in Oleck’s ‘Born Loser’, swiftly followed by Russ Heath-illustrated monster thriller ‘The Human Wave’ (from House of Secrets #31), Jack Kirby monster-work ‘The Negative Man’ (House of Mystery #84) before Oleck and the simply stunning Nestor Redondo close the issue and this volume with metamorphic horror ‘The King is Dead’.

These terror-tales captivated the reading public and comics critics alike when they first appeared, and it’s no exaggeration to posit that they may well have saved the company during the dire downward sales spiral of the 1970. Now their blend of sinister mirth and classical suspense situations can most usually be seen in such series as Goosebumps, Horrible Histories and their many imitators. However, if you crave beautifully realised, tastefully, splatter-free sagas of tension and imagination, not to mention a huge supply of bad-taste, kid-friendly creepy cartooning, The House of Mystery is the place for you…
© 1968-1971, 2006 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Halloween Tales


By O.G. Boiscommun & D-P Filippi, translated by Montana Kane (HumanoidsKids)
ISBN: 978-1-59465-654-5 (HB)

The trauma-tinged, gluttonously anarchic ceremonies of Halloween are celebrated far and wide these days, and although the basic principles are fairly homogenised now, different regions can throw up a few enticing variations that are well worth noting.

A graphic series that proved a huge European best-seller when released in 2017, the three stories comprising this magnificent hardback compilation are also available digitally in the original 3-album format, albeit translated into English for your delectation and approval.

Snob and eco-supporter that I am, these days, I’m going to say buy or gift the book if you like: I’m reviewing the electronic editions here…

Devised by writer/artist Olivier Boiscommun (Renaissance: Children of the Nile) and full-time screenwriter/scenarist Denis-Pierre Filippi (Gregory and the Gargoyles, Muse, Fondation Z, John Lord), the overlapping adventures focus on a band of kinds in an oddly archaic city of indeterminate vintage. It’s a place of towers and cathedrals, strange moods and winding streets, perfectly captured by Boiscommun’s exaggerated painting style…

The first album – Halloween Tales: Halloween – finds a gaggle of adolescent children gathering to celebrate the night with frolics and mischief: elaborately costumed and frightening each other. However, gauntly-garbed Asphodel remains gloomy and aloof and soon heads off alone. Her thoughts are locked on death, until she is accosted by a strange clownish figure who seems barely real and seeks to alter her mood and mind with a strange philosophy…

Second volume Halloween Tales: The Story of Joe is delivered in eerie monochrome tones and hues and returns us to the mountainous outskirts of that dreaming city where little Bea can’t understand why her playmate Joe is being so mean. As they idle about on the rooftops, the boy and his new pet cat survive a close encounter with a huge bat that leaves Joe scarred and bleeding.

His doting dad is too busy working these days, so it’s Bea who first notices the bizarre changes – physical as well as emotional – that afflict her friend and culminate in him dealing with the bullies who persecute them with terrifying power…

Only when Joe’s awful transformation is nearly complete do Bea, the cat and his father find a way to challenge the tainted child’s descent into nocturnal isolation and monstrosity…

Scripted by D-P Filippi, Halloween Tales: The Book of Jack completes the trilogy with a return to vibrant colour as a pack of children led by overbearing Stan dare little runt Jack to break into a spooky haunted mansion. As the group approaches the dilapidated pile through a statuary-infested overgrown garden – or is it a graveyard? – lanky Sam tries to reason with her little companion. She has plenty of misgivings and a really bad feeling about all this…

Bravado and peer pressure win out though, and Jack enters the derelict building and soon discovers the biggest library in the world in its centre.

Suddenly panicking, he snatches up a tatty tome to prove he succeeded and dashes for the door. Only when they are all safely back outside the gates does Sam realise there’s something odd about the book. Many pages are blank, but gradually filing with spindly writing every moment – each unfolding line magically recording what Jack is doing as he does it.

Mean, jealous Stan sees an opportunity for mischief…

Next morning the book has vanished, and Jack is slowly transforming into a gigantic savagely uncontrollable beast. Sam instantly knows what’s happened and starts searching the city for the miraculous chronicle, determined to get it and literally rewrite her friend’s appalling future…

With All Hallows festive celebrations inexorably installed in so many modern cultures, it’s grand to see an alternative to the almost-suffocating commercialising and movie tropes where heart, sentiment and yes, unease and outright fear can be safely experienced and expunged.

These moody escapades are a true treat, in darkness or in light, and that’s no mean trick …
© 2017 Humanoids, Inc. Los Angeles (USA) All rights reserved.

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Frankenstein Alive, Alive – The Complete Collection


By Steven Niles & Bernie Wrightson, with Kelley Jones & various (IDW)
ISBN: 978-1-68405-337-7 (HB) eISBN: 978-1-68406-544-8

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Masterfully Macabre Masterpiece… 9/10

In our house, just as Christmas is all about Disney and Archie and Batman comics, in the days leading up to “Knock! Knock!BOO!! Night”, my thoughts always settle like a murder of crows on one particular artist. Despite his wide range of creations in many genres, and irrepressible sense of fun and whimsy, Bernard Albert Wrightson will always be the king of graphic suspense and macabre imagination.

As the turbulent 1960s closed, a cluster of fresh talent was trying to break into the comics industry at a time when a number of publishers were experimenting with black & white magazines rather than four-colour comic books. Warren Publishing and its many imitators were hiring kids who honed their craft in public – just like their forebears had to.

A respectable number of those Young Turks – such as Bruce Jones, Mike Kaluta, and “Berni” (a young man who soon became a living legend even in that prestigious cabal) – grew into big names by making pastiches of the EC Comics they had loved as kids: paving the way for when the market again turned to shock, mystery and black comedy to sell issues.

Wrightson was born a few days before Halloween (October 27th) 1948 in Dundalk, Maryland and his artistic training came via TV, reading comics and a correspondence course from the Famous Artists School.

His first professional publication was fan art, printed in Creepy #9 (June 1966). Soon after, he was toiling as a junior illustrator for The Baltimore Sun, when he met his EC idol Frank Frazetta at a convention. Gravitating to New York City, he hooked up with those above-cited band of newcomers, and other hopefuls, and was soon crafting short horror tales for National/DC, Marvel and other eager publishers. His top-rank reputation was cemented with the co-creation (beside writer Len Wein) of Swamp Thing.

His first association with DC ended in 1974, as he left to work at Warren on more adult-oriented tales which provided him an opportunity to try different techniques: a bountiful period of experimentation that culminated with his joining Catherine (nee Jeffrey) Jones, Kaluta and Barry Windsor-Smith in arts collective The Studio.

During this period, he also produced commercial commissions, film material and humorous strips for National Lampoon whilst over seven years creating a series of astoundingly complex plates for his signature work: an illustrated rerelease of Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein; 50 breathtaking illustrations authentically capturing the mood and tone of the gothic literary landmark.

In later years he illustrated posters, trading cards and graphic novels such as Creepshow, Cycle of the Werewolf and Freakshow (with Bruce Jones) among other print collectibles, before returning to mainstream comic books. Notable successes include The Weird and Batman: The Cult with Jim Starlin, and Spider-Man: Hooky and The Hulk and the Thing: The Big Change as well as a number of Punisher miniseries and OGNs.

Wrightson died in 2017. At the time he was working with Steve Niles (30 Days of Night) on a new Frankenstein miniseries: a splendid codicil to the character he had nor originated, but – at least visually – had made as much his own as Mary Shelley’s. He almost finished it. The quintessential professional to the last, Bernie even made provision for another artist to complete the job before passing. This is it…

Somewhere in America, sometime between the Wars, Stengler’s Funland Circus & Carnival entertains an endless progression of hicks in a never-ending cycle of short stays and “one night only!”. Undisputed star of the freak tent is ‘Frankenstein’s Monster’, but the jaded thrill-seekers would be astonished to learn that the corpse-like giant is in fact the real deal: an immortal re-assemblage of mortal parts with the mind of a genius and the soul of a poet.

