Note: We rely on the fine people at Comic Book Plus and Digital Comic Museum for public domain digital downloads. Unfortunately, a full run of Haunted Thrills isn't available yet so we've had to resort to reading several stories via their reprints in the Eerie Publication titles, similarly available for download at this essential site. Though we'd obviously prefer to use the original comic books, we can't afford to purchase these very expensive issues. We thought this the best avenue rather than missing out on so many terror tales but, of course, it necessitates representing some artwork in black and white (including the featured reprints). We hope that you will agree with our decision and enjoy the stories in these altered formats. -Jose and Peter

The haunting finale

Peter: Vincent Cox is madly in love with Southern belle Natalie Shippe and, when Natalie consents to be his wife, Vincent has everything to live for. Unfortunately for the lovebirds, Vincent's jealous cousin (oddly unnamed throughout the narrative) waits in the wings to put a damper on things. The evil cousin murders Vincent, dumps his body in the swamp, and sets out to court the lovely Natalie. He tells the girl that Vincent has gotten cold feet and eloped with another woman but Natalie knows something's up when the sleazy cad puts the moves on her. Trying to escape, she heads out to the swamp where she meets up with Vincent, now a moldering corpse, rising from the viscous muck. The shock is too much for the girl and she faints; Vincent promising her he'll take care of the family business and then return for her. Just then, his cousin stumbles up and Vincent strangles him. The swamp thing lifts the unconscious Natalie in his arms and trudges into the bog, promising his love that they will "find peace together."

What begins as perhaps just another murder/love triangle escalates into something disturbing and, ultimately, unforgettably tragic. Sadly, we don't know the true author or artist of "Hands of Terror" (from #5) so I can't heap praise upon them by name (or immediately seek out their other work) but I assume that they were employed by the ubiquitous "Iger Studios." The script (and art) do an abrupt left turn on page five (I find it hard to believe that the same artist is responsible for the splash [above] and that exquisitely creepy finale. Natalie is still alive as Vincent carries her into the fetid water and I can't imagine her drowning death was very pleasant but then I guess that was the woman's wish in the end anyway, wasn't it? The scene is reminiscent of the equally downbeat climax of the Universal film, The Mummy's Ghost (1944). Our unnamed writer adds the unsettling "And so they slept..." as the epitaph to a powerful tale that will remain with me for quite some time.

Jose: Aging officer Tim Brian--the guy so nice they named him twice--is out walking his beat in a quiet neighborhood one evening when he discovers something decidedly more exciting than his usual unruly street cats: a corpse! Brian calls the body in and marvels over the coroner’s findings that the corpse was drained of all its blood but otherwise physically unharmed. When the chief asks Brian his opinion on the matter, the old codger is quick to place the blame on a weird patch of land in the neighborhood that the cats always stray from. And it’s a known fact that cats know when a spot is haunted! Word quickly gets around the precinct of Brian's theories and it isn’t long before he is laughed right out of the job. Dejected, Brian makes his usual rounds only to be accosted by a strange man who then vanishes in a horrific fog. Running to the cursed property, Brian is amazed to see a mansion now sitting cozily in its place. A friendly ghoul greets the policeman at the door and bids him enter, where a hypnotic vampire lady tries to put the bite on him. The tough cop’s attempt to arrest the mistress backfires when she zaps the mansion back into the ether, but upon some brief reflection Brian recalls the bit of folklore shared by his mother that tells of the one sure-fire way to clear out evil spirits: sweeping them off with a broom! Thus armed, Brian goes back to the property and triumphantly bristles the monsters straight to hell. The strain is too much for the officer though and he himself passes away amidst the bones of the creatures, a memorial later created in honor of his heroic efforts.

Sweep for your life!

Even with its unconventional finish for the monsters, “Nightmare Mansion” (from #3) manages to be a bittersweet drama with a concentrated focus on character sorely lacking from many of the pre-codes. Brian’s humiliation at facing the derision of his peers is especially poignant and handled with grace, the impotence he feels as an aging policeman forced to work a dull beat made immediately potent in the opening panels. Brian has our sympathy from the word “Go” and the rest of the tale succeeds in keeping interest high with its constantly morphing threats. We think they’re vampires at first, but that’s only part of it. They're also ghouls too. And they travel dimensions. And cats hate them! It’s a credit to our anonymous writer that they manage to keep the delivery of all these elements effortless without the story ever appearing too stuffed on its concepts. You gotta love that sweet, wholesome artwork too; it’s reminiscent of DC’s early Silver-Age Flash stories.

Peter: Heartless skipper Jeff Bolden runs a tight ship and when he discovers that cholera has broken out onboard while the ship is at sea, he naturally clams up even though the men are dropping like flies. Worse though, is the sudden proliferation of giant, hungry rats that rise up from the bowels of the ship to strip flesh from bone. Very soon, it's down to Capt. Bolden and his first mate stranded high on the mast but, when the rats learn to gnaw through the rigging to get to the men, push comes to shove and the captain literally shoves his mate to his doom. The ship runs aground and Bolden dives into the drink, swimming to the nearby island, believing himself safe. That false sense of security lasts about forty seconds before the mangy little disease-harbingers learn how to build a bridge with their bodies and follow the captain onto the island. The rats chase Bolden all the way up the isle's tallest mountain but the captain shakes his fist at them and, swearing they'll never take him alive, commits suicide by jumping into a deep hole. The last panel, a page out of theHaunted Thrills atlas, informs us that the little piece of rock Bolden had swam to is known as "Rat Island!"


What's even scarier than a vampire or werewolf? How about an army of bloodthirsty rats? Gets me every time, and "Crawling Death" (from #6, and reprinted in Tales of Voodoo V.1 #11) is no exception. Obviously, no swarm of rats is going to pick a man's flesh to the white in a minute's time so there's a bit of give in the reality department (but then, this is a horror comic book, where every story requires you check your brain at the door) but the tension and claustrophobia present in the story-telling more than makes up for any of those shortcomings. Holden's choice, to kill himself rather than be eaten alive, is one you don't see too often in the funny books (because of the prevalent religious beliefs of the time?); a macho, swaggering ship's captain would usually stand and fight any menace rather than take the "coward's way out." Most of these comic horror writers obviously borrowed from other media, or were at least influenced by outside sources (and some just outright swiped), and "Crawling Death" is no exception. The obvious influence here would have to be the classic "Three Skeleton Key," the most famous incarnation of which was a radio dramatization aired on Escape in 1949. Three lighthouse keepers watch in horror as a ship packed with an army of rats runs aground on their small island. The show can be heard on this site.

Jose: All is not well in the humble city of Munster-Schloss. In the years following the Napoleonic wars, the city is gripped by a famine that forces people to fight over bones with curs in the street. With demand being so high, it’s only natural that someone should start supplying the good starving people with what they so desperately crave. And that man is Adolf, the town miser! Seeing a means of adding a few more coins to his bulging coffers, Adolf enlists the assistance of big strong galoot Karl in his mission to illegally process and sell horsemeat to the drooling masses. Yes, Adolf is a nasty scrooge, but there is one person who occupies a special place in his little heart: Gretchen, his beautiful young daughter. The miser showers her in ill-gained treasures, Gretchen never understanding how the folks in town could despise a man as nice as her father! Meanwhile, a police officer gets it into his own conniving head to blackmail Adolf for a cut of his profits, but things don’t end so well for him when Karl plants a fat kiss on his skull with the business end of a meat cleaver. It takes only a moment for Adolf to hatch a new scheme in his mind, much to Karl’s terror. Soon people are disappearing from the streets of Munster-Schloss left and right, but Adolf’s stock in packaged meat remains in abundance. Realizing that a good thing can never last, Adolf decides to murder Karl and make off with Gretchen and his riches while he still has the chance. Karl’s blubbering apologies over “an accident” are quickly drowned out by the sound of Adolf's pistol, and it’s only when the miser looks at the chopping block and sees the bloody hand wearing Gretchen’s ring that he understands what Karl was trying to tell him.


Another spin of the grindstone for the old “accidental cannibalism” saw ala Sweeney Todd, “House of Chills” (from #5) is one of those comfortably pleasing horrors that, despite all its goopy gore, can’t help but warm you in its familiarity like a pleasant fire. If the story were totally unimaginative, it’d likely be a thundering bore, but a few light innovations in the script and the game, uncredited art keep this one running at a smooth, brisk pace. Without seeing the original layout of the story in its Haunted Thrills premiere, it’s hard to tell if some of the blood on display in the reprint was added in by the Eerie Publications staff to “touch up” the artwork, but “House of Chills” is one of the few stories where its (possible) addition feels of a piece with the drama on hand. The sloppy spurts of black ink add a nice touch of delirium to the proceedings, and “House of Chills” looks like it actually benefits from its black and white printing in Weird V. 2 #9. Whichever way you slice it, the original author should certainly be commended for their decision to leave that final, stark panel free of text and allow the audience to get their fill on the implications of the image for themselves.

Peter: Loner Edwin Broode works in the mannequin department of a major department store, creating  a fantasy world all of his own. Edwin is in love with a particularly lovely dress dummy named Laura and, in his dreams, she returns that love. At night, Edwin sneaks Laura out in his case and spoils her with champagne in his apartment. One night, as he's about to leave, Laura calls out to Edwin, begging him to stay with her. Astonished, Edwin asks how this could be possible and the woman tells him that one night a year all the dummies come to life and celebrate. Just then, a horrible scream comes from the department store and, when Edwin investigates, he finds the other dummies beating the night watchman to death. Laura explains that the security guard has always been mean to her and the other mannequins and so, he deserves what he gets. Laura kisses Edwin and they're both transported to another dimension, where all the dummies in the store are partying. At dawn, they explain that it's time for them to return to their perches and wish Edwin well. Knowing he'll be blamed for the guard's murder, he begs Laura to help him and she explains that there is only one way for Edwin to accompany her to her world. The harried little man quickly agrees and a "dummy minister performs a dummy ceremony - for a dummy and Edwin Broode." Having crossed over, Edwin Broode takes his place among the displays and the police never find him, unaware he's right under their noses.


"Dear, Deadest Dummy" (from #6, and reprinted in Weird V.2 #6) provides us with a rare happy ending in the Ajax-Farrell Universe, one that some will find sappy but I find charming. A brilliant decision to portray Laura's world in hazy shadow since it gives the story's mid-section a dream-like quality and sows a seed of doubt in the reader's mind about what's really going on. Edwin is obviously a disturbed man when we first meet him and his isolation only increases his break with reality, so might he be imagining the whole thing? Well, we don't know until the climax when Broode finally finds that little bit of happiness in some other dimension/world. At last, we can put a name to the art and the name is a very familiar one to those interested in the pre-code horror comics of the 1950s. Carl Burgos is perhaps best known as the father of the original Human Torch and for his art on the Torch, Captain America, and Sub-Mariner strips of the 1950s. He did tons of gorgeous covers for Atlas pre-code horror titles like Astonishing, Spellbound, and Mystery Tales and, bringing it all full circle, served as an editor for Myron Fass on his Eerie Publication books in the early 70s. His work on "Dummy" is superb, ranging from calm to tragic to ghostly all in the same tale.


