The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1654: Haunted Love #3, April 2016

Not quite the same as the old Charlton title, this series, edited by the talented Craig Yoe, collects some very strange and gruesome love stories from the pre-Code days. It's interesting to contrast these stories with some of the later horror stuff - I've been reading, though not blogging, some of the old Marvel reprints from the 70s, Creatures on the Loose and Vault of Evil and such. There's just something a little more neutered about those later stories. So much happens off-panel, or almost happens but then doesn't, whereas the old stories just go all out. While the sexual politics of virtually every story are pretty shady, the art and the willingness to take the stories to extremes is really lovely.

Well, not lovely. Gross, really. But that's what we come to these old comics for.

"I'm glad you value it, my dear husband. Then, perhaps, you won't mind when it cracks your skull wide open! I can wait no longer for you to die!"

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1544: The 3-D Zone #2, March 1987

Basil Wolverton's art is weird. Unsettlingly weird. His creatures are organic in a different way from this pre-Code horror co-horts. Where theirs, often, are liquidy, or melty, Wolverton's are porous. Everything has contour and texture, and on the stranger body parts these creatures sport, it's unpleasant. When we add a really excellent red/blue 3-D process, the effect is amazing.

I will caution, however, that it's not necessarily the sort of thing you want to read at 7 in the morning while eating breakfast. I'll admit, however, that the slight nausea added something to the experience of reading the comic.

Hands down the best part of the issue was a series of illustrations Wolverton did after leaving comics (I think) based on the Book of Revelations. Rather than having much Biblical imagery in the pictures, Wolverton translates ideas from Revelations into atomic age horror. Rains of fire are reimagined as nuclear explosions, the rotting and irradiated unfortunates left in it's wake the legions of the damned.

Again, not light breakfast reading.

I only have a bit more of Wolverton's art that I'm aware of. I'll perhaps try to track a bit more down. But I really do find it unsettling.

"You lie as though collapsed -- then whip up your gun, and with practically the last good spurt of flame left in it, blast the brain-bat atop Bitner's head!"

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1304: Mr. Monster's Super-Duper Special #5, January 1987

A really great pulp science fiction adventure today, featuring a flying saucer, a relatively useless female character, plucky aliens, and, of course, a very manly hero.

I'm being facetious of course, though the story does have many of the classic tropes of early pulp science fiction. What we have is simply a very cool old school sci-fi adventure from an era that predates human exploration of space. These kinds of stories are always interesting as there's just so much speculation as what things will be like, and what we will encounter. While we understand space as infinite, it seems to me it was far more so narratively before we had some idea of what was out there.

Well, not hat we really know, but you know what I mean.

I'm glad to have discovered the art of Bob Powell. His characters are super-dynamic, though given the scarcity of reprint comics like this one, it might be a challenge to track down more of his works. Which, honestly, sounds like a lot of fun.

More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1303: Tales Too Terrible to Tell #8, May-June 1993

A cool reprint title that I've had kicking about since I had my store, though it's apparently quite a bit older than that.

The reprints are all black and white, drawn from original art, and all from pre-Code horror titles. Editor George Suarez has an encyclopedic knowledge and collection of this era of comics, and he's only too happy to share with the readers.

It's kind of a nice irony that the short essay in the comic covering one of the big horror comic publishers of the time was on Harvey Comics. I've just finished reading a collection of their horror comics, so it was cool to get a little bit of background. What the comic also does is make me want to track down more reprints. And it'll have to be reprints as far as these comics go, I think. There's no way I can afford originals.

Well....maybe just one...

More to come...