As he enjoys a family life with his fellow outcasts, the Modern Promethean casts his mind back, to confrontations with his mortal flawed creator, hibernation in ice and reawakening in a later time.

Discovered by a team working for avid scholar Dr. Simon Ingles, the monster found a friend and mentor and was made welcome in an environment of peace and learning. In such a world, with knowledge at his fingertips, the beast flourished: his hunger for peace and thirst for intellectual growth satiated by the only friend he had ever known. Of course, horror stories are simply tragedies in deep shadow, and a vile secret in the doctor’s abode soon forces upon the monster a painful, unavoidable moral dilemma…

Frankenstein Alive, Alive! was released as a 4-issue miniseries, and, well aware of his fading health, Wrightson produced extremely detailed sketches and roughs and designated artist Kelley Jones (Batman; Swamp Thing; Deadman, Aliens; The Sandman; Micronauts) – whose own style was heavily influenced by Wrightson – to complete the book if his own time ran out.

The result is not seamless, but more than satisfactorily details how the creature agonisingly weighed companionship and his own happiness against ethical perfection and was not found wanting…

The salutary saga is prefaced by a moving Introduction from Niles and closes with a ‘Bernie Wrightson Gallery’ beautifully revealing the power and work of the artist’s pencilwork, attention to staging and detail and his authorial commentary of the story process.

Wrightson considered this work to be a continuation of his epic labour of love adaptation of the source novel: once again seen through the monster’s eyes, told with his voice and revealing what every booklover has always wanted after finishing a favourite tome – What Happened Next…

Reproduced from the original artwork and resplendent in stark monochrome line with lush painterly tones and shades of grey, this award-winning chronicle is a true landmark of the genre and a fitting bow for the master of comics horror to leave the stage with. Whether you’re a fan of the artist or the novel, this is a book you must see.
Frankenstein Alive, Alive! – The Complete Collection Story © 2018 Steve Niles. Artwork © 2018 Bernie Wrightson. © 2018 Ideas and Design Works, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

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The Simon & Kirby Library: Horror!


By Joe Simon, Jack Kirby, Mort Meskin, Bill Draut, Martin Stein, Ben Oda, George Roussos, Vic Donahue, Bill Walton, Harry Lazarus, Jim Infantino, Bruno Premiani, John Prentice, Jerry Grandenetti, Ernie Schroeder and various (Titan Books)
ISBN13: 978-1-84856-959-1 (HB)

There’s some magnificent vintage Jack Kirby material around these days but tragically a lot of it hasn’t made the jump to digital yet. One such tragic omission is Titan Books’ splendidly sumptuous Simon & Kirby Library: gathering that iconic team’s groundbreaking genre contributions. Today, let’s look at one of the most compelling: a compendium of mystery, suspense and the supernatural…

Kirby’s collaborations with fellow industry pioneer Joe Simon always produced dynamite concepts, unforgettable characters, astounding stories and huge sales no matter what avenues they pursued, blazing trails for so many others to follow and always reshaping the very nature of American comics with their innovations and sheer quality.

Comic books started slowly in 1933, until the creation of superheroes like Superman unleashed a torrent of creative imitation and invented a new genre. Implacably vested in the Second World War, the Mystery Man swept all before him (very occasionally her or it) until the troops came home and older genres supplanted the Fights ‘n’ Tights crowd.

Although new kids kept up the buying, much of the previous generation also retained their four-colour habit, but increasingly sought more mature themes in the reading matter. The war years altered the psychology of society and a more world-weary, cynical reading public came to see that all the fighting and dying hadn’t really changed anything. Their chosen forms of entertainment – film and prose as well as comics – increasingly reflected this.

Western, War and Crime comics, madcap teen comedy and anthropomorphic funny animal features were immediately resurgent, Simon & Kirby introduced Romance comics in 1947 even as pulp-style Science Fiction began to spread. In the real world, another global revival of spiritualism and interest in the supernatural – possibly provoked by the monstrous losses of the recent conflict (just as had happened in the 1920s, following WWI) – led to a wave of increasingly impressive, evocative and even shocking horror comics.

There were grisly, gory and paranormal paragons previously, including a pantheon of ghosts, monsters and wizards draped in costumed hero trappings (The Spectre, Mr. Justice, The Heap, Frankenstein, Sargon the Sorcerer, Zatara, Dr. Fate and dozens of others), but these had been victims of circumstance: the Unknown as convenient power source for super-heroics.

Now the focus shifted to ordinary mortals thrown into a world beyond their ken with the intention of unsettling, not vicariously empowering, the reader…

Practically every publisher jumped on the monumentally popular juggernaut, but B & I (which became the magical one-man-band Richard E. Hughes’ American Comics Group) launched the first regularly published horror comic in the autumn of 1948. Adventures Into the Unknown was technically pipped by Avon whose impressive single issue release Eerie debuted and closed in January 1947. They wised up late and launched a regular series in 1951…

By this time Classics Illustrated had already long milked the literary end of the medium with adaptations of The Headless Horseman, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (both 1943), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1944) and Frankenstein (1945) among others.

It was at this time that Joe Simon and Jack Kirby identified another “mature market” gap for the line of magazines they autonomously packaged for publishers Crestwood/Prize/Essenkay to supplement Headline Comics, Justice Traps the Guilty, Police Trap, Young Romance and their other anthologies.

They too saw the sales potential for macabre material, resulting in the superb and eerily seminal Black Magic (launched with an October/November 1950 cover-date) and boldly obscure psychological drama anthology Strange World of Your Dreams in 1952.

Marvel had jumped on the bloody bandwagon early, but National/DC Comics only reluctantly bowed to the inevitable, launching a comparatively strait-laced short story title that nevertheless became one of their longest-running and most influential titles with the December 1951/January 1952 launch of The House of Mystery.

Soon after, a hysterical censorship scandal led to witch-hunt Hearings (see the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency, April-June 1954) which panicked most comics publishers into adopting a castrating straitjacket of self-regulatory rules…

Just like today, America back then cast about wildly looking for external contaminants rather than internal causes for a perceived shift in social attitudes and youthful rebellion: happily settling on bloodthirsty comics about crime or horror, drenched in unwholesome salacious sex, as the reason their children were talking back, acting up and staying out late.

S&K didn’t do those kinds of comicbooks but they got tarred – and metaphorically feathered too – in the media-fuelled frenzy…

This striking full-colour hardback begins with the essay ‘That Old Black Magic’ by series editor Steve Saffel; delineating the history of the title and tone of the times whilst ‘Simon and Kirby’s Little Shop of Horror’ details the workings of the small but prolific studio of rotating artists who augmented the output of the named stars: creators such as Mort Meskin, Bill Draut, Martin Stein, Ben Oda, George Roussos, Vic Donahue, Bill Walton, Jim Infantino, Bruno Premiani, John Prentice, Jerry Grandenetti and more…

With vast output across many titles, S&K simply couldn’t produce every story and many yarns here are ghosted by other hands, although each and every one does begin with a stunning Kirby splash panel.

As with all their titles, Simon & Kirby offered themed material tweaked by their own special sensibilities. Black Magic – and the Mort Meskin-inspired The Strange World of Your Dreams – eschewed cheap shocks, mindless gore and goofy pun-inspired twist-endings in favour of dark, oppressive suspense soaked in psychological paralysis and inexplicable unease: Tension over Teasing…

The stories presented fantastic situations and, too frequently for comfort, there were no happy endings, pat cosmic justice or calming explanations: sometimes The Unknown just blew up in your face and you survived or didn’t… but never whole or unchanged.

The compendium of bleak cartoon cavortings commences with ‘Last Second of Life!’ (from volume 1 #1, October-November 1950) wherein a rich man obsesses over what the dying see at the final breath, but learns to regret the unsavoury lengths he goes to in finding out, after which ‘The Scorn of the Faceless People!’ (#2 December 1950-January 1951) relates the meaning behind a chilling nightmare.