Jose: Eminent surgeon Alex Harding puts in a long day at the OR before stopping by the seedy offices of his friend Bernie, a private investigator. Bernie doesn’t have good news for the doc and the medico’s worst suspicions are confirmed: his wife Catherine is seeing another man. There is some relief found in the fact that the Lothario has skipped back to his home in South America, and Alex now hopes that his wife will eventually forget the affair. But as soon as Alex has left, Bernie pours himself a few congratulatory drinks and calls Catherine up to let her know their ruse has worked. As Alex and Catherine kiss hello and think their own private thoughts, Bernie gets himself smashed before getting himself smashed in a horrific car accident. Bernie lives, but with a slightly arranged face. And who else should be called in for the emergency operation but eminent surgeon Alex Harding? The pain meds have made Bernie loose of tongue, so it isn’t long before Alex gets the full low-down on the scheming couple's tête-à-tête. This breaks Alex good and proper so, taking his trusty scalpel, the doctor gets busy on Bernie before heading back home for an impromptu surgery with Catherine on the kitchen table. His work completed, Alex makes a final stipulation in his will before taking a gun to his head. The stipulation? That Bernie and Catherine be married and live together forever with their brand new funhouse-ugly faces in order to enjoy his sizable inheritance.


There’s no denying a good, straightforward tale of revenge, and “Fatal Scalpel” (from #5) is all that and more in spades. From that gloriously trashy splash art that advertises the story as something from a weird menace magazine with the word “Spicy” in the title, “Fatal Scalpel” ably keeps things on a high boil without ever resorting to the kind of salacious cruelty that the first page seems to promise. There is only one actual panel in which we see blood, and it's a mere trickle at that. And yet the tale never feels like it's cheating. Instead it plays on the dualistic natures of the characters to propel the action forward and steadily increase the mounting tension. (You have to love that revealing bit of prejudice when Bernie tells Alex his wife’s affair was with an “Other”, in this case a Latino man, as if that explains everything.) The anonymous artist—who turns in some truly stellar work here, perhaps the best I’ve seen in Haunted Thrills thus far—channels images that unnerve the reader more than mere gore ever could. Just check out that shot of Alex’s unhinging moment again; though his expressions might get decidedly cartoonier over the course of the story, that ventriloquist dummy-smile of madness is the stuff of nightmares! A real highlight.

We hope you didn't need to sleep tonight.

Peter: Screen idol Ronald Hamly, "The King of Horror," faints when he gets his draft notice and tries his best to convince the board he's unfit, he's needed in the States to boost America's morale, even that his feet are deformed, but the powers-that-be will have none of it and off to boot camp he goes. While in training, he has recurring nightmares of the enemy soldiers slicing him to ribbons with their swords. Determined that this fate will be avoided, Hamly packs his make-up bag (!) and convinces a pharmacist to sell him pills that will decrease his heart rate. Now Hamly's ready for action. When the first attack comes and bullets are flying, the actor takes his pills, makes up his face to resemble a corpse, and lies down amidst the wounded. Unfortunately for Ronny, when the dust settles, most of the men are in one piece and, once they find Hamly with no heart beat and looking pale, they toss him in a grave and bury him. The drugs begin to wear off just as his comrades finish their shoveling.

"Two on the Aisle... of Death" (a really really dumb title; from Issue #7) suffers from stiff, unimaginative art but lifts its head above the competition thanks to a darkly humorous script from its opening scene, wherein Ronald finds out he's been drafted and faints dead away, to its ironic last panel, with "Taps" being played for the "fallen hero." The Korean War, of course, would provide a background for several pre-code horror stories but I imagine this would be the only one starring an actor who was permitted to take along his make-up kit to the battlefield. Hamly goes about his deception with the élan that Lucy would have shown disguising herself as one of Ricky's flamenco dancers. As far as bravery and cowardice go, "Two on the Aisle..." doesn't play favorites, displaying the horrors of war but reminding us that, in the manly days of 1953, being a coward demanded a stiff penalty. In one sequence, after Hamly has taken his pill and his place amongst the bodies strewn on the ground, a trio of robed skeletons inspects his body, waiting for Hamly to give up the ghost, with one sniffing that "It's disgusting to have to escort a coward along the way..."

Jose: After his arm is severed in a train accident, Tom Phipps hits the road as a traveling bum in search of work. His day certainly doesn’t get any brighter when a vicious dog attempts to tear him apart, and it’s only through the intervention of the beast’s beautiful owner, Emmy Baxter, that Tom is able to make it through the ordeal with his skin intact. Emmy takes the hobo into her crumbling mansion where she lives a secluded life with Tiger, the dog, and her deformed, handicapped sister Beth. Surprisingly, the sisters ask Tom to stay on as their handyman, which Tom readily accepts in light of his growing affection for Emmy. It’s only when Tom saves Emmy from diving out a window during a bout of sleepwalking that both of them admit to their burgeoning love… all under the watchful eye of Beth. Tom doesn’t take to the way the little hunchback keeps spying on them, and when Beth sits Tom down for “a talk” it turns into Beth’s own romantic proposal for she and Tom to run away together. Tom cruelly laughs the idea off, much to Beth’s fury. After Tom and Emmy have made their own plans to elope, Tom returns from setting the arrangements to find Emmy missing and Beth sinisterly pleased with herself. Sure enough, Tom finds Emmy’s half-buried corpse in the cellar and, deluded by grief, decides to give Beth the shock of her life by propping up Emmy’s body in the hunchback’s bedroom. The plan goes off without a hitch, but just as Tom comes in to gloat over Beth’s death, the loyal Tiger leaps from the shadows to finish the job he started.


No matter how many times we encounter it, the bleak pre-coder always manages to pack a punch, and “Trail to a Tomb” (from #7) is certainly no different. Though it reads more as a soap opera than a straight-up spookfest, “Trail” has all the trappings and impact of a true downer from its first caption. The story is especially uncomfortable for its focus on physical and spiritual deformity. In the tradition of Poe, the damaged psychologies of the characters are represented in the decaying infrastructure of their house, one that seems to symbolize the way in which Tom and Beth are both “broken”, he by his physical limitations and she by her untreated psychosis. It’s interesting to see the subtle hypocrisy at work in Tom’s revulsion of Beth and denial of her proposition. Though he has acknowledged the loss of his arm and come to grips with his handicap from the start of the story, Tom still sees himself as better than the impish sister, even cruelly musing to himself after Emmy has explained her sister’s condition to him that Beth is just simply “nutty.” The house's bubbling crockpot of emotional tension also corrupts Emmy (is her sleepwalking the symptom of some repressed guilt?) and even their pet Tiger, a dog whose loyalty is perverted into a rabid defensiveness free of reason or control. Is “Trail to a Tomb” then a haunted house story? In some ways, perhaps. It’s a story of people (and animals) haunted and twisted by their inner demons into vicious versions of themselves, pushed into corners by their own cruelty until they lose their minds and feel the urge to bite back at the closest person just to watch them bleed. You know, funny-book stuff!

Peter: In a small village in Bavaria, an old man asks to see the commanding officer of an army barracks and then collapses. From his deathbed, Heinrich Zeller relates a terrifying but true story. Weller had been a plastic surgeon in Berlin before war broke out but he and his daughter, Elsa, had fled Germany to escape the horrors of the Nazis. Shortly after the end of World War II, the Gestapo kidnaps Heinrich and Elsa in the middle of the night and takes them to a small house high in the Alps. There, the surgeon is taken to a room occupied by a heavily-bandaged man. When the dressing comes off, Zeller is face-to-face with Der Fuhrer himself! Hitler wants Zeller to completely change his face so that he may travel freely but Heinrich has other ideas and he plunges a dagger into the monster's chest. Unfortunately for Zeller, the move had been predicted and the real deal comes out from the shadows, informing the surgeon that his Elsa will pay for the indiscretion and Heinrich will be next. Dragged down to the cellar, the old man sees his dead daughter hanging from the rafters. Hitler's thugs hoist Zeller up and leave him for dead. When the old man has finished his story, the men attending him ask how he escaped from the dungeon. Heinrich exclaims that he didn't escape; he's been dead for years.


"Screams in the Night" (from #7) is another example of why these pre-code horror stories are held in such high esteem sixty years on; the writers that crafted these little dramas had no conscience whatsoever nor any compunction about treating their characters so cruelly and sadistically. The panel of a limp Elsa is a genuine kick in the groin as is the fact that, as the last panel tells us, the guy you just passed in the street may very well be the 20th Century's most infamous mass-murderer. I love how, as with many of the stories we've been reading for this project, there seems to have been an almost "throw everything at the wall and see what sticks" approach to the script. If the old man is actually a corpse, how did he keep himself together all these years and, more importantly, why did he wait so long to impart this vital information to the authorities? Rather than a downfall to the narrative, it provides a good jolt (old man to rotting corpse in one easy panel) to the reader even if there's a bit of head-scratching as a result.

They really didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition.

Jose: Jim and Cynthia Loring are our Honeymooning Couple™ this time around and, wouldn’t ya know it, their automobile goes bust just as they are motoring through the desolate Spanish countryside. Seeking help at an old monastery in the distance, Cynthia can’t shake the ominous feeling she gets from the creepy ruins. Thankfully, brave Jim is there to offer ample comfort and assurance. But when the two hunker down for the night when no aid is reached, we discover that Jim is in fact a yellow-bellied coward who dreads the moment that Cynthia will discover his terrible secret. And faster than you can say “Convenient Plot Development”, a horde of craggy-faced, Inquisition-era monks of the living dead set upon the hapless couple. The monks waste no time throwing Jim into the hoosegow and submitting Cynthia to a swift punishment in the piercing embrace of the Iron Maiden. Luckily for Jim, some helpful rats chew through his binding ropes but, as opposed to swooping in to save the day, the wimp hightails it out of the monastery to come back with reinforcements. (He thinks Cynthia will understand!) Unfortunately, the Spanish policemen Jim relates his story to are convinced the American is either drunk or a murderer, their opinion only solidified when the raving man brings them to an empty field where he claims the monastery stood. Jim doesn’t give himself much time to dwell on his woes: after he is duly arrested, Jim hangs himself by his belt in the jail cell overnight.


Come for the Tombs of the Blind Dead-lookalikes, stay for the depression. “Coward’s Curse” (from #8, reprinted in Weird V. 1 #10) ticks off all the items on our list of pre-code must-haves: spooky, Gothic landscape; moldering corpses of the reanimated persuasion; salacious torture; complete disregard for the notion of unharmed virtue; and a bleak, sock-it-to-ya finale. It’s true that Jim fleeing the scene with his tail between his legs marks him as prime poetic justice-fodder in horror comic book land, but yeesh, his wife impaled in front of raving spectators and a misery-driven, self-inflicted death seems harsh even by the pre-codes’ depraved standards. In looking back at the controversy stirred up by these works of entertainment, it’s easy for us to thumb our noses at the holier-than-thou, censuring public that called for the comic book’s execution but—while those folks certainly do deserve derision for all of their tactless fear-mongering—it’s stories like “Coward’s Curse” that allow you to appreciate the fact that there might have been some substance to the opposition’s argument. Of course, it could be posited that there’s a valuable lesson to be learned here, just as in the original grueling versions of the Brothers Grimm’s fairy tales. The moral here? If you are ever a coward, you and everyone you love will die a horrible death!


