Christmas Creepiness WEB OF HORROR "Santa's Claws"

Besides traversing the Earth distributing gifts, Kris Kringle protects the innocent...

...from threats both real and imagined!

Story and art for this tale from Major Magazines' Web of Horror #3 (1970) were by Frank Brunner, who would go on to major successes in sf/fantasy including acclaimed runs on the comics Dr Strange and Man-Thing, and the 1990s X-Men animated series.

BTW, the spider-like host of the book was named (what else?) "Webster"!

We'll be back in 2021 with more stuff your grandparents didn't want your parents to read...

Merry Christmas

and

Happy New Year!

Halloween Horror HORROR FROM THE TOMB "Bone Man"

This 1954 comic series was so gruesome, it lasted only a single issue...

...but what an issue it was!

In late 1953, Premier Magazines entered the comic book field with seven titles, each in a different genre (romance, Western, crime, etc.), including Horror from the Tomb.

Unfortunately, the comic book "witch hunt" was in full swing and, in little over a year, Premier (along with almost 2/3rds of the industry) had ceased operations.

Horror from the Tomb changed it's name to Mysterious Stories with #2 and ran for five more issues, but the end was inevitable...

The writer is unknown, but the artist is Mannie Banks, who has less than two dozen comic stories (mostly horror tales at Atlas Comics) to his credit.

Check out the

Horror Comics of the 1950s

Comic Collectibles Store
featuring the cover from the one (and only) issue of
Horror from the Tomb! 

CoronaVirus Comics WITCHCRAFT "Man Who Bribed Death" and WEIRD "Death Trap" plus...

Though this was the spotlighted tale in Avon's WitchCraft #4 (1952)...

...it wasn't the cover feature!
In fact, the cover...

...had nothing to do with any of the stories inside, even though it's by Al Hollingsworth, who did illustrate the following tale of deliberate death by disease!

What appears to be the intended cover (also by Hollingsworth) was used a year later on the Avon one-shot Night of Mystery (1953), and of course, it has no connection to any of the stories in that issue!

While "Man Who Bribed Death" has never been reprinted, the script was reused, almost verbatim, as the basis for this short from Eerie Publications' Weird V4N1 (1970) illustrated by Argentine illustrator Oscar Fraga, whose work in the American comics market was exclusively for Eerie Publications and consisted solely of re-dos of 1950s stories like this one!

Interesting that the locale for the second half wasn't updated from Korea to VietNam.
This retelling, unlike the color comics original, has been reprinted several times...

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The Worst of Eerie Publications

CoronaVirus Comics CHAMBER OF CHILLS "Nightmare of Doom!" / TALES OF VOODOO "Flesh Eaters!"

A disease that turns sentient...

...a true nightmare, courtesy of Harvey's Chamber of Chills #15 (1953)

This tale of bacteria and betrayal, illustrated by Al Avison, wasn't reprinted by Harvey, (as many of the stories of the period were) probably because redrawing it to conform to the Comics Code would require too much work!

A couple of decades later, after Harvey stopped doing horror (or sci-fi, or romance, or anything non-Richie Rich or Casper-related) Eerie Publications took the script and had the story redrawn for b/w publication (since the Code didn't cover magazines) by Ruben Marchionne for Tales of Voodoo V5N5 (1972)...

Eerie reprinted this reworked version at least once a year in their various titles until the company left the horror business.

The original version finally saw the light of day again after 65 years in IDW's Haunted Horror!

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Haunted Horror

Volume 6
Nightmare of Doom and Much More
(which reprints "Nightmare of Doom"!)

CoronaVirus Comics PSYCHO "Masque of Red Death"

Though the cover from the 1988 Eternity Comics reprint is appropriately-colorful and kool...

...it really doesn't match the ghoulish weirdness of the Ricardo Villamonte artwork from the story that originally-appeared in Skywald's Psycho #20 (1974)...

Editor Al Hewetson adapted and condensed the Edgar Allan Poe story, leaving out some elements that he felt slowed the story.

I consider it one of the better graphic versions, solidly-utilizing the basic tale, plus specific quotes, and some wonderfully-moody art by the highly-underrated Villamonte!

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Raven and the Red Death

Adapted by Richard Corben