It’s not hard to believe this one must have prompted the creation of the spin-off Strange World of Your Dreams. Issue #2 also provided a chilling report on a satanic vestment dubbed ‘The Cloak!’ whilst an impossible love in the icy wastes of Canada ended with ‘A Silver Bullet for Your Heart!’ in #3 (February-March 1951).

Issue #4 provided ‘Voodoo on Tenth Avenue’ as a disgruntled wife went too far in her quest to get rid of her man, whilst in #5 ‘The World of Spirits’ recounted the uncanny predictions of Emanuel Swedenborg in a brief fact feature before #6 described psychic connection and a ‘Union with the Dead!’ and a ravaged mariner survived meeting ‘The Thing in the Fog!’ (#7) – an encounter with the legendary Flying Dutchman…

Black Magic #8 (December 1951-January 1952) details the sacrifice a woman made to save her man from ‘Donovan’s Demon!’ (mostly illustrated by Bob McCarty) whilst ‘Dead Man’s Lode!’ (#10 March 1952 – the series now being monthly) related a ghostly experience in an old mine and ‘The Girl Who Walked on Water!’ in #11 showed the immense but fragile power of self-belief…

Meskin & Roussos illustrated #12’s ‘A Giant Walks the Earth!’ as a downed pilot lost his best friend to a roving colossus in India, after which the utterly chilling and unforgettable ‘Up There!’ kicks off three stories from the landmark 13th issue…

The saga of a beguiling siren of the upper stratosphere is followed by ‘A Rag – a Bone and a Hank of Hair!’ (Meskin) and a walking pile of trash that learned to love, whilst ‘Visions of Nostradamus!’ (by Al Eadeh) tracks and interprets the prognosticator’s predictions.

‘The Angel of Death!’ in #15 outlines a horrific medical mystery and ‘Freak!’ (#17, possibly by Bill Draut) exposes a country doctor’s deepest shame.

Black Magic #18 (November 1952) is another multi-threat issue. ‘Nasty Little Man!’ gets my vote for scariest horror art job of all time as three hobos discover to their everlasting regret why you shouldn’t pick on short old men with Irish accents…

‘Come Claim My Corpse’ (Martin Stein?) offers a short, sharp, shocker wherein a convict discovers too late the flaw in his infallible escape plan, before an investigator tracing truck-wreckers learns of ‘Detour Lorelei on Highway 52’ (McCarty)…

‘Sammy’s Wonderful Glass!’ in #19 (December 1952) shows the tragic outcome of a retarded lummox whose favourite toy can expose men’s souls, after which two shorts from #20 (January 1953) follow. ‘Birth After Death’ retells the true story of how Sir Walter Scott‘s mother survived premature burial, whilst ‘Oddities in Miniature: The Strangest Stories Ever Told!’ offers half a dozen uncanny tales on one page.

Issue #21 provided ‘The Feathered Serpent’ in which an American archaeologist uncovers the truth about an ancient god, before #22 (March 1953) slips into sci-fi morality play mode with UFO yarn ‘The Monsters on the Lake!’, and ‘Those Who Are About to Die!’ from #23 sketches out the tale of a painter who can predict imminent doom…

A brace of tales from #24 (May 1953) begins with a scholar who attempts to contact the living ‘After I’m Gone!’, complemented by half-page fact feature ‘Strange Predictions’ (Harry Lazarus) after which ‘Strange Old Bird!’ is the first of three stories from the (again bimonthly) Black Magic #25 (June/July 1953).

In this gently eerie thriller, a little old lady gets the gift of life from her tatty old feathered friend, whilst ‘The Human Cork!’ precis’ the life of literally unsinkable Angelo Faticoni, before a man without a soul escapes the morgue to become ‘A Beast in the Streets!’

There’s a similar surfeit of sinister riches from #26, beginning with ‘Fool’s Paradise!’, wherein a cheap bag-snatcher makes a deal with the devil, even as ‘The Sting of Scorpio!’ sees a rude sceptic wish she’d never taunted a fortune teller.

‘The Strange Antics of the Mystic Mirror!’ terrified nurses in a major metropolitan hospital and ‘Demon Wind!’ (Kirby inked by Premiani) finds a brash Yankee learning the efficacy of a primitive tribe’s justice system…

‘The Cat People’ (#27) mesmerise and forever mark an unwary tourist in rural Spain, and the same issue exposes a seductive Scottish supernatural shindig hosted by ‘The Merry Ghosts of Campbell Castle’, whilst #28 finds an unwilling organ donor reclaiming his “property” in ‘An Eye for an Eye!’ The same issue reveals with mordant wit how a mummy returns to make his truly beloved ‘Alive After Five Thousand Years!’…

From an issue cited during those anti-comic book Senate Hearings, ‘The Greatest Horror of Them All!’ (#29 March-April 1954) tells of a freak hidden amongst freaks, before Black Magic #30 exposes the appalling secret of ‘The Head of the Family!’ (Kirby & Premiani) whilst #31 provides both alien invasion horror ‘Slaughter-House!’ and a cautionary tale of a child raised by beasts in ‘Hungry as a Wolf!’ (Ernie Schroeder).

‘Maniac!’ from #32 is another artistic tour de force and a tale much “homaged” in later years, detailing how a loving brother stops villagers taking his simple-minded sibling away, before the Black Magic section concludes with a terrifying fable of atomic radiation and mutated sea creatures in ‘Lone Shark’ from #33 (November/December 1954).

With the sagacious, industry-hip, quality-conscious Simon & Kirby undoubtedly seeing the writing on the wall, their uniquely macabre title was wisely cancelled in 1954, not long before the Comics Code came into effect. A bowdlerised version was relaunched in 1957, long after they had dissolved their partnership and moved into different areas of the industry.

However, the eerie treats don’t end yet, as a short but sublime sampling from their other mystery title is appended here.

‘We Will Buy Your Dreams‘ discusses features and stories from abortive, revolutionary title The Strange World of Your Dreams: inspired by studio-mate Mort Meskin’s vivid night terrors. The premise involves parapsychologist Richard Temple explaining and analysing storied nightmares with pictorially dramatised dreams sent in by readers.

The too short comics section begins with ‘Send Us Your Dreams’ from #1 (August 1952); a “typical” insecurity nightmare and the chilling ‘I Talked with my Dead Wife!’, whilst #2 (September/October) provides a trio of taught traumatic tales. ‘The Girl in the Grave!’ is a scary wedding scenario in the ‘You Sent Us This Dream!’ sector, before ‘Send Us Your Dreams’ sees Dr. Tempe describe the extent of self-preservation imagery…

‘The Woman in the Tower!’ comes from #3 (November/December), detailing typical symbolism whilst ‘You Sent Us this Dream’ from the same issue explains away a nightmare climb up an unending tower…

Capping off everything is a spectacular Cover Gallery, reprinting Black Magic #1-33, and a stunning unpublished cover; performing the same service for The Strange World of Your Dreams #1-4, plus the unpublished #5, just to make our lives utterly complete.

The Simon & Kirby Library: Horror! is a gigantic compendium of classic dark delights that perfectly illustrates the depth and scope of their influence and innovation and readily displays the sheer bombastic panache and artistic virtuosity they brought to everything they did. This is a worthy, welcome introduction to their unique comics contributions, and needs the relative immortality of electronic iterations.

It would be far less grim on your hands and wrists, too…
© 2014 Joseph H. Simon and the Estate of Jack Kirby. All Rights Reserved.

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I Luv Halloween Ultimate Twisted Edition (Cabbage Poot)



By Keith Giffen & Benjamin Roman & various (TokyoPop)
ISBN: 978-1-42781-072-4 (HB U Twisted) 978-1-59532-831-1 (PB vol. 1) 978-1-59532-832-8 (PB vol. 2) 978-1-59532-833-5 (PB vol. 3)

Are you sick, depraved, demented or just plain ‘not right’? If so (it’s not necessary – but it won’t hurt either) you might want to pick up this darkly wicked little tome to reaffirm your skewed view of reality.