Peter: Engaged to be married, Tom and Gloria are looking for the perfect clock (well, actually, Gloria is the obsessive and Tom just goes along with it), when they discover a shop specializing in time-keepers of all shape and size. When Tom turns his back, Gloria and the shopkeeper seem to have a hushed conversation. The whispering is broken up by the arrival of a fourth person into this drama, the gorgeous blonde known as June Manners! Just at that moment, Tom clutches his chest and keels over, dead. Arriving on the scene is ace detective (and snazzy dresser) Bolton Baker, who quickly takes control of the puzzling case. Did Tom die of natural causes or was he murdered? After several incidents and dangerous shenanigans, Bolton uncovers the killers: the shopkeeper, who's a werewolf and Gloria, who brings him victims! Bolton shoots the monster dead after it goes on a rampage through the streets (dressed rather dapperly and clutching an automatic!) and all is well in the city again.

Clockmaker by day, Werewolf by Night

Wow! What a rancid piece of old meat this one is. "Horror Hour" (from #3) reads like one of those foul Jimmy Olsen/Superman stories from the early 1960s where Jimmy turns into a giant cactus and storms though Metropolis before Supes can find a cure; a hybrid of two genres. Here those genres are hardboiled PI and horror, but the problem is that the unnamed writer just couldn't decide what road he wanted to go down so when he got to the fork in the road, he opted to go both right and left. The werewolf angle is so random that it screams "tacked on" and, indeed, the Grand Comic Database informs us that "Horror Hour" originally appeared in the Ellery Queen comic book in 1949 (under the title "Calamity Clock") and that the werewolf may have been added by Ajax to spice up the "Calamity." It didn't work.

Jose: Some forty years after the boxing match against Big John Oakley that claimed his life, Red MacGowan returns as a ghost to balance the scales of justice by mentoring rising star Dixon to beat Big John’s own protégé Gordon in the ring. Why, you ask? “Who cares!” says the writer. Dixon’s gal Lily and manager Toppsy can’t account for the doors that close themselves or the way Dixon knocks himself out during training sessions, but they know somethin’ screwy is goin’ on.  (“You’d almost think it was ghosts or something!” Lily helpfully surmises.) Come the night of the big fight, Dixon gets in the ring and ably K. O.s Gordon while Red makes up for forty years of simmering anger by knocking Big John’s molars in.

Red tries to bring Jose back to his senses after reading "Ghost Gloves."

It fares a bit better on the second time around, but “Ghost Gloves” (from #1; reprinted as “From the Grave Below” in Weird V. 3 #4) delivers a fatal right hook to comprehension on the first reading. The main culprit is the railroaded backstory of Red’s supernatural vengeance; his reappearance as a ghost happens so suddenly that we can’t be sure where he is or what he’s doing right away. It’s a similar case in the climax when Red delivers his punchy retribution… we only see the older, now-coach Big John for the first time in the panel immediately preceding this! Talk about your double-takes. And why did Red need to wait forty years just to slap Big John silly? Most Ajax-Farrell revenants get that done within minutes of being buried! Even the generous helpings of goofy “comedy” aren’t enough to distract us from the fractured storytelling. "Ghost Gloves" left me wondering if it had all really happened or if I was just starting to get punchy again.

NOTABLE QUOTABLES

She did the Monster Mash.

"Patch it up, Hank, but here's the facts. As usual, the skeleton found only a few hours after being seen... in perfect health!"
- "Skeletons Have Secrets!"

“Live souls to that horror, for dead gold? Colby, you’ve gone mad—mad to make such a bargain.”
- “Skeletons Have Secrets”

Pamela: I’m going to call Uncle Martin. He’ll know what to do…
Edwin: The famous ghost doctor?
- “The Witch’s Curse”

“Die—you murdering son of a murdering ancestor… die!”
- “The Witch’s Curse”



"G-get back! It's coming! K-killed all of them! H-horrible!"
"Great Scott"
"He's blood all over!"
- "Horror in the Mine!"

Prue: Poor father! When I think…
Tod: Go ahead and cry it out, baby!
- “Horror in the Mine”

“Hello! Police! I need help… I’ve been threatened… by a ghost!”
- “Blood of the Rose”

“Murder? Maybe. But so far all we have is a collection of bones. Was it a man or a woman?”
“I got an idea, chief. Let’s ask Doc Looney!”
- “Death Is Only Skin Deep”

Paging Dr. Wertham!

“Palmer then galloped off on his horse to the grandson of the man he just murdered in cold blood…”
Palmer: Hello, what’s new?
- “Death Is Only Skin Deep”

“…And so into the night went Brian… The badge that he had worn so proudly for so many years was not there to cover the lonesome ache in his loyal heart…”
- “Nightmare Mansion”

Grimm: Thank goodness they came, or else...
Margo: There, there, no tears. It's all in the past now... Marie will never again recall the dead!
Officer: There'll be no seances where yer goin', girlie!
- "Music and Mayhem"

“Ayeeee—devil thing take young missy into jungle!”
- “Eerie Bones”

"I really feel like all this is some kind of nightmare!"
- "Ghouls (sic) Castle"

“Am I dreaming or have I lost my reason?!”
- “Ghouls Castle”

"Professor - I hate to have to tell you, but you are actually dead!"
- "Ghouls Castle"

A man of talent and a brag!

"Good evening, sir!"
"Hmm... new clerk! Pretty, too!"
- "Portrait of Death"

“Carter, I don’t like death! I wish to live again for very important reasons!”
“Janet! Good heavens—you’re dead! Go back!”
- “Portrait of Death”

Memmy: Hello, my dear! What brings you to poor old Memmy's door? Some trouble, I vow!
Lucybelle: I want you to work a spell for me, you old hag! I'll give you gold!
- "Swamp Haunt"

“Finally Edwin Broode knows what he must do! There is only one person who can help him—a dummy…”
- “Dearest, Deadest Dummy”

“By the authority vested in me, as ministers of dummies, I make you man and wife!”
- “Dearest, Deadest Dummy”

"My name is Tom Phipps, and I was just out of the hospital, where I'd fallen under a train in the yards, and lost an arm! I was broke and bitter - and hungry! I'd bummed my way up into Georgia, but nobody wanted to hire a one-armed man..."
- "Trail to a Tomb"

“Even as she beat the dog away, I saw that she was pretty…”
- “Trail to a Tomb”

Emmy: I should have warned you about Beth! She had an accident as a child! She was badly burned and crippled! And, well, she is - retarded!
Phipps: (thought balloon) She means the old girl's nutty!
- "Trail to a Tomb"

George Morton was almost certain he had discovered a way to successfully transmit human brain cells...
- "The Corpse Who Killed"

Forgetting there's no pool outside, Margo breaks her neck diving from the window.

Ronald: But I'm essential to public morale! My presence on the screen is loved by millions!
Draft Board Member: I've seen your pictures. I think your absence from the screen is the best thing that could possibly happen on the home front.
- "Two on the Aisle... of Death!"

Pharmacist: Sure I can sell you some pills that will greatly lessen the beating of your heart so that even a doctor would think you were dead. But why?
Ronald: Don't ask questions. Just take this money and give me the pills!
- "Two on the Aisle... of Death!"

“Edwin Black had a secret… he hated his wife Erma! She alone was responsible for this, for Edwin was a mild-mannered man. But his wife was a constant sharp-tongued nag…”
- “Three in a Grave”

"This is Jenkins of the fencing crew, sheriff! You better come over to the old vampire estate right away!"
- "Three in a Grave"

"You really think that Black fellow murdered his wife?"
"Yes, like the sheriff said... who else would want to?"
- "Three in a Grave"

“But fate, and rats, play strange tricks…”
Jim: They’re gnawing at the thongs! Must l-like the taste!
- “Coward’s Curse”

“Suddenly, Jane Ransome sees—what?”
- “Horror Harbor”

The wrong finger but you get the picture.

STORY OF THE MONTH

Peter: True Lovecraftian horror (or at least a resemblance to such) was tough to find in 1950s comic books (probably because HPL hadn't become an icon yet), but "Horror in the Mine" gives us a monstrous helping of subterranean terror ala Cthulhu and his kin and (as you'll see in the Notable Quotables) lots of interesting dialogue. Giant monsters were also fairly rare for pre-code comics as writers seemed to prefer their monsters involved in one-on-one action rather than full-scale slaughter. The tentacled things our hapless frackers discover are torn right out of Lovecraft's fiction but one thing HP never saw coming was the tool of destruction the military uses to rid themselves of the menace. You've got to smile when Prue rests her head on Tod's shoulder in the final panel, mourning her father (who's been eaten by one of the creepy crawlies), and Tod nods and looks at the bright side: "But remember, we've still got the future!"



















The Comics
Haunted Thrills #1-9

#1 (June 1952)
Cover Uncredited

“A Coffin Waits…”
Art Uncredited

“Ghost Gloves”
Art Uncredited

“Skeletons Have Secrets”
Art Uncredited

“The Witch’s Curse”
Art Uncredited







#2 (August 1952)
Cover Uncredited

“Horror in the Mine”
Art Uncredited

“Blood of the Rose”
Art Uncredited

“Death is Only Skin Deep”
Art Uncredited

“The Voyager of Death”
Art Uncredited







#3 (October 1952)
Cover Uncredited

“Nightmare Mansion”
Art Uncredited

“Horror Hour”
Art Uncredited

“Music and Mayhem”
Art Uncredited

“Monsters for Rent…”
Art Uncredited







#4 (December 1952)
Cover Uncredited

“Eerie Bones”
Art Uncredited

“Ghouls Castle”
Art Uncredited

“Portrait of Death”
Art Uncredited









#5 (January 1953)
Cover Uncredited

“Hands of Terror”
Art Uncredited

“Swamp Haunt”
Art by Joe Doolin

“House of Chills”
Art Uncredited

“Fatal Scalpel”
Art Uncredited







#6 (No Cover Date)
Cover Uncredited

“Crawling Death”
Art Uncredited

“Pit of Horror”
Art Uncredited

“Monster Mill”
Art Uncredited

“Dearest, Deadest Dummy”
Art by Carl Burgos








#7 (March 1953)
Cover Uncredited

“Trail to a Tomb”
Art Uncredited

“The Corpse Who Killed”
Art Uncredited

“Two on the Aisle… of Death!”
Art Uncredited

“Screams in the Night”
Art Uncredited







#8 (No Cover Date)
Cover Uncredited

“Three in a Grave”
Art Uncredited

“Coward’s Curse”
Art Uncredited

“Horror Harbor”
Art Uncredited

“The Vanishing Skull”
Art Uncredited







#9 (No Cover Date)
Cover Uncredited

“Madness of Terror”
Art Uncredited

“Devil on His Shoulder”
Art Uncredited

“The Genius”
Art Uncredited

Luis Dominguez

Unexpected 167

"Scared Stiff"
Story by George Kashdan
Art by Frank Redondo

"Murder by Mail"
Story by Carl Wessler
Art by Romy Gamoa

"Death Watch"
Story by Carl Wessler
Art by Ruben Yandoc

Jack: Someone is trying to kill wealthy old Mr. Marsden and the shock has left him "Scared Stiff" and paralyzed! Dr. Fiske gives him a drug to help him relive the event in the hopes that doing so will cure his psychosomatic injury. Fiske thinks that Marsden's nephew, Ernest, is the culprit, but soon Marsden recalls that the real villain is Fiske himself, who admits that he's tired of waiting for the million dollars that Marsden left to the clinic in his will. Ernest brings the cops and saves his uncle, guaranteeing that the old man's will is going to be rewritten. If only this story could be rewritten! Why would Dr. Fiske try to find the identity of the killer if he's the killer himself?