First unleashed in 2005, it spawned two further paperback volumes, a snazzy hardback Ultimate Edition in full-colour and, latterly, eBook editions (all converted from moody monochrome to gaudy sunset shades and blood-spatter hues thanks to the tender ministrations of Michael Kelleher and Glasshouse Graphics)…

This holiday now is primarily one where kids of varying ages go mooching about, begging for sweets, exercising their inalienable rights to practise extortion and generally threating mayhem. Once upon a time, it used to be about predatory monsters roaming the land, terrorising the citizenry and making mischief. Here, those worlds collide and collude…

In I Luv Halloween volume 1 we learn that every Halloween, Finch, Moochie, Pig Pig, Mr. Kitty, Spike, Bubbles & Squeak, Li’l Bith and the rest of the kids join Devil Lad for their annual sugar-coated loot-fest.

Typically, this year it’s all botched up from the get-go ’cause the very first old lady they accost just gives them fruit, and everyone knows if you don’t get candy right from the start it’s nothing but rubbish all evening. Drastic steps have to be taken, or else this Halloween is ruined…

You don’t know drastic until you see what this band of masked reprobates get up to. These are not your average trick-or-treaters…

Along the way you’ll also meet that friendly old policeman, the vicious, bullying older kids and the really stacked chick who lives next door (they call her “Nips” for suitably scandalous reasons) as well as her doofus boyfriend. See their ultimate fates and give thanks it’s just a comic!

And as the night unfolds – with each kid given his/her/its own chapter to play in – we’ll see that theirs is a very bleak and nasty kind of fun with a vicious undercurrent to the shenanigans. You might even call it tragic if it wasn’t so inappropriately funny…

 

Volume 2 somehow sees another All Hallows Eve in the township of Turgid Meadows, where Finch’s little sister Moochie is inexplicably addressing the issues of Christianity and bodily functions in a distressingly scatological-slash-surgical manner, thanks to set of extremely sharp knives that have become her constant companions.

There are some new kids – such as Hully Gully, Vera, Vinnie and unfortunate Vivian – prowling the streets, even though there had been some doubt about the event actually taking place, what with the plague of flesh-eating zombies attacking the town…

Still, tradition is sacrosanct, so the kids make do as best they can, even though candy seems in short supply and the adults who are still breathing act real weird. Some even try to keep the kids inside, so they can repopulate after the apocalypse, but Finch has a pretty good idea how to deal with them…It has to be quick, though because the Walking Dead are everywhere and have their own ideas about “Hhhik Uh Heeeett”-ing…

Happily, Finch, Devil Lad and the remaining uneaten have an explosive solution to securing the town and remains of the sweet, sweet loot…

 

Volume 3 opens on yet another October festival and again circumstances are conspiring to spoil the fun for Finch, Devil Lad, Mr. Kitty (don’t call him Spencer!) and the rest. This time the town is being attacked by marauding aliens. Sure, some adults are apparently delighted with all the probing that’s going on, but most are just running and screaming or being turned into mobile roman candles by all the indiscriminate heat ray blasts.

Moochie has moved on a bit: now her incessant inquisitiveness is fixated on the miracles of birth and why she hasn’t had a sister yet. At least there’s plenty of fleshy material she can examine with her enhanced surgical techniques, especially after she commandeers kindly Dr. Kramer‘s office and surgery…

Pig Pig is, as usual, not quite in tune; asking why the aliens haven’t been deported back to Mexico, whilst new recruits Kevin Kyle Kramer – a black kid who hates being called Triple K – and pious dog-killer Monica do their best to keep up. They almost lose Mr. Kitty entirely when the invaders drag a naked Nips off to their mothership and strange, uncontrollable feelings compel him to follow…

Most importantly, a rival band of kids are also on the streets. Brutish lunch money extorters Bubbles and Squeak are on the prowl, even though the big boss can’t get his mind off Monica and back on candy-scoring…

All the kids know for sure is that no-one’s got any treats to hand over, so they’re supposed to come up with lots of retaliatory tricks, but now something’s just not feeling right anymore…

Worst of all, the incredible secret beneath Kramer’s office threatens to end their annual sweet deal forever…

This book also contains bonus story and cartoon coda to the previous night ‘Friends till the End’: a solo outing for inspired originator and illustrator, 3D concept artist and genuine sick puppy Benjamin Roman (Cryptics, Auntie Agatha’s Home for Wayward Rabbits); a delight for the dark hearted and strong-stomached, supplemented by pin-ups, a Roll Call of characters; instructions for making a Pig Pig Mask (Pig Pig Papier-Mache Madness!); and fan art by Dan Hurd, Liz Siegel, Jeremy Goad, Kevin Harden, Mauricio Arcila, Neil Phyfer, Tara Billinger and “Rez”

Comics veteran Keith Giffen flexes his comedy – and bad taste – muscles in this addictive confection that would win nodding approval from Charles Addams and the producers of any self-respecting splatter movie. Jovial malice is uniquely captured by Roman’s astonishingly enchanting art: his inexplicably charming grotesques are the stuff of any animation studio’s dreams. If you don’t believe me just check out the stupefying Sketchbook sections and frankly alarming Creator Bio feature…

All the above irresistible atrocity has been latterly packed into a deliriously compelling hardback entitled I Luv Halloween Ultimate Twisted Edition (Cabbage Poot), and there’s a new super-complete warts ‘n’ all edition slated for release in January 2020 (slick timing, no?), but if you have no patience or impulse control issues, there’s never been a better time to revisit perhaps the most definitive statement on the hallowed festival known nowhere at all as “Knock! Knock!BOO!! Night” as so callously perpetrated by two grown men who really should have known better…

If you have no fear of the dark, love a gross joke, have a soft side that can be hit by a brilliantly sad twist or two and especially if you don’t care what your immediate family or the clergy think of you, then you really want to read this stuff. Over and over and over and over again. Amen…
© 2005 Keith Giffen & Benjamin Roman. All Rights Reserved.

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I… Vampire


By J.M. DeMatteis, Bruce Jones, Dan Mishkin, Gary Cohn, Mike W. Barr, Tom Sutton, Ernie Colon, Adrian Gonzales, Paris Cullins, Dan Day, Jim Aparo & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-3371-6 (TPB)

When superheroes entered their second decline at the end of the 1960s, four of the six surviving newsstand comicbook companies (Archie, Charlton, DC, Gold Key, Harvey and Marvel) increasingly turned to horror and suspense anthologies to bolster their flagging sales. Even wholesome Archie briefly produced Red Circle Sorcery/Chillers comics, diverting a portion of their teen-comedy core gently into tales of witchcraft, mystery and imagination.

DC’s first generation of mystery titles blossomed at the end of the first Heroic Age when most comicbook publishers of the era began releasing Crime, Romance, Western and Horror genre anthologies to recapture an aging readership which was drifting away to other mass-market entertainments like television and movies.

After a few tenuous attempts with supernatural-themed heroic leads in established titles (Johnny Peril in Comic Cavalcade, All-Star Comics and Sensation Comics; Dr. Terry Thirteen, The Ghostbreaker in Star-Spangled Comics) in 1951 National Comics bowed to the inevitable and launched a comparatively straight-laced anthology sans recurring stars – which nevertheless became one of their longest-running and most influential titles – with the December 1951/January 1952 launch of The House of Mystery.

When a hysterical censorship scandal led to witch-hunting hearings attacking comicbooks and newspaper strips (feel free to type Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency, April-June 1954 into your search engine at any time) the industry panicked and hurriedly adopted a castrating straitjacket of stringent self-regulatory rules and admonitions.

Even though mystery/suspense titles produced under the aegis of the Comics Code Authority were sanitised, anodyne affairs in terms of Shock and Gore, the appetite for mystery and suspense was still high, and in 1956 National introduced sister titles Tales of the Unexpected and House of Secrets.

Supernatural thrillers and spooky monster stories were dialled back into marvellously illustrated, genteel, rationalistic fantasy-adventure vehicles which nonetheless dominated the market until the end of the 1950s when the super-hero returned in force – having begun a renaissance after Julius Schwartz reintroduced the Flash in Showcase #4, 1956.

Revivals of Green Lantern, Hawkman, The Atom and a host of new costumed cavorters generated a gaudy global bubble of masked myrmidons which even forced these dedicated anthology suspense titles to transform into super-character split-books with J’onn J’onzz, Manhunter from Mars and Dial H for Hero in House of Mystery and paranormal investigator Mark Merlin (latterly Prince Ra-Man) sharing space with anti-hero Eclipso in House of Secrets.

When the caped crusader craziness peaked and popped, Secrets was one of the first casualties, folding with the September-October 1966 issue. House of Mystery carried on with its eccentric costumed cohort until #173, and Tales of the Unexpected carried on until #104.

However, nothing combats censorship better than falling profits, and at the end of the 1960s the superhero boom busted again. With many once-popular titles gone and some of the industry’s most prestigious series circling the drain too, this real-world Crisis led to the surviving publishers of the field agreeing to loosen their self-imposed restraints against crime and horror comics. Nobody much cared about gangster titles at the time, but as this liberalisation coincided with another bump in global public interest in all aspects of the Great Unknown, the resurrection of scary story comics was a foregone conclusion and obvious “no-brainer.”

Thus, with absolutely no fanfare at all House of Mystery and Unexpected switched back to tales of magic, mystery and imagination stories and House of Secrets rose again with issue #81, (cover-dated August-September 1969): retasked and retooled to cater to a seemingly insatiable appetite for terror and suspense yarns…

Before long, an expansive battalion of supernatural thriller titles dominated DC – and other companies’ – publishing schedules again. This time, however, although the initial impetus died out by 1978, horror comic books had secured a dedicated audience, and soldiered on despite a decline in sales into the turbulent 1980s.

During that period, the venerable periodical experimented with varying formats and became a springboard for many creative careers, but never returned to established, recurring heroes until the reign of publishing whiz kid Karen Berger who officially assumed control with #292. A few issues earlier, a new longform miniseries had debuted, detailing the exploits of a reluctant monster seeking to atone for past sins…

The full groundbreaking tragic, idiosyncratic saga has been gathered into a sinister trade paperback – or digitally formatted – chronicle collecting the adventures of the bloodsucker and his human allies as first seen in House of Mystery #290-291, 293, 295, 297, 299, 302, 304-319 as well as a fast-paced guest-shot in The Brave and the Bold #195, cumulatively spanning March 1980 to August 1983 and opens without fanfare or preamble with ‘I… Vampire’ by co-creators J.M. DeMatteis & Tom Sutton.

In ten tightly-packed but smoothly inviting pages we are introduced to English noble Sir Andrew Bennett, who died at the hands of a nosferatu during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Beloved by his fiancée, Mary Seward, Bennett succumbs to her desperate pleas to be similarly infected, her so their love could last forever. Only afterwards does he realise that the transformation creates soulless monsters, but, somehow, he has retained his conscience and personality…

Over four centuries, “Bloody Mary” becomes a leader of vampires in an insidious, influential covert global cult dubbed the Blood Red Moon, spreading chaos and destruction whilst working towards their ultimate goal of vampires ruling a world of human cattle. Heartbroken and guilt ridden, Bennett opposes her schemes for all that time, aided by human allies such as his most recent daywalkers: aged Russian warrior Dimitri Mishkin and go-getting “Eighties Woman” Deborah Dancer…

Empowered by all the traditional gifts of the undead (shapeshifting, supernatural vigour, hypnosis, etc) and similarly afflicted by their weaknesses (sunlight, crucifixes, Holy Water, stakes et al) Bennett staves off his insatiable hunger for blood by sheer willpower and the determination that he will not die until he has ended Mary’s depredations…

The introductory episode covers all that even as Mary’s minions lose another running battle with Bennett’s team but escape to instigate their latest plan…

The adventure concludes in ‘Night of the Living Undead’ as team Bennett expose and end a proposed alliance between the cult and New York’s biggest drug dealer after which ‘The Burning’ sees the hunters scotch a scheme to infiltrate the White House after Mary affiliates with a race-hate spouting demagogue with links to the KKK and the President…

The closure of that case tears open old wounds, as Mishkin subsequently clashes with one of Mary’s lieutenants only to discover a dreaded family connection in ‘Mother Love/Mother Hate’, leading to a look into how Bennett recruited him as a boy at the turn of the 20th century…

DeMatteis’ moves on after the dark heroes foil Mary’s attempt to destroy an ashram and its spiritual guru in ‘Zen Flesh! Zen Bones!’ after which Bruce Jones moves in, offering a more fanciful approach in ‘The Sun Also Burns’. Here Bennett and his human friends are ambushed and left to die in a mine. As time passes, the valiant vampire – deprived of bottled blood – must battle his irresistible thirst, before abandoning them. Resolved never to endanger them again, he sets out on a solo quest for vengeance…

‘Blood Ties’ in HoM #302 sees that lonely walkabout take him to Eudora, Kansas where strange events culminate in Bennett causing the accidental death of an entire family of innocents before stumbling across a predatory circus abducting innocents for profit, and sponsored by Bloody Mary. His war against the ‘Carnival of Souls’ lasts until #304 where – with Ernie Colon substituting for Sutton – Bennett learns that ‘The Night Has Eyes’ and proves that he has no pity for child stealers…

Jones kicks off a lengthy saga in ‘Blood and Sand’ as the still-solo Bennett tracks Mary’s agents to Egypt in the wake of a global anti-cancer vaccine rollout that has the unexpected side-effect of making human blood toxic to the undead…

Meanwhile, and for all this time, Mishkin and Dancer have been hunting for their leader, and are closing in…

Made unwilling allies by fate, Andrew and Mary invade a lost tomb, where the cult queen steals the time-travelling Rings of Anubis from a mystic mummy and sets off to the past to undo the creation of the vaccine. In hot pursuit, thanks to a second ring, Bennett arrives in Whitechapel, London at the height of history’s most infamous serial killer spree.

Crafted by Jones and the returned Sutton, ‘A Rip in Time’ sees all Mary’s efforts thwarted, and the ancestor of mysterious vaccine creator Dr. Barr escape unharmed, even as the vampires are hurled back into the time stream…

Bennett washes ashore in Maine in November 1964, just in time to save a little girl from drowning. ‘Lovers Living, Lovers Dead’ reveals that in the present Deborah Dancer has developed a psychic link and can “see” the vampire past actions as they happen. She is suitably horrified to observe Mary then attack the child and aghast to realise that the child is herself…

After a heroic intervention from Bennett saves the girl, the time chase pauses as the undead knight battles a crew of revenant Nazi submariners in ‘Mirrors That Look Back’ before his pursuit resumes, depositing him and his quarry in Elizabethan England mere days before their first deaths…

A bewildering succession of time-tossed doubles and mistaken identity switches culminates in a deadly ‘Witch Hunt’ with religiously enflamed peasants running riot before all the chronal paradoxes dump them both back in the 20th century where new writers Dan Mishkin (no relation) & Gary Cohn concoct a ‘Manhattan Interlude’ (HoM #310, November 1982) foe penciller Adrian Gonzales and ever-faithful Tom Sutton to render. Here Bennett encounters another vampire who has retained both soul and innocence and regretfully helps her meet her final end on her own terms…

Paris Cullins joins Mishkin & Cohn, Gonzales & Sutton for a dark peek at Deborah Dancer’s teen years in ‘By the Time We Got to Woodstock…’, revealing how she “first” stumbled into the Blood Red Moon’s schemes of conquest after losing all her friends to hippy vampires at the legendary festival and only survived thanks to an old Russian and eerie, red-eyed Englishman…

Issue #312 reunites the trio in time to tackle ‘The Thing in the Tunnel’ (Mishkin, Cohn, Gonzales & Sutton): a predatory beast escaped from the familiar-sounding Barr Research Laboratories leading to a deadly clash with the enigmatic and extraordinarily long-lived (hint, hint) biologist in ‘Side Effects’, before ‘I.. Edward Trane, I… Vampire’ in #314 (illustrated solely by Sutton) sees a tragic reunion for Bennett with one of his Victorian acolytes who fell in battle but never fully died…