Guest starring Stan the Man!

Peter: Oh boy, this was bad! I love these expositories that are popped in to explain to us why the character we thought was the bad guy wasn't. Obviously, Frank Redondo had a stack of Stan Lee 8x10s on his desk when it came time to draw nephew Ernest. Have you ever seen someone smile so much when they're being accused of foul deeds?

Jack: Leo Roberts is a writer who hasn't sold anything in a year. He blames Wally Garner for stealing his opportunities and mails him a letter. The letter comes back undelivered and explodes--Leo's attempt at "Murder By Mail" blows up in his face! Little more than an anecdote at four pages, this story at least has decent art by Gamboa.

Cool it, Leo.

Peter: Well, Leo Roberts may have been a lousy screenwriter but he could have made a fortune marketing his extremely thin letter bombs. This story may be an analogy for the careers of Carl Wessler and George Kashdan.

Peter reads another issue of Ghosts.

Jack: Astronomer Wallace Horton sees a horrifying sight through his telescope: a flaming meteor with a face like a grinning skull, heading straight for Earth! No one else sees the skull, so Wallace decides it's a warning meant only for him. His "Death Watch" begins as he awaits his doom but, when the meteor falls, it lands in the ocean. Wallace runs to the beach, angry at having been deceived, and is promptly swallowed up by a tidal wave caused by the meteor. The best thing I can say about this story is that it was better than the two that precede it, which is not saying much.

Peter: Not too bad for an Unexpected story (that's unexpected in itself!). I'm not sure why the old man didn't just watch the meteor from another vantage point for a few hours but then, I guess, we'd have had no story, would we? The usual exemplary visuals from Ruben Yandoc. With all the comic art books out there these days, how is it that we don't have an Art of Yandoc?

Ernie Chan

The House of Mystery 234

"The Bewitchment of Jeremiah Haskins"
Story by Michael Fleisher and Russell Carley
Art by Jess Jodloman

"Lafferty's Luck"
Story by Jack Oleck
Art by Al Milgrom

Peter: Con man Harry Condon stops at a convenience store on the highway and a pretty girl hops in the back seat and asks Harry to drive her away. The police approach Harry's car and he throws a blanket over the girl, hiding her. When Harry pulls away, the girl explains that she's been doing time in the loony bin even though she's perfectly sane. Harry gets a grand idea: he's going to use the girl on his next con, a job that should net him a ruby worth a fortune. The only thing in his way is Jeremiah Haskins, the wheelchair-bound old man who owns the gem, and Harry's sure his gorgeous new partner should be able to charm her way into the old man's confidence. The girl dresses as a witch and convinces Jeremiah, who's been an occult buff for years, that he's finally conjured up the witch he's been waiting for. The fetching witch tells Haskins that she can do anything his heart desires but she needs "something ancient from the innards of the earth" to help her stay in this realm. Haskins delivers a solid gold pendant and explains there's more where that came from. When she delivers the bauble to Harry and tells him she feels bad about "The Bewitchment of Jeremiah Haskins" and wants out, he throws a fit and threatens to turn her in to the men in white suits. She disagrees. The next night the girl returns to Jeremiah's room and heals him while, across town, a barely coherent Harry Condon is checked into a state mental hospital. The gorgeous blonde returns to her coven.


I liked this fanciful tale but it sure doesn't read like a Fleisher script; there's no trademark bite, the guilty are punished, there's a happy ending, and it's padded by about five pages. Mike must have been having a really good day! I'm not sure why I didn't see the twist coming but that's always a good thing. It's getting to the point where I can't tell the difference between the art of Jess Jodloman and that of Ruben Yandoc.

Jack: The cop asks Harry if he's seen the gal and describes her like this: "about 25, dark hair, medium build." Now, perhaps the witch changed her appearance, but there's no way that this girl has anything but blonde hair and I would not describe her spectacular figure as a "medium build." I thoroughly enjoyed this tale and it is in the running for my top ten of 1975. As you say, it's uncharacteristically positive for a Fleisher story.

Not doin' that good a job of Stayin' Alive!

Peter: A wild west gunman was nothing without his confidence and luck. "Lafferty's Luck" had run out years before when he began to lose his nerve. Now the once-feared pistolman mops beer off the floor in the town saloon. One day, a peddler offers Lafferty a gold pendant and tells him that, for six bits, "Lafferty's Luck" could turn around. Supposing there's nothing to lose, Lafferty pays the man and good things begin happening immediately, culminating in Lafferty gunning down the town's hood, a fast draw that no one could beat. With his nerve restored, Lafferty takes his show on the road, offering his gun up to anyone with pockets deep enough to pay him. The luck runs out, however, when Lafferty faces a man with the same gold pendant. Shaken, he misses the draw and is shot down in the street. The peddler, who happens to be on the same street, approaches the dying Lafferty and offers up that he has a whole wagon full of the pendants and he's been selling them to anyone who wants one. Western horror was pretty much dying out by the mid-1970s, so it's refreshing to see Jack Oleck tackle the theme and dream up a satisfying tale. It's hard not to laugh, though, in the bullet-filled climax when Lafferty shows up to the duel dressed as Tony Manero from Saturday Night Fever. Lafferty must have searched high and low for a white three-piece to go with his solid gold chain. It's a good look, though it might not be all that practical (dust and blood and all). The peddler is clearly meant to be horror host Cain but there's no acknowledgment of such in the caretaker's bookended remarks.

Cain or not Cain? You be the judge!

Jack: From the penthouse to the outhouse in one issue! This story is terrible and the art is as bad as it gets in DC horror books. Al Milgrom's dreadful scratchings remind me of what we saw a few years ago from Sam Glanzman. The story is a blatant ripoff of "Mr Denton on Doomsday," a 1959 Twilight Zone episode, but without the wit or charm. What happened to Jack Oleck?

Ernie Chan

The House of Secrets 134

"The Inheritance of Blood"
Story by Coram Nobis (David V. Reed)
Art by Nestor Redondo

"The Last Out"
Story by Steve Skeates
Art by Buddy Gernale

Peter: Young Andre Tourage travels to Carpathia to visit his uncle, the Baron Cherkassy. On the way to the castle, his coach is attacked by wolves but villagers save him and he's able to complete his journey. He befriends his two cousins, Nikolai and Udine, two very strange but likable youngsters and they tell Andre that the village is in an uproar over these wolf attacks. One day, as the three are playing in the forest, they come across a grim scene: villagers have found the headless body of one of the Baron's shepherds. Since the body has been found in the same area where they beheaded a wolf the night before, the peasants naturally believe the shepherd to have been a werewolf. When the priest of the village denies a grave for the shepherd, the Baron has his body buried on the grounds of the castle. That night, Andre follows his two cousins to the grave, where he witnesses the two digging. He is discovered and flees but his path is blocked by a huge wolf. Andre is able to kill the beast but when he returns to the castle, he is told that the body of his cousin, Nikolai, has just been found. Udine confesses that she and Nikolai were both werewolves and that Andre is destined to be the leader of the pack. He accepts his responsibility and lopes off into the forest, a changed boy.


I was having a great time with "The Inheritance of Blood" until it ended quite abruptly, lacking an O. Henry twist or final panel shock. Halfway through the narrative, we get what's going on (in fact, the title pretty much gives it away, doesn't it?) so Andre's transformation is no surprise at all. Barring that final jolt then, the story must rest on whether it's told imaginatively and holds our interest. I think, for the most part, it does exactly that. Nestor Redondo's art is gorgeous, some of the best we've seen this year (in particular, the page reprinted above). Writer David V. Reed is better known for his Batman stories, several of which we covered in our "Batman in the 1970s" series a couple years ago. I remember his multi-part "Where Were You the Night Batman Was Killed?" epic being a low point in the latter part of the '70s. In fact, Reed holds the dubious distinction of winning Worst Batman Story two years running from both Jack and me for four different stories!

Jack: Sometimes a boring story is elevated by great art, but this isn't one of those times. I can't explain why a tale set in Carpathia and featuring werewolves would be so doggone dull, but it is. It just plods along, much too long, and ends with a thud. Why did David Vern/David V. Reed use the pseudonym Coram Nobis here and in a handful of other stories around this time? It's a Latin legal term meaning "before us." Did he think he was over-exposed? Did he want to separate his Batman work from the horror comics? I agree that Redondo's art is outstanding, but it doesn't help the story.

Peter: A vampire flees from a mob and overhears one of the villagers talk of a "cave filled with bats." Knowing he'd be king rooster in such a cave, the bloodsucker puts the pedal to the metal and arrives at the location in minutes. When he enters the cave, he sees nothing but two baseball bats. From behind, the leader of the mob laughs and confesses that he could never resist a good pun and stakes the vampire. Absolutely dreadful rubbish from a writer who knew better. Save this garbage for Plop!, Steve Skeates, or better yet, leave the puns to Robert Bloch.

He was Lord of the Umpires. Get it? No?

Jack: Very nice art by Gernale can't save this four-page groaner. The panel above with the two bats is about as dumb as it gets in DC horror comics. Sadly, after 62 posts and about 2,000,000 comics, I can say that this issue of House of Secrets is most representative of the trend of great art, weak stories. "Batman in the '70s" had MUCH better comics, overall!

Luis Dominguez

The Witching Hour 57

"Dead Ringer"
Story by Carl Wessler
Art by Jess Jodloman

"The Eyes of a Killer"
Story by Carl Wessler
Art by Abe Ocampo

"Your Body to Ashes"
Story by George Kashdan
Art by E.R. Cruz

Jack: When Stephan Horthy is hanged for murder in a Hungarian town, his wife vows vengeance. Soon, a skeletal avenger rides a black horse through the town at night and claims his first victim, the prosecuting attorney. The "Dead Ringer" also likes to toll the bell in the local abbey. Suspicion falls on the dead man's family and "The Skull," as the avenger is nicknamed, claims the lives of the judge and the jury foreman. Who is The Skull? Why, none other than Stephan Horthy, who did not die on the gallows. He climbed out of his coffin, donned a skull mask, and wreaked havoc in the town. One night, the ghosts of his victims have their revenge and he is caught up in the rope of the abbey bell. Now, he's really dead and he's dragged off by the ghosts. Peter, can you make heads or tails of this? It was not easy to summarize.

"Dead Ringer"

Peter: More and more, these Witching Tales stories make less and less sense. Wessler seems to be writing in a hurry and not thinking about what he'd done on the page prior. No one checked Stefan for a pulse after they hanged him? He seems to be in pretty good shape for a guy with a broken neck. Why not simply explain Stefan away as a vengeful ghost? That would make more sense (though it wouldn't make this mess any more enjoyable).

Jack: Clyde Collins has eyes that kill and people drop dead when he looks at them. He is captured and sentenced to die. Mild-mannered bookkeeper Roscoe Seward is about to lose his job due to poor vision. A surgeon transplants Collins's corneas into Seward's eyes, which gives Roscoe "The Eyes of a Killer." He kills by accident at first but soon finds that he likes his power. When he decides that he wants to be on the board of directors of the corporation where he works, a meeting is arranged with Mr. Lucas, the company president, who fires Seward. Roscoe whips off his glasses but Lucas is blind and unaffected; his seeing-eye dog leaps on Seward and ends his life. Was Carl Wessler ever interviewed? How could he keep writing such terrible stories? Why does Cynthia still speak as if it's 1968?

"The Eyes of a Killer"

Peter: Why in the world would anyone in power allow the transfer of corneas from a killer who can murder with his eyes? I mean, the situation is a bit supernatural to begin with, no? So why would a doctor get the bright idea that the best option for his patient is to receive the sight of a deranged murderer?

Jack: Master astrologer Crowgan's predictions are so often right that, when he predicts that he will die by burning before the day is out, he avoids anything that even hints at smoke or fire, afraid it will turn "Your Body to Ashes." He heads into the local health club but falls asleep under a sun lamp and is burned to a crisp. Really? When he lay down on the table under the sun lamp he didn't have an inkling of what could happen? Come on, George--you can do better than that!

"Your Brain to Mush"

Peter: So, you're told you'll die by burning and you head into a sauna? Oh, George! E.R. Cruz, once more saddled with bad material, thrusts his chin in the air and makes the best of it.
Wessler and Kashdan = Sominex Plus.

Bernie Wrightson

Weird Mystery Tales 21

"Deadly Stalkers of the North!"
Story by Steve Skeates
Art by Ricardo Villamonte

"One Man's Poison!"
Story by Mal Warwick
Art by E.R. Cruz

"Dead Man's Gold"
Story by Jack Oleck
Art by Alex Nino

Peter: Ecologist Oliver Ford fights for the rights of mutated wolves in the forest while hunters only want to see their pelts on trophy room walls. Oliver knows something must be done so he heads deep into the woods to search for the source of the mutated predators. What he finds terrifies him; an even more advanced species of the wolf, this one nearly human, manufactured by a crazed scientist who's grown sick of man's ways. Believing Oliver to be just another poacher, the crazed but brilliant egghead transforms Oliver into one of the "Deadly Stalkers of the Night" and lets him lose on the population. I love a good werewolf story and, despite its flaws, this is one that put a smile on my face. This is the second story we've seen illustrated by Spaniard Ricardo Villamonte (the first was "Cold, Cold Heart" back in HOM 231, May 1975) and, with just his sophomore effort, the artist joins the ranks of Nino, Alcala, and Yandoc as artists that could illustrate anything and I'd gladly read it. Sadly, Villamonte would only contribute five more jobs to the DC mystery line before heading off to the greener pastures of Marvel (where he penciled issues of Indiana Jones and Crystar). Villamonte was one of the plethora of foreign artists who gave Skywald magazines their unique look (say what you will about the execrable scripts; at least Skywald gave the readers their money's worth in the art department).


Jack: Carl Wessler was born in 1913, George Kashdan in 1928 and Steve Skeates in 1943. Perhaps that's why, in this month's Witching Hour, we get old-fashioned Gothic horror and killer eyes, while in Weird Mystery Tales we get 1970s-era conservationist/ pseudo-scientific claptrap like this story. Skeates would have us believe that, if enough members of a species are killed, those that remain will mutate into something else. Nope, doesn't work that way--not in such a short time, at least. As I read this overblown piece of hooey I was reminded of the comments made when Peter and Jose review the pre-code horror comics: here, as there, an innocent, well-meaning person has a series of terrible things done to him and is killed at the end. What's the point of this story?

Peter: A race of slug-like aliens land in a suburban garden and plot their takeover of earth. "One Man's Poison" is a really funny and witty short-short with great visuals from E.R. Cruz. Warwick's alien dialogue is the highlight here: "Scatter wide to lay your eggs, my sisters and brothers, and hide them well in the soil! Soon we shall be many, and rid this world of its evil beasts!" It's tough to manufacture a great four-page story but Warwick and Cruz team up to do just that.

Jack: Quite enjoyable, and just in time! I was starting to lose faith in our journey. Watch this space on October 8th for an interview with Mal Warwick.

Peter: Windom has been searching for Captain Kidd's treasure chest for years but he thinks he's zeroing in on the area in which it's buried. Of course, since he's an old man, Windom needs help digging. Trouble is, every time he thinks he's getting close, he murders his accomplice to prevent a divvying up of loot. One night, just after murdering his latest employee, Windom sits at a campfire when a stranger walks up and offers his services, explaining that he too is a treasure hunter. Though he's suspicious, Windom takes the man up on his offer and the excavation resumes the next day. When booty is unearthed, Windom's bad habits resurface and he shoots the stranger down. Or at least he thinks he does. The man reveals himself to be Satan, looking to make a trade: Windom's soul for a fortune in treasure. Windom agrees, but with one stipulation: he gets all of Kidd's treasure and must have his youth again. The devil agrees, but Windom quickly learns that Beelzebub always has an ace up his sleeve when his soul is transferred into the body of a young Captain Kidd... on the day he's hanged. Jack Oleck's script is nothing new (I'm sure that "twist" has been used more times than a Kardashian) but there are enough quirks to make it interesting and, of course, Alex Nino infuses more atmosphere and energy into his art than should be expected of someone making a few bucks per page.   With the classic Wrightson cover being the wrapping paper, this was the perfect gift after being handed that big bag of rotten produce known as Witching Hour 57. I've cleansed my palate!

Jack: Definitely better than this month's Witching Hour, but still not terribly good. I love Nino's art and would read anything that he illustrated, but Oleck has run out of steam. Why would Windom suspect the stranger was the Devil? Why not a ghost? Or Captain Kidd himself? The twist ending is trite.

Luis Dominguez

Ghosts 41

"Ship of Specters"
Story by Carl Wessler
Art by Frank Redondo

"The Ghost Beast That Stalked the Night"
Story by Carl Wessler
Art by Fred Carrillo

"The Phantom Double of Shaft 12-B"
Story by Carl Wessler
Art by Ruben Yandoc

Jack: Pity poor Alice Ferguson who, in 1948, spent her honeymoon accompanying her husband on a trip on the mighty Pacific aboard the ship he captained. A distress signal leads to discovery of a "Ship of Specters," where the entire crew is dead of an unknown cause. Capt. Ferguson does his duty and tows it toward port, but soon the mate on his own ship is found dead. Ferguson takes the helm and his wife fears for his life, but in the night the tow line breaks, the deadly ship disappears, and all ends well. Not a terrible story, but Wessler's captions are wildly overwritten:

"Through the long, interminable, star-studded night, Capt. Ferguson arrowed his ship . . ."

" . . . until bleak, pale dawn revealed the stricken vessel!"

"What sinister secret it shielded would be revealed with startling suddenness."

You get the idea.

Peter: I'm not overly fond of 95% of the material that winds up in Ghosts but I'm especially averse to the news fragments disguised as stories, like "Ship of Specters." It reads like an encyclopedia entry with a few fanciful twists. The art here gives ample proof that it was Nestor who was the edgier artist in the Redondo family.

Jack: Cuba, 1964, and revolutionary soldier Esteban Cruz is attacked by "The Ghost Beast That Stalked the Night," which protects the site of the old temple of the jaguar god. The temple had been destroyed in 1849 by Spanish soldiers after they discovered a lair filled with skeletons; now, the beast victimizes those who come too close. Though his clothes and flesh had been untouched heretofore, suddenly Esteban collapses, dead, and his comrades find him ripped to bits as if by a giant cat. The ghost cat strikes again! This is another example of a Ghosts story that ends suddenly, without explanation.

Peter: These stories must have been a breeze to write. Whereas in other markets, a writer is required to come up with fresh ideas and, at the very least, a satisfying climax, Carl Wessler had it made in the DC bullpen. Did any editor push Carl (or George Kashdan) to  come up with an ending that at least made sense? "The Ghost Beast That Stalked the Night" (good pulpy title, at least) begs the question, "what is this hellish beast?" and answers with a final panel, "Who knows?"

Jack: England, 1941, and young Nye Dawes followed his late father into the business of mining as a powder man. One day, he is trapped down below after an explosion and sees "The Phantom Double of Shaft 12-B," a ghost who looks like himself, guiding him to the only safe spot to blow his way out. He realizes that it's the ghost of his late father and is guided to safety. Not a bad little tale, with decent art by Yandoc, though Wessler's attempt to convey to us that the characters are from England is cringe-worthy; Nye and his mother like to start their sentences with "Ahhh . . ."

Peter: By default, "The Phantom Double..." wins Best of Issue, if only because it has a beginning, middle, and end and does not purport to be anything else than a chiller.

Luis Dominguez

Tales of Ghost Castle 2

"Snake-Eyes!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by E.R. Cruz

"The Inheritors"
Story by Jack Oleck
Art by Alex Nino

"The Fate of the Fortune-Hunter"
Story by Mal Warwick
Art by Ruben Yandoc

Peter: While her scientist boyfriend works on the "anti-venom the world's been waiting for," zoo worker Lana Benton spends her idle time torturing the deadly snakes in the viper pit. One day, a bushmaster somehow gets loose from the pit and bites Lana. In minutes she'll be dead, so she has no choice but to gulp down some of the experimental antidote. As these things are wont to do, the serum turns Lana into a bushmaster and when her boyfriend comes back into the lab, he rounds the snake up and tosses her into the viper pit, where the rest of the asps play nasty. Didn't we just have a story centering around someone who tortures animals for no reason whatsoever? Obviously, Big Bob read that (and probably took in a matinee of the 1973 film, Sssssss, which has a very similar plot device) and thought, "I can do that!" No... you can't, Bob. Why does Lana turn into a snake? It's not mentioned. How did the bushmaster get out of the pit? No idea. There's no thought put into the structure of "Snake-Eyes"; it's obviously a very quickly pumped-out script and it shows.


Jack: I never understood why people would torture animals. I remember when I was a kid that other kids would talk about shooting squirrels with BB guns for fun. I just didn't get it. E. R. Cruz draws such nasty snakes that it's hard to feel sorry for them when Lana teases them, but she does get what she deserves in the end.

Peter: Atomic war leaves Earth a radioactive wasteland and what's left of mankind boards a space ship and heads to outer space for a new home. Two thousand years later, a scouting party comes back to Earth to see if it's inhabitable. The party is attacked by mutants, descendants of those left behind centuries before, and has no choice but to wipe out the entire race in order to pave the way for colonization. After the slaughter, the men leave the ship in order to bathe and we see they are mutants themselves. Alex Nino was never better than when he got to draw some four-eyed drippy monster with a horn in its forehead and "The Inheritors" fits the bill nicely. But we can also thank Jack Oleck for a nice change of pace science fiction story and for a great big wink at the reader with his ironic last panel. I do wonder where Earth's emigrants fled to in a hurry. Ostensibly, they found another planet somewhere or perhaps they just orbited in a space station.

Jack: Once again, Alex Nino saves a weak script by Jack Oleck. "The Inheritors" is a dull parable about one civilization wiping out another and the final panel revelation is not so much clever as tiresome. Is the upshot here that humans mutated into fish people with human heads? Yawn. This issue's letters page features missives from Cain, Abel, Eve and Gregory the Gargoyle, since no letters had arrived yet from real readers.