Mishkin, Cohn, Cullins & Sutton then detail an untitled exploit wherein the vampire hunters are targeted by sanctimonious religious zealots hunting he unholy. Sadly, their leader’s top aide is not only undead herself, but also Dimitri’s mother and the Presidency is once more the glittering prize being sought…

Although the plot is foiled, the cost is high, compelling Bennett to turn eastwards, and ‘Back in the U.S.S.R.’ he uncovers a KGB program to weaponize vampirism and extend the joys of eternity to the aging Politburo. The result is open warfare between Mary’s cult and a Soviet secret army, ultimately proving in ‘Blood is Thicker…’ that that not all military spending is pointless and not every hero gets to ride off into the sunset…

Despite a long run, changing times and tastes were indicating that the title and, indeed, entire genre were not a viable contemporary option. With the series building to climax, #318 offered another untitled yarn (with Dan Day pencilling) wherein a freshly bereaved Andrew Bennett employs stolen Soviet technology to force a final confrontation with Mary and the Blood Red Moon resulting in his final demise and the birth of a new kind of hero in climactic last episode ‘Dreams of Death’ by Mishkin & Cohn, & Sutton in House of Mystery #319 (August 1983).

Rather annoyingly, the big finish isn’t the end here, as there follows a solid but painfully out-of-continuity tale taken from The Brave and the Bold #195 (February 1983). In ‘Night of Blood’ – by Mike W. Barr & Jim Aparo – Bennett’s perpetual hunt for Mary brings him to Gotham City after a gangster’s daughter becomes the latest victim of a killer vampire. Batman is firmly convinced the attacks are fake – and he’s right – until an actual magic-accursed blood drinker shows up. At least this time the standard misunderstanding doesn’t result in pointless battle before reason prevails and the mismatched heroes unite to catch the real culprits…

A genuine slice of engaging, unorthodox and vastly entertaining horror action that predates – and probably influenced – later hits like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, this is a hugely enjoyable edgy romp: well-scripted, imaginative and gorgeously illustrated. Even the covers are special; crafted by industry icons Joe Kubert and Michael Wm. Kaluta.

I… Vampire is a tome for all lovers of dark delight and one no arcane aficionada can afford to be without.
© 1981, 1982, 1983, 2012 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Archie Horror Presents Chilling Adventures in Sorcery


By Harry Doyle, Gray Morrow, Marvin Channing, Don Glut, Steve Skeates, Mary Skrenes, Carol Seuling, Phil Seuling, Larry Hama, Bob Holland, Stan Goldberg, Vicente Alcazar, Dick Giordano, Carlos Pino, Dan DeCarlo, Howard Chaykin, Alex Toth, Bruce Jones, Ed Davis, Frank Thorne & various (Archie Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-62738-990-7 (TPB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Shockingly Wicked Chronicle of Chills… 9/10

For nearly 8 decades Archie Comics have epitomised good, safe, wholesome, fun but the company has always been a surprisingly subversive one. Family friendly – and not – iterations of superheroes, spooky chills, sci fi thrills and genre yarns have always been as much a part of the publisher’s varied portfolio as the romantic comedy capers of America’s cleanest-cut teens.

As you probably know by now, the eponymous Archie has been around since 1941, but the publisher has other wholesome stars – such as Sabrina the Teenage Witch or Josie and the Pussycats – in their stable, almost as well known… and just as prone to radical reinterpretation.

To keep all that accumulated attention riveted, the company has always looked to modern trends with which to expand upon their archetypal storytelling brief. The contemporary revival in horror across all media has thus resulted in a few supernatural sidebar titles such as Afterlife with Archie and Jughead: The Hunger.

Moreover, in times past the publisher have cross-fertilised their pantheon through such unlikely team-ups as Archie Meets the Punisher, Archie Vs Sharknado and Archie Vs Predator, whilst every type of fashion fad and youth culture sensation has invariably been accommodated into and explored within the pages of the regular titles.

Following-up the stunning success of aforementioned zombie apocalypse Afterlife with Archie, they took another boldly controversial step: radically reinventing their saccharine-TV teen witch in astoundingly sophisticated Chilling Adventures of Sabrina after playwright, screenwriter and comics scribe Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa (whose many hits include The Mystery Plays, 4: Marvel Knights Fantastic Four, Stephen King’s The Stand and Afterlife with Archie amongst others) pitched the idea to re-imagine the saucy sorceress in terms of Rosemary’s Baby and The Exorcist.

Archie Comics was no stranger to such material. In the 1970s the company created sub-imprint Red Circle for anthology terror tales during a previous supernatural boom time, before gradually converting the line to superhero features as the decade progressed and the fad faded. They even had resident witch-girl Sabrina narrating Chilling Tales of Sorcery for the first two issues…

The title dropped subhead “…As Told by Sabrina” for #3, and with #6 (April 1974) became Red Circle Sorcery until folding in February 1975’s issue #11.

In a great example of circularity, the newly-wicked 21st century Sabrina features snippets from the ’70’s anthology, sparking this edgy compilation of many of those lost classics in a spiffy monochrome collection, available in paperback and digital formats.

Following a fervent Introduction by letterer and fright-fan Jack Morelli, the vintage terrors open with Chilling Tales of Sorcery …as Told by Sabrina #1 (September 1972): a rather standard anthology of short thrillers with twist-endings, little different from those churned out by DC, Gold Key or Charlton at the time and crafted by Archie’s on-staff comedy creators.

‘Behold the Beast’ by Frank Doyle & Stan Goldberg, revealed the fate of a lonely and misunderstood deformed lad, after which ‘The Boy Who Cried Vampire’ (Doyle & Dan DeCarlo) deals out ironic justice to a pesky kid and ‘Assignment in Fear’ (Doyle & DeCarlo) sees a teacher with a secret sort out a class bully in horrific style.

Anonymous prose yarn ‘A Real Hot Talent’ gets under the skin of a juvenile firestarter after which Doyle & DeCarlo return to exhibit ‘Quick Justice’ in an art gallery before Doyle & Goldberg reveal how ‘Curiosity Kills’ in a story of an accursed inheritance.

Issue #2 opens with Doyle & Goldberg’s ‘The Ultimate Cure’ wherein a waiting bride’s tragic misapprehension destroys her man and her sanity, and text tale ‘Look Upon Your Legacy’ warns of the dangers of an over-active imagination. Pictorial perils resume with ‘Sonny’s World’ (Doyle & Dan DeCarlo) with a little brat learning how to make all reality his plaything after which ‘The Measure of a Monster’ Doyle & Goldberg) sees mad science unleash a colossal creature and (almost) find a safe conclusion and the same creators outline the fate of a jewel-obsessed lass succumbs to ‘The Cameo’s Curse’…

A massive shift in style and tone began with issue #3 (October 1973) as writer/artist Gray Morrow came aboard, personally crafting or supervising far more mature fare that seemed closer to Warren’s adult horror magazines than contemporary newsstand fare such as House of Mystery, Ghostly Haunts or Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery.

Dwight Graydon “Gray” Morrow was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana in 1934 and studied at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. After serving in the army he moved to New York City in 1955 and began a steady career contributing strips, covers and illustrations to Cracked, Classics Illustrated, Atlas Comics (pre-Marvel), numerous children’s books and pulps such as Galaxy.

A master of graphic realism, his art and stories graced a vast array of comics titles, magazines such as Space: 1999 and alternative vehicles such as Wally Wood’s Witzend. He freelanced for dozens of companies (he co-created DC’s El Diablo and Marvel’s Man-Thing, and revamped Archie’s Black Hood into a gritty urban avenger during his tenure at Red Circle), as well as drawing the newspaper iterations of Tarzan and Buck Rogers. He won numerous awards – including three Hugos – over a long and extremely wide-reaching artistic life. He died in 2001.

His influence on the title was instantaneous. With the imprint renamed Red Circle Comics for the third (almost all-Morrow) issue, the new chief introduced a growing band of fresh writers and master artists, as the title unleashed a wave of terror tales that owed much to movies and TV of the period.