Peter: Two heartless treasure seekers hack a path of blood and pain to the valley of Atahualpa, where gold seemingly lines the streets. After bullying an old man to lead them to the palace, and then killing  him, the pair find that they've made it all the way to the fabled valley only to be taken prisoner and forced into slavery. As the Prince of Atahualpa excitedly exclaims, "you will have gold all the years you live-- but I doubt you will enjoy it at all!" Nicely illustrated by Ruben Yandoc (stop me if you've heard this before) but the cliched bloodthirsty explorers and the vibe that I was reading a chapter on Incan history made the whole affair a bit dull.

Jack: Not only dull, but also confusing. There were spots where I thought a panel was missing, and the end is rather ambiguous. Still, Tales of Ghost Castle is proving to be better than The Witching Hour, Ghosts or Unexpected, likely due to the writers.

In Our Next Blood-Streaked Issue, Peter Once Again Makes Fun of Jack for Loving Pooch. On Sale October 5th!

by Jack Seabrook

When a man's soul is at stake, is it permissible to mislead him in order to help him to make the right decision? A weighty question indeed, and not what one would expect from the lead tale in a 15-cent pulp called Crack Detective Stories. Yet that's exactly the issue that Robert C. Dennis wrestles with in "Place of Shadows," first published in the January 1947 issue of that long-forgotten magazine and adapted by Dennis nine years later into a first-season episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, broadcast on CBS on Sunday, February 26, 1956.

Dennis's short story begins as a young man waits alone on a platform outside a lonely train station at night. Brother Gerard, a monk, arrives by car to take him to the nearby monastery, addressing the young man as Mr. Anser. The young man has a gun in his pocket and learns from the monk that another man named Mr. Rocco has been brought to the monastery to receive medical care after having been injured in a car accident.

Arriving at the monastery, the young man is unnerved by the darkness and shadows around him. He is taken to see Father Vincente and asks to see Mr. Rocco. Father Vincente tells the young man that he knows he is not Anser but rather James Clements, since Rocco provided detailed physical descriptions of them both. Clements announces his intention to kill Rocco, whose swindling forced him to embezzle money, leading to the loss of his job and his fiance: "My life was wrecked by Dave Rocco," Clements tells the priest.

Everett Sloane as Father Vincente

Father Vincente gives Clements an envelope with $8000, the amount that he had lost to Rocco, explaining that Rocco had a change of heart and asked Father Vincente to write to Anser, knowing that it would bring Clements. The young man decides not to kill Rocco at the monastery but vows future vengeance. Driven back to the railway station, Clements is about to light the stove in the dark room when he hears Anser's voice. Having followed him by a later train, Anser knew that Clements would have the money. He shoots and Clements is grazed; Clements fires back and kills Anser.

Overwhelmed at having killed a man, Clements walks back to the monastery, determined to confess to Father Vincente. He passes out and later wakes up in the infirmary, where he tells the priest that he has changed his mind about killing Rocco. Father Vincente replies: "That's in the hands of the Lord, Mr. Clements . . . Mr. Rocco died the day before yesterday."

Mark Damon as Ray Clements

"Place of Shadows" is a strong story with a surprise ending that is impossible to predict. Dennis creates a wonderful atmosphere, from the opening at the cold, dark railway station, to the conclusion at the shadowy monastery; solemn and silent, the monks say no more than is necessary. Forgiveness, repentance, vengeance and confession are among the religious themes that Dennis handles deftly. Most interesting is Father Vincente's decision not to tell Clements that Rocco is dead until he knows that the young man has forgiven the one who victimized him. The priest seems content to let events play out, urging Clements to rethink his vow of vengeance and willing to wait and see if he reaches a place of forgiveness before providing the piece of information that, had it been shared earlier, might have prevented the young man's heart from having the opportunity to heal.

Sean McClory as Brother Gerard

"Place of Shadows" was not a well known story nine years later when it was adapted for television. It had not been reprinted, nor had it been collected in a book of short stories. Perhaps Dennis brought it to the attention of the producers himself, since he had become one of the busiest adapters of short stories by other writers during the first season of the series; perhaps he submitted his teleplay as an original without telling the producers that it had been published already as a short story. Whatever the case, the credit onscreen reads "Teleplay by Robert C. Dennis" and makes no mention of the story.

In adapting his own story for television, Dennis makes some interesting choices. The first scene, at the railroad station, includes more dialogue between Clements and the station agent, who refers to an unnamed place "up there," and asks Clements if he is going "up there for good." When Clements says no, the old man admits that the young man does not look like one of them. The first scene creates suspense by making the viewer wonder, what is this place and who are these people? A close up of Clements checking his gun tells us that he is a dangerous man on a deadly mission. Brother Gerard then enters the station, dressed in monk's robe and hood, and we realize what "up there" is and why Clements is not going there for good--it is a monastery and his gun suggests ill intent.

In the chapel

Brother Gerard calls Clements "Unser" rather than "Anser," as in the story, and has an Irish brogue. He refers to his car as a "machine," suggesting that he is not up to date with earthly matters. After arriving at the monastery and meeting with Father Vincente, Clements (Ray now, not James) admits that he lost $13,000 (not $8,000). In a scene new to the teleplay, Father Vincente asks Clements if he has been to church lately. Ray admits that he was once an altar boy and the priest invites him to attend Vespers. Ray tells him that there is nothing more to discuss, but the priest says that Ray must find forgiveness in his heart. He asks Ray to sit in the visitor's gallery as the monks chant in the chapel below.

Ray enters the gallery and looks down to see the monks at prayer. He loosens his tie, crosses himself and kneels out of habit, surprised at his own actions. He begins to cry, overcome by the solemn sights and sounds, before raising his eyes to Heaven in silent prayer. Suddenly, he rushes out of the gallery and down a hallway, where he observes a monk taking a tray of food into a room. Ray looks into the room and sees Rocco asleep in bed; he takes out his gun, perhaps intending to kill his enemy, when Father Vincente stops him and asks, "Would you commit murder here?"

Joseph Downing as Unser

Ray tells Father Vincente that he wants to leave and is walked to the door by Brother Gerard, who tells him that he was honored for killing men in wartime but that no one is able to restore life once it is extinguished. You never "forget the face of a man you've killed," Gerard tells Clements. Back at the railroad station, the shootout occurs, but this time Ray examines the dead body of Unser and hears Brother Gerard's voice in his head.

In another scene new to the teleplay, we see two policemen knock at the door of the monastery. Brother Gerard takes them in to see Father Vincente and they search the premises, looking for Clements. Soon, Ray collapses outside and is brought to the infirmary by Brother Gerard; when he calls out to Father Vincente, the police discover him, but the priest invokes the rule of sanctuary and tells the officers that they may listen to his conversation with Clements from outside the door. Ray tells the priest that he killed in self-defense and, in an unintentionally funny moment, the lead policeman states that "As far as I'm concerned, Unser got what was coming to him." The police leave and the final exchange occurs between Clements and Father Vincente, who reveals that "Mr. Rocco died just before you arrived."

The overall effect of the changes that Dennis made from story to teleplay is to increase the focus on Ray's repentance. The scene in the gallery above the chapel is a powerful one, as is his reaction after he kills Unser. Whereas the story builds inexorably toward its satisfying payoff, the teleplay is more concerned with salvation. The scenes with the policemen add nothing and should have been omitted. Unlike the story, Ray actually sees Rocco, though he is unaware that the man who appears to be sleeping is in fact dead.

Driving in the snow

Robert Stevens, the show's director, uses a variety of shots and some subtle camera movement to create a show that is more visually arresting than some of the others that preceded it in the first season of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. The early scenes in the train station and with Brother Gerard in his old car driving through the snowy darkness are haunting. What is it about snow at night on black and white TV that is so memorable? Think of "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?" on The Twilight Zone, or even "Night of the Meek" on that same series, even though it was shot on primitive videotape. The combination of night, snow and high-contrast film making in black and white yields shows that stick in one's memory.

Inside the railroad station

The railroad station set also looks forward to a very similar set in "The Dangerous People," an episode broadcast at the end of season two. Both stations appear to have similar set decorations, with a large wood stove in the center by which the characters warm themselves. These episodes are a doorway to another time--when was the last time a remote railway station featured a wood stove maintained by passengers awaiting a train? These details are lost to history and speak of a vanished time of shared community.

The monks and the monastery setting also look forward to another classic episode of The Twilight Zone, "The Howling Man." In fact, there is a shot that tracks Brother Gerard and Ray Clements as they walk down a hall in the monastery that is very similar to the famous shot in that later show where the prisoner who has been released gradually is revealed as the Devil as he passes behind each pillar along his route. In "Place of Darkness," the camera follows the two men as they walk past pillars down a hall, but the only change that may be occurring here is hidden in the heart of Ray Clements.

Another well done scene is the shootout in the railway station. Unser is first glimpsed as only an arm and hand holding a gun; the man himself crouches behind a steamer trunk as he speaks to Clements.

"Place of Shadows" is not perfect, though. Mark Damon tries a bit too hard as Clements and Everett Sloane seems an odd choice to play a wise old monk, yet both succeed in conveying the necessary emotions of their characters and Damon, especially, appears sincere in his reaction to the monks' chanting in the chapel.

Claude Akins as a policeman

Robert Stevens (1920-1989), who directed the show, directed 49 episodes of the Hitchcock series. The most recent one reviewed in this series was "The Older Sister," also from a script by Robert C. Dennis.

Father Vincente is played by Everett Sloane (1909-1965), who was onscreen from 1941 until the year of his death and who was last seen in this series in the Dennis/Stevens episode, "Our Cook's a Treasure."

Portraying Brother Gerard is Sean McClory (1924-2003), whose background as a stage actor in Dublin preceded his time onscreen in America. He receives billing above Mark Damon (1933- ), who was born in Chicago as Alan Harris and who was onscreen from the '50s to the '70s before starting a career as a successful movie producer. McClory was seen in two episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, while this was the only one for Damon; Damon is remembered today for his role in Roger Corman's House of Usher (1960) and is the subject of a book called From Cowboy to Mogul to Monster: The Neverending Story of Film Pioneer Mark Damon.

Harry Tyler as the station agent

Three familiar actors play smaller roles in "Place of Shadows." Claude Akins (1926-1994) is the lead policeman; this was one of his three appearances on the Hitchcock series. He had a long career on screen, from 1953 to 1994, and is remembered for his role as Sheriff Lobo on TV in the late '70s and early '80s.

Joseph Downing (1903-1975) was onscreen from 1935 until 1963 and plays Unser; he was in three episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and was seen on the other side of the law as a police detective in the Cornell Woolrich episode, "The Big Switch."

Finally, Harry Tyler (1888-1961) plays the station agent; he was in eleven episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and his screen career began way back in 1929. Coincidentally, he also portrays the station agent in "The Dangerous People."

"Place of Shadows" is such an obscure story that I have scanned and reproduced it below. I assume that it is no longer under copyright, but I will promptly remove it if I am notified that this is not the case.

Watch the TV version here.

Sources:

Joe Kubert

All American Men of War 104

"The Last Target"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Irv Novick

"Battle Star Scarf"
Story by Hank Chapman
Art by Jack Abel

Peter: Years before he became a Navajo Ace of the skies, Captain Johnny Cloud was warned by an Indian smoke-maker that he'd fight a vicious foe over water just as Johnny's father and grandfather did before him. The smoke-maker warns that he'll be the foe's "last target." On a mission to destroy bombs over the English Channel, Cloud manages to avert death at every turn but is given an ominous warning by one of the departing Nazi aces, the infamous Col. Ulrich, that he'll get Johnny even if he's "The Last Target" in this war!  The threat unnerves Cloud but he tries to put it out of his mind. Two days later, on another rescue mission, Cloud is notified that Ulrich is among those enemy aces trying to bring down our boys. Johnny's plane must make an emergency landing on an icy runway and, as predicted, the enemy tries to eliminate the Captain over water. Fortunately for Johnny, his foe is a cocky one and, rather than simply machine-gun our hero, he tries to sweep him off the ice with his Nazi wings. The best-laid plans of mice and men and all that. An exemplary tale of battle action with Novick turning in a stellar job on the visuals (I had to check the credits to make sure it wasn't Kubert's work), Johnny Cloud's series is becoming one I'm really enjoying despite the constant reminder that smoke-makers and shamans were lining up catastrophes for Johnny as early as kindergarten. You'd think our Navajo captain would have made a checklist by now so he'd know when he's hit all the speed bumps.


Jack: Seriously? You thought this looked like Kubert's work? I don't see it. Now that gorgeous Kubert cover is another thing entirely! The smoke-maker is really something if he can conjure up home movies in the clouds of smoke. I don't recall being told before that Johnny's father fought in WWI. We are getting closer and closer to the debut of Enemy Ace, and this issue's enemy ace is Hans von Ulrich, while the one we'll see in a few months' time is Hans von Hammer. Was Kanigher starting to formulate his new character?

Peter: When WWI ace Joe goes missing and his blue, star-spangled scarf is dropped in front of his comrades by the evil enemy ace Baron Klagg, brother Billy makes it his mission to win the right to wear the scarf. Billy performs outstanding stunts and completes awesome missions with lots of kills but his CO isn't having any of it. Every time Billy lands, the CO tells him that brother Joe did double the job. Billy decides the only way to impress the lieutenant is to bring down the enemy ace. While attempting just that, Billy is taken prisoner and discovers his brother is alive. The duo break out of the POW camp and Billy brings an end to the career of Baron Klagg. After a while, you become numb to these "brothers in arms" stories and go along for the ride. Yep, "Battle Star Scarf" (say that three times fast) is entirely predictable (was there one member of the audience who didn't see the rescue of Joe coming?) but at least Jack Abel is still shining.

Jack: I guess I'm dopey but I did not think brother Joe would turn up alive. It seemed clear at the start that he was dead. Hank Chapman's slang-filled prose is calmer than usual in this tale and the concluding escape from the POW camp is exciting. I enjoyed this more than the Johnny Cloud entry!

Joe Kubert

Our Army at War 145

"A Feather for Little Sure-Shot!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Joe Kubert

"Wear It--When You Earn It!"
Story by Hank Chapman
Art by Jack Abel

Jack: Sgt. Rock sets out alone to cross a rope bridge spanning two cliffs above a river far below but finds Easy Co.'s resident Indian, Little Sure-Shot, right behind him. Together, they blow up a Nazi machine gun nest on the other side. As the rest of Easy Co. crosses the rope bridge, Sgt. Rock and Little Sure-Shot defeat a Nazi tank that has the men right in its sights.

Rock thinks back to when the Indian first joined Easy Co., back in training camp in the States, and showed himself to be a great fighter who could appear and disappear seemingly into thin air. When Easy Co. crossed the ocean and landed in the North African desert, Little Sure-Shot set out on his own, having been challenged by his father to wrest a feather in combat from the enemy. Since there were no feathers in the Nazi tank or plane that he destroyed single handedly, he had to grab one from a hungry buzzard. After that, the men of Easy Co. followed Little Sure-Shot's feathered helmet.
This is a story that seems dated and almost insulting today, but for its time it must have been fairly progressive. In the opening pages, every clever move Sgt. Rock makes is followed by a comment from Little Sure-Shot about how the sergeant is acting just like an Indian. Then there are the passages where Little Sure-Shot displays the typical Indian traits of craftiness and silence. Finally, he needs a feather to be considered a true brave. It's all a bit much, but surely it was a necessary reaction after decades of cowboy vs. Indian movies.

Peter: Great action segment to open the story. Yep, it's a bit outlandish but, thanks to Kubert's genius, it's a masterpiece of choreography. Sgt. Rock breaks the "fourth wall" at least once an issue but has he ever spoken to his "audience" in a thought balloon? Lucky for the big guy there's never a psych around when he's standing off in a bush telling us about his latest exploits. The introduction of Little Sure-Shot leaves the door open for a DC War Indians Team-Up co-starring Captain Johnny Cloud. Stay tuned!

Jack: Private Ruskin is awarded a Silver Star for bravery but thinks the medal should have gone to Corporal Miller, who died in battle after shoving Ruskin to the ground to protect him from machine gun fire. If he doesn't think he deserves it, Ruskin is told to "Wear It--When You Earn It!" He is soon injured in mortar fire and sees three enemy soldiers with dragon insignias on their jackets. One of them steals the Silver Star, and Ruskin vows to get it back. He encounters and kills each of the men until finally recovering the medal, which he sets up as a memorial to Miller. He is awarded a second medal, one he thinks he has earned. Excellent art by Jack Abel and another stirring story by Hank Chapman make this the second solid effort by the duo this month.

Peter: My thoughts echoed those of our hero: His chances of finding the guy who held the medal in this great big war were as slim as having the right dragon man fall out of the sky on him. Only difference is that I knew that, despite the odds, Ray would stumble on him by the last panel and get that medal back. Just call me prescient.

Joe Kubert

Our Fighting Forces 86

"3 Faces of Combat"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Jack Abel

"Battle Seas Hitchhiker!"
Story by Hank Chapman
Art by Gene Colan

Jack: Gunner, Sarge and Pooch are the "3 Faces of Combat!" They take out an enemy sniper ambush and a camouflaged tank, but when the C.O. announces that he'll give a five-day pass to the marines who take out a special target, the trio finds that they have unexpected competition from Big Al, Little Al, and Charlie Cigar.

The T.N.T. Trio heads out on patrol, certain that exploring the jungle will put them where the action is, yet Gunner, Sarge and Pooch get all the excitement they can handle back on the beach. First, Gunner downs an enemy plane. Next, Sarge destroys an enemy tank. Finally, with Pooch leading the way, our heroes blow up an enemy sub and win the five-day pass.

Poor Jack Abel is dragged down into the mud with the rest of the marines in this sorry saga. Why bring back the T.N.T. Trio if you're going to send them off into the jungle for the better part of the story? The only good thing about this one is that Grandenetti wasn't around.

Why We Fight

Peter: You really have to admit that Big Al, Little Al, and Charlie Cigar have a point: no one in the military seems to fight except Gunner, Sarge, and Pooch. They're always flying solo. So, as dumb as this "He Said/He Said/He Said" bit of fluff is, I have to admit to smiling at the climax, where we find out it was Pooch who was telling it as it really happened. You might think I'm crazy but when the ol' dog talks (or thinks, actually, in his little balloon) I can understand him! No, really, the mangy mutt is forming sentences like "Their laughter stopped when they saw two ghost-like hands rise from the water and flip grenades into the raft nudging their sub..." What a relief; can you imagine trying to decipher that from "Arf... Art... Arf!"?

Jack: A frogman sent to recon an enemy beach discovers an underwater reef studded with spikes that will destroy marine landing craft. He becomes a "Battle Seas Hitchhiker!" and grabs a ride on a Japanese sub and a plane before blowing up all of the enemy craft and landing back on an allied ship. Hank Chapman tells a goofy story, but this is even more consistent with what we'll see of Gene Colan's fine work at Marvel in the mid to late sixties than what we saw last month, and I think it's impressive.

Peter: There are more near-catastrophes in this nine and a half pages than in an entire Indiana Jones flick but, by golly, I liked it anyway. That would be, for the most part, because of the Gene Colan art. And, yes, this time (as opposed to last month's "Tin-Can Tank" in Our Army at War) it looks like Pristine Gene... and that's a really good thing! An extra half-star for the climactic panels where our frogman explains, "We fought... like relatives... on the way down..."

In Our Next Fur-filled Issue On Sale Oct. 12th!

Mal Warwick is a name that we recently started to see popping up as the writer of stories in some of the DC horror comics in 1975. We tracked Mr. Warwick down and he kindly agreed to answer some questions for bare bones!

bare bones: What is your background and how did you first get interested in writing in general?

Mal Warwick: I’ve been writing ever since I was in the fifth grade and wrote a (very bad) science fiction story. Writing has played a central role in almost everything I’ve done since.

In the 74 years of my life so far, I attended the University of Michigan as an undergraduate and Columbia University as a graduate student in Latin American Affairs; served for nearly four years engaged in rural community development as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ecuador (1965-69); attempted, with little success, to make a living as a freelance writer (1970-79); co-founded and helped run Alternative Features Service, a news and features service for college and community newspapers (1970-73); and worked and sometimes ran progressive political campaigns and community organizing projects in Berkeley and Oakland, California (1970-81).

bb: How did you start writing for comics?

Luis Dominguez

Ghosts 42

"The Phantom Frigate"
Story by Carl Wessler
Art by E.R. Cruz

"Nightmare of Death"
Story by Carl Wessler
Art by Fred Carrillo

"The Spectral Sentries"
Story by Carl Wessler
Art by Lee Elias

Jack: In 1823, Captain John Terry's ship was run aground when smugglers on the Chilean coast doused the lighthouse. Vowing revenge on Juan Mateo, the chief of the smugglers, Captain Terry goes down with his ship. Fast forward to 1960, and Juan's great-great-grandson Hugo has fallen on hard times. Things only get worse when "The Phantom Frigate" appears and the ghost of Captain Terry aims his ship's cannons at Mateo's village, destroying it. Coincidentally, a huge earthquake killed thousands that night. Was it the tremors or the ghostly cannonballs that did the damage? Personally, I think it was the ghost ship. Science is so overrated.

Peter: I love a salty sea saga but this one's not much more than a vignette and it stars the most incompetent ghost in DC mystery history. Captain Terry's haunt exclaims "It took me a century to track down a Mateo but here I am!" The guy's a ghost! Aren't they supposed to have supernatural tracking powers (ghostly GPS) or something? And then he mows down just about everyone in the little fishing village except Mateo!

Jack: Ian and Claudine Tracy are bicycling through Wales in 1959 when they seek refuge from a storm in a railroad signal station, where the grumpy signal man appears to throw a switch and purposely cause a train wreck. Yet the wreck disappears as soon as the storm ends. The Tracys learn that it occurred 18 years ago and the ghostly signalman hanged himself after he was blamed for the catastrophe. Oddly enough, the Tracys find a cardboard box in the signal station containing newspapers about the crash and a hangman's noose! Peter, what do you make of this "Nightmare of Death"?

For this to happen . . . oh, never mind.

Peter: This one's a howler (and, I assume, the funny parts weren't meant to be funny). Beginning with one of the most generic titles ever presented between DC Mystery covers (what's next? "The Horror of the Terror!"?) and culminating in an inane "twist" that makes no sense. I can see the trains and old man Fitch and maybe even the switchman's shack being specters but what about the storm that Ian and Claudine are stuck in? How could that be a specter? My favorite bit is Ian's discovery, in the box of Fitch's knickknacks, of the noose the switchman used to hang himself! How did that get there, Carl?