It began with ‘…Cat’ (written, drawn & lettered by Morrow) wherein a ruthless, misogynistic society burglar targets the wrong gem-bedecked senorita and lives to regret it forever.

Following prose thriller ‘A Stab in the Dark’ – exposing a plot to murder by witchcraft – a thematic diversion into EC-tinged science fiction finds a time traveller accidentally become an evolutionary ‘Missing Link!’ whilst a bereaved man investigates the death of a sister and discovers that a new ‘Immortality Factor’ is anything but.

An embezzler then pays the price for his betrayal in ‘Haunted Gallery’ before the issue closes with fact-page ‘Essays into the Supernatural’: a featurette by Phil Seuling & Morrow exploring timeless rituals of magic and the use of ‘Familiars’…

Due to his prestige and sheer artistic quality, Morrow could call upon a lot of high-end associates to fill pages and #4 (December 1973) introduced an internationally famous master of mood as Spaniard Vicente Alcazar (Jonah Hex, Commando Picture Library, Star Trek, Space: 1999) began his association by writing and illustrating ‘Suicide… Maybe’: a saga of Faustian tragedy wherein a lifelong failure makes a fool’s bargain and discovers politics is the Devil’s playground…

Text vignette ‘Loophole’ also explores such contracts before Don Glut & Dick Giordano highlight the ‘Horripilate Host’ whose TV show excesses lead to infernal doom, after which Morrow adds a sinister tweak to the legend of Midas when a greedy creep gains the legendary ‘Golden Touch!’

The power of a Hebrew Golem deals poetic justice to a modern oppressor in ‘A Thousand Pounds of Clay’ by Glut & Alcazar before the issue ends with another fictive factoid as ‘Essays into the Supernatural’ finds Morrow exploring truths and fictions of ‘The Witch’…

Cover-dated February 1974, #5 opens with a vivid pastiche of Arabian adventure courtesy of writers Morrow and Larry Hama. Limned by Alcazar ‘The Two Thieves of Baghdad’ exposes the fatal flaw of overconfidence before the all Alcazar ‘Esme’ details the fate of a hit-&-run victim whose vision is horrifically enhanced by her accident.

Morrow brings his lifelong affinity for baroque, barbaric science fantasy to the creepy epic ‘Barometer Falling…’ after which Alcazar’s ‘The Choker is Wild’ reveals the shocking history of blood-drinking sovereign Queen Maleena and the ‘Essays into the Supernatural’ featurette – by Seuling & Morrow – catalogues the totemic value of ‘Dragons’.

Red Circle Sorcery #6 (April) opens with ‘Warrior’s Dream’ by Steve Skeates, Mary Skrenes & Morrow as a lusty barbarian finally pays the price for all that wenching and, following an ‘Essays into the Supernatural’ page detailing legends of ‘The Werewolf’ (by Marvin Channing & Morrow), sees a conjuring upstart destroyed by a sagacious warlock in ‘Out of Practice’ by Seuling & Ed Davis.

British comics stalwart Carlos Pino was Alcazar’s studio partner for years (often collaborating as “CarVic”) and here he solos in Channing’s tale of vengeance-by-witchcraft ‘Death Goes to a Sales Convention!’, before Carol Seuling & Howard Chaykin go full medieval in epic saga of demonic manipulation and feline vengeance ‘The Patience of a Cat’…

Futuristic sensory-inundation tech is the driving force in T. Casey Brennan’s extended prose mystery ‘Black Fog’ – illustrated by Morrow – after which Channing & Alcazar serve out just deserts to a serial womaniser in ‘Face of Love – Face of Death’ to close the issue.

Red Circle Sorcery #7 commences with ‘A Twist in Time’ by Skeates & Pino as an ancient wizard is drawn into Fate’s plan to punish a modern-day murderer after which Channing & Morrow explore legends of ‘The Dibbuk’ in another gripping ‘Essays into the Supernatural’ featurette before Channing & Alcazar memorably reveal the dangers of owing ‘The Knife of Jack the Ripper’…

Channing scripts a rare but welcome artistic foray for Bruce Jones as ‘The Rivals’ follows two kids from mid-western poverty to dizzying heights and their grim, witchcraft assisted ends after which Brennan & Alcazar showcase the frustrating fate of ‘The Benefactor’ nobody will listen to…

Closing the chronological portion, ‘Essays into the Supernatural’ then offers a featurette by Morrow detailing ‘Possession and Exorcism’ which happily leads not to the end, but rather a selection of Bonus Stories from later issues.

From #9 (October 1974) comes ‘…If I Were King’ by Channing & the magnificent Alex Toth, wherein a meek nobody gets his greatest wish fulfilled – with the usual regrets – before #8 (August 1974) offers a compelling ‘Essays into the Supernatural’ featurette by Channing & Frank Thorne, detailing the tricks of pesky ‘Poltergeists’ and closure via illustrated calligraphic ode ‘The Spectre’ by Bob Holland & Morrow.

The company’s recent resurgence on TV and in the comics has seen a variety of alternate iterations of the timeless pantheons and this no-frills massively monochrome trade paperback (or digital download) is a perfect complement to those aforementioned horror-tinged titles.

Please don’t be put off by the black-&-white reproduction here: these tales are crafted by masters of line art and tonal values and their efforts actually benefit from the subtraction of the cheap colour used in the original releases. These are superb voyages into the bizarre unknown that no lover of dark fiction should miss.
© 2017 Archie Comic Publications, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Scared to Death volume 2: Malevolence and Mandrake


By Mauricet & Vanholme, with Lee Oaks: colours by Laurent Carpentier and translated by Luke Spear (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978- 1-905460-77-9 (PB Album)

There’s a grand old tradition of scaring, empowering and entertaining kids through carefully crafted horror stories starring junior protagonists, and this occasional series is one of the better modern examples.

Conceived and executed by journalist Virginie Vanholme and youthful yet seasoned illustrator Alain Mauricet, the Mort de Trouille albums launched through Casterman in the year 2000. There have been seven sinister sorties thus far…

Whilst I’ve not been able to find out much about the author, the artist is rather well travelled, having worked for CrossGen, Image and DC in America as well as on a wide variety of features in Europe.

He’s also seen in David Lloyd’s magnificently wonderful digital delight Aces Weekly…

Born in 1967, Mauricet originally inherited the comic bug from his parents and, after studying at the Academy of Fine Arts under legendary creator Eddy Paape, began his own career aged 20 at Le Journal de Spirou.

From spot cartoons he graduated to strips, creating superhero parody Cosmic Patrouille with Jean-Louis Janssens and Les Rastafioles with Sergio Salma. Following the aforementioned stateside sojourn, he resumed his Franco-Belgian efforts with the strip under review here, as well as basketball comedy Basket Dunk (with Christophe Cazanove) and Boulard (with Erroc) and others.

He now lives in Brussels, and also designs for computer games whilst working on a more personal graphic enterprise entitled Une Bien Belle Nuance de Rouge…

Back in early 2000, though, he was detailing a sequence of spooky yarns starring studious Robin Lavigne, son of an esteemed forensic scientist and boisterous, overly-imaginative, horror-story obsessed Max Mornet: a couple of lads with an infallible instinct for ferreting out the weird and uncanny and increasing dependent – though they’d never admit it – upon the wit and bravery of Robin’s brilliant little sister Sophie…

Cinebook’s second translated selection was third French chilling chronicle Mort de Trouille: Maléfice et mandragora: suitably set around All Hallows Eve and posing uniquely terrifying problems for the youthful, trouble-magnets…

It all begins a little before the much-anticipated night with the Elizabeth Simon Secondary School abuzz with worries over missing student Thomas and seemingly simultaneous arrival of oddly-attractive, exotic new student Emma Corpescu. She comes from Romania and Max is strangely antipathic to her at first, but that soon changes…

Robin also feels a bit off as the newcomer blatantly insinuates herself into their lives, paying particular attention to Max. Soon, so-savvy Sophie is paying close attention. Far more so than the idiot boys…

She’s very wise to do so: Emma soon revealed as an ancient shapeshifting sorceress named Malevolence, who steals the youth of boys to restore her own life force and to one day resurrect her dead sister Mandrake…

After doing research online, Sophie arms herself with anti-witch tricks and gadgets and, after discovering the incredible fate of Thomas, ultimately convinces her incredulous brother to stalk the wicked enchanter to her lair in Deadwater Swamp to rescue the now missing Max. The poor lad has succumbed to Emma’s wiles and now resides in her lair transformed into the same uncanny form as Thomas…

Arriving just in time, his rescuers are set for an incredible clash of wills and powers – especially Sophie, who’s borrowed a few supernatural forces for the ordeal…

Of course, good triumphs in the end, but can such seductive evil truly die?