Jack: It's March 1917, and the Winter Palace at Petrograd is under siege. The czar and his family are taken by the Bolsheviks but Count Leonov escapes with the crown jewels, intending to use them to restore the royal family to the seat of power. He does not get far, though, before "The Spectral Sentries," ghosts or skeletons of those he had put to death, seal his doom in an avalanche. Talk about a muddled story with terrific art! The funniest part of this one comes when Leonov shoots a traitorous soldier and the man instantly turns into a skeleton. Leonov doesn't miss a beat and goes back to admiring the crown jewels. Now that's a man with his eyes on the prize!

A man not easily distracted!

Peter: I have no idea what's happening in that climax but I'm pretty sure our favorite DC Mystery writer (sarcasm) was equally befuddled. Is Carl, simultaneously, trying to scare us with his skeletal figures and offer up a rational explanation for why a corpse can fire a rifle? Lee Elias contributes strong visuals.

Bernie Wrightson

House of Secrets 135

"The Vegetable Garden!"
Story by Michael Fleisher
Art by Leopoldo Duranona

"Big Fish in a Small Pond"
Story by Michael Pellowski and Steve Skeates
Art by E.R. Cruz

Peter: Harriet loves tending to "The Vegetable Garden" with the neighborhood children but her greedy niece, Marion, and Marion's husband, Bill, want to put Harriet away in a home so they can inherit her fortune. Constant prodding doesn't work, so the devious couple put their plan into overdrive: they tell the mothers in the neighborhood that Harriet is unstable, kill her bird, and destroy her prized roses. The latter finally pushes the old woman over the edge and she agrees to move to an old folks' home but, before she can move, she overhears her conniving in-laws boasting about how well the plan worked. The boasting turns violent, though, when Bill accidentally kills Marion and tries to hide the body. Harriet stabs Bill to death and buries the pair in the garden.

Michael Fleisher borrows heavily from the classic EC tale, "Poetic Justice"; the first three-quarters of "Vegetable" are a blueprint of the earlier story. And it wasn't as though "Poetic" was dead, buried, and forgotten in a pre-code haze; it had been the highlight of the film Tales from the Crypt only a few years before. Harriet is the female Grimsdyke to a tee and the circumstances leading up to the violence are too similar to ignore: parents warned about unseemly senior citizens and a pillaged garden. What was this guy thinking? Separate that fact from the rest of the story and you've got an average "greedy relatives" drama, notable only for its creepy Duranona art (which, again, is probably better represented in black and white than color) and its darkly comedic final panel (reprinted here).

Jack: A mediocre story from Fleisher is paired with sub-par art and we see the writing on the wall for DC horror comics. Within a few months, the list will be cut substantially, and none too soon. Look at that last panel. Are we supposed to take from that that Aunt Harriet buried a hand here and a foot there? Is she a worse artist than Leopoldo Duranona? Does she expect little hand and foot plants to sprout? That reminds me of "Green Fingers," from Night Gallery. Perhaps I just don't like seeing anyone named Aunt Harriet treated cruelly. What would Dick Grayson say?

"Big Fish in a Small Pond"

Peter: Land baron Sam Spietz loves buying up properties for nothing and selling them for big profits but Sam can't get the Swansons to sell their old, decrepit pet store for any amount of money. This particular parcel is worth millions to Sam so he's willing to go a little bit farther than usual to acquire the gem. His assistant, Savin, tries to convince Sam that he can get rid of the old timers through black magic but Sam ain't buying it, so Savin decides to moonlight.

That night, Savin conjures up demons and sends them to the pet store, unaware that the Swansons already left town on vacation. Sam Spietz makes the mistake of picking just this time to burn the pet store down but, before he can, the demons arrive and possess the shop animals. Two days later, the Swansons open their shop to find the pets loose in the store and Sam floating in the aquarium. Certainly better than the opener (but not by much), "Big Fish in a Small Pond" concludes with an expository, letting us know what happened to Savin, ostensibly because the writers forgot about that aspect of the narrative. E.R. Cruz's art is good, but unfortunately there's really not much for him to draw other than people standing around and talking. Not a lot of action here.

Jack Didn't we read a similar story not too long ago? Those demonic animals are not particularly terrifying, which is also a problem with Bernie Wrightson's cover. This is a weak issue of one of the good titles--what does that mean for Unexpected and The Witching Hour?

Luis Dominguez

The House of Mystery 235

"Wings of Black Death"
Story by David Michelinie
Art by Nestor Redondo

"The Spawn of the Devil"
Story by Maxene Fabe
Art by Ramona Fradon

Peter: In plague-ridden 14th Century Europe, con man Geoffrey Pitt finds that the public's fear has wiped out his "trade." Discovering that he can be paid 100 gold pieces a day for cleaning up corpses from the street, Geoffrey goes to the end of the village and consults with the wizard Asmodeus. Pitt asks the magician to cast a spell to render him immune to the plague and Asmodeus agrees, provided he's paid half the gold every day. Pitt reluctantly agrees and pays the man his fee for several weeks before growing greedy. Geoffrey murders the wizard but is pestered by Asmodeus's crow, which seems to be spreading an all-new plague in the village. It's not long before the villagers are banging on Pitt's castle door with torches demanding to see Asmodeus. When the wizard is not produced, the mob becomes convinced that Geoffrey Pitt is, in reality, the magician disguised. They toss him in the fire and the crow flies away, seemingly happy. Not a lot to be said about "Wings of Black Death." The story just sort of lies there (and it's a story we've seen countless times) and there's no reel oomph in the climax. Redondo's art is very atmospheric in spots.


Peter: Mary Parsons wants a child badly but her husband will agree only to an adoption. Since Mary has had a mental breakdown recently, the adoption agencies are not knocking at her door. However, she and her husband meet with kindly old Doc Morton, who hooks them up with a genuine baby (ostensibly kept in a storeroom in his office!). Mary notes that the baby is a bit on the ugly side but beggars can't be choosers and she takes little Billy home. Quicker than you can say Damien: Omen II, the toddler is levitating cakes, climbing the walls, and snapping the dog's neck (an incident that, curiously, happens on the "spoiler splash" but not within the narrative) and Mary has lost her marbles again. She urges the Doc to take the monster back but no dice. Mary then overhears Morton talking to Billy about behaving or the world will find out that the kid is actually the demon, Belial. Exiting the building, Mary feels she has no other choice than to toss Billy in front of a speeding taxi. "The Spawn of the Devil" is dead and Mary is hauled off to the loony bin. Doctor Morton smiles, showing a full set of razor-sharp teeth.

I'm of two minds about this one: the topic is very edgy (and, to be fair, appearing a year before The Omen would hit screens) and I'm always amazed when something along the lines of a child murder got past the notoriously righteous CCA. "The Spawn of the Devil" is edgy, but it's also packed with lots of ludicrosity, including a baby with fangs, a couple that thinks nothing of a doctor who can produce a baby from his back room, loopy art, and an inane final panel (if Morton is actually Billy/Belial's father, then why is he smiling after witnessing his son's death?). And about that art: I dig Ramona Fradon's work most of the time--it's so different from the rest of the DC Mystery bullpen--but it ain't happening here. The drooling, fanged monster kid elicits laughs more than creeps.

Jack: Peter and I both keep notes on the stories we read, partly to help us come up with the best and worst at the end of each year. I use a rating of 1 to 4 for story and the same for art. If I could give out "5"s, this story would earn them with ease! It's crazy, funny, and scary, all at the same time. I've said it before: Ramona Fradon's art is a revelation. This is the breath of fresh air--or is it brimstone?--I needed to get through The Witching Hour! By the way, if you note the similarities to this plot and that of Nightmare At Twenty Thousand Feet, maybe Shatner could play Mary if this is ever made into a TV show!

Ernie Chan

Secrets of Haunted House 3

"Pathway to Purgatory"
Story by Jack Oleck
Art by Ruben Yandoc

"The Swinger"
Story by Mike Pellowski and Maxene Fabe
Art by Ramona Fradon

Jack: Duke Alain's forbidden love for his beautiful ward Catherine drives him to extremes. He blames his own crippled legs for Catherine's lack of romantic interest in him, so he embarks on a "Pathway to Purgatory" when he tortures a witch and murders her daughter in order to convince the hag to use her powers to restore his lower extremities to full vigor. To his surprise, Catherine still has no intention of breaking society's taboo, so Alain again utilizes torture and murder to convince the bishop to go forward with the wedding.

CCA approved?

The wedding night is less than satisfactory for the Duke, however, since Catherine runs screaming from the bedchamber and the villagers grab him and take him to the gallows, where he is executed. Only then is it revealed that the legs he was given by the witch are those of a goat! Jack Oleck redeems himself somewhat with this tale, which is a big step up from those he's been writing in mid-1975. Ruben Yandoc's art looks like it always does--all of his women look like they could be sisters.

Peter: Even though it feels padded at ten pages (there's a whole lot of dialogue goin' on here), I enjoyed this one. I never saw the twist coming and, sometimes, a good shock finale is all you need for entertainment. Jack Oleck proves he can still come up with a winner now and then.

CCA approved!?!

Jack: Carlton Phipps may be a rich playboy, but he's also a chicken, so he studies martial arts and earns a black belt. Walking through a bad part of town at night, he's itching for a fight and accidentally kills a cop, thinking him to be a mugger. He frames a passing tramp and the man is hanged for his crime, but his ghost soon starts to haunt Carlton, who has the strange feeling that he is being choked over and over.

Deciding to get out of Dodge, he flies off in his private plane, but bad weather forces him to bail out. Wouldn't you know it? "The Swinger" is hanged when his parachute snags on a tree limb. Not as knock down, drag out fun as "The Spawn of the Devil," but still very, very good. And that's a welcome thing in DC Horror stories by 1975!

Peter: Here, because of the dark humor present in the script, Ramona Fradon's art is perfect (as opposed to her work on "The Spawn of the Devil" in House of Mystery). I wish I kept a journal of twist endings because I'd swear that climax is a swipe from EC.

Luis Dominguez

Unexpected 168

"Freak Accident"
Story by George Kashdan
Art by Alfredo Alcala

"The Patchwork Pal"
Story by Murray Boltinoff
Art by Flor Dery

"Who Killed Raggedy Annie?"
Story by George Kashdan
Art by Gerry Talaoc

Jack: Approaching a well-guarded, highly secret government enclave, a super-spy kills a guard and puts on his hazmat suit, entering the restricted area with ease. The beating sun is hot, so he removes the hazmat suit and comes upon a race of hideously ugly humanoids. They knock him out and throw him in a pit, but some of the humanoid children help him escape, and he races back to be met by the guards, who promptly send him back among the humanoids. It seems they were the victims of a "Freak Accident" with biological weapons, and now that he has come in contact with them, he carries a dangerous infection. Soon, he begins to change into one of the humanoids himself. Predictable and dull, the only good part is the monsters that Alcala draws. I wonder if this was a file story, since we haven't seen his work in awhile.

Who else but Alcala?

Peter: If it gives us another look at the exquisite, finely-detailed, slammajammin' art of The Master, I'll wade through the worst of Kashdan's