Deliciously delivered in the manner of Goosebumps and Scooby-Doo, this is a superb slice of all-ages spooky fun in the classic mould, seamlessly mixing fear with hilarity to enthral and enchant all generations equally.
Original edition © Casterman, 2003 by Mauricet & Vanholme. English translation © 2008 by Cinebook Ltd.

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Lafcadio Hearn’s The Faceless Ghost and Other Macabre Tales from Japan: A Graphic Novel


By Seán Michael Wilson & Michiru Morikawa (Shambhala Publications)
ISBN: 978-1-61180-197-2 (TPB)

If you read prose and love old stories you should really track down the works of Patrick Lafcadio Hearn, an Irish-Greek raconteur laterally renamed Koizumi Yakumo. They are wonderful and truly compelling. He was a pretty impressive character too, so you’d be best served to learn of his remarkable life too…

I’m not certain how the socially pioneering teacher, journalist, historian, translator and archivist would react to seeing some of his most engaging works translated into graphic narratives but as a renowned breaker of borders and flouter of taboos, I suspect he’d approve, even if this gleefully wry collation hadn’t been produced by such stellar luminaries as Scottish author Seán Michael Wilson (Breaking the Ten and Portraits of Violence – An Illustrated History of Radical Thinking) and his frequent collaborator Michiru Morikawa.

Wilson’s life has some parallels with Hearn’s. The Japan-based writer, educator and dedicated Humanist has written political and philosophical tracts such as Goodbye God – An Illustrated Examination of Science Vs. Religion in graphic form and has adapted Western and Eastern literary classics such as Wuthering Heights, A Christmas Carol, Sweeney Todd, and Chinese classics Tao Te Ching and The Garden, as well as original genre pieces such as urban interacial romance The Story of Lee.

Illustrator and manga artist Michiru Morikawa won the 2005 International Manga and Anime Award before going on to illustrate Wilson’s books Buskers, Yakuza Moon, The Demon’s Sermon on the Martial Arts and Musashi, amongst numerous comics series.

Hearn visited Japan as a correspondent in 1890, and fell in love with the land and the culture. He ended his days there in 1904, after marrying, becoming a Japanese citizen, teaching in numerous schools and universities and introducing the western world to the exotic enigmatic East through his writings and translations of its myths and legends.

Absurdly accessible, the tales here are gathered from the nation’s feudal period and open with a samurai yarn dubbed ‘Diplomacy’, wherein a highborn executioner performs his onerous task and plays a subtle and crafty trick upon the imminently departed to ensure that there will be no repercussions from beyond the grave…

That mordantly amusing distraction then gives way to a classic ghost story in ‘The Snow Woman’, wherein a young woodcutter survives an icy encounter with a mystical spirit at the cost of a simple promise. Tragically, in all such stories, a keeping one’s word is always impossible and leads to appalling inescapable circumstances…

Vanity and dissatisfaction fuel the saga ‘Of a Mirror and a Bell’, after the priests of Mugenyama ask the local women to donate their bronze mirrors so they can be cast into a great bell. After complying, one farmer’s wife began to bitterly regret her actions and so intense were her feelings that the mirror could not be melted down.

Wracked with guilt for her shameful intentions and the spoiling of the bell, she took her life, triggering a concatenation of unfortunate events…

After the history-making final clash between Heike (Taira) and Genji (Minamoto) clans, the rulership of Japan was decided for centuries to come. However, the sea battle created thousands of ghosts and ‘Hoichi the Earless’ relates how a blind musician and bard was tricked and beguiled by these restless spirits until a Buddhist priest intervened.

The end result was not an unqualified success…

Straight, inescapable horror drives the brief yet potent tale of a luckless merchant who encounters ‘The Faceless Ghost’, whilst love and friendship inspire the story of a young man in need of bride who prospers after he graciously saves a shark spirit and is uniquely rewarded by ‘The Gratitude of the Samebito’…

As recounted in the ‘Author’s Note’ – detailing the origins and source material of the adaptions – the stories are mostly taken from Hearn’s books Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things (1903) and Shadowings (1900), and come packed with sleek, informative and delightfully rambling diversions which add fabulously engaging context to the stories.

Eerie, exotic and wonderfully compelling, these “yokai” stories are gems of unease, disquiet and wonder that no lover of the strange can fail to adore.
© 2015 by Sean Michael Wilson. Illustrations © 2015 by Michiru Morikawa. All rights reserved.

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Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham


By Mike Mignola, Richard Pace, Troy Nixey, Dennis Janke & Dave Stewart (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-5806-1 (TPB)

The origins of the Dark Knight are so well-known now that it’s simple to twist and tweak them to suit almost any tale. It doesn’t hurt that the character has a universal recognition factor that holds up in almost any imaginary scenario…

Released in 2015, available in trade paperback and digital formats and collecting the 3-issue Elseworlds miniseries (from November 2000 – January 2001), The Doom That Came to Gotham was written by horror moodmeister Mike Mignola (Hellboy; duh!) and Richard Pace (Negative Burn; Ashes; Imaginary fiends) with art from Troy Nixey (Harley Quinn; Trout; Only the End of the World Again), inker Dennis Janke & colourist & Dave Stewart.

In case you came in late: During the 1990s, DC regrouped and rebranded its frequent dalliances with alternate reality scenarios under the copious and broad umbrella of a separate imprint. The Elseworlds banner and credo declared that heroes would be taken out of their usual settings and put into strange places and times – some that have existed, or might have existed, and others that can’t, couldn’t or shouldn’t exist…

No doubts here, however, as the tale deftly takes us back to Roaring Twenties America, dishing out a daring dose of pulp fiction plumb centre in the ghastly spine-chilling mythos of H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith and their darkly-demented contemporaries…

It’s 1928 and orphaned Bruce Wayne is returning to Gotham City two decades after his parents were murdered by a maniac. He’s been roving the world, and recently uncovered the fate of long-lost Professor Cobblepot‘s Antarctic expedition. That resulted in a clash with a naked madman who talked to penguins and a large slab of ice with a creature inside it: a thing that never evolved on this world…

By the time he and his close associates Alfred, Dick, Jason and the rest have docked in his bleak and daunting home town, they have all had more than enough of the vile dreams the thing in the hold has generated…

There are more surprises when he reaches his long-closed mansion: a dead man who somehow speaks and a mysterious stranger named Jason Blood who has been sent to deliver a dire warning. Turning into an actual demon the visitor warns that to save Gotham, Bruce must cut out its heart…

Although shocked, Bruce is ready to act, and dons the strange uniform that makes him look like a human bat…

And thus begins a skilful, macabre pastiche as the desperate driven mystery man haunts the alleys and byways of the city, testing corrupt cops, self-serving officials and outright villains – all with names most comics fans will recognise – uncovering a long-suppressed, centuries-old secret even as literal Things From Beyond human comprehension and the borders of time and space congregate.

Can even a heroic Bat Man triumph against such odds and if so, at what cost…?

Complementing the eldritch epic is a full cover gallery by Mignola and a hefty sketches and design section, featuring pencilled pages by Pace (originally slated to illustrate the tale) and layouts by Nixey.

Bold, compelling, potently stylish and chilling in all the right places, The Doom That Came to Gotham is a supernatural romp to delight and impress: once read and never forgotten…
2000, 2001, 2015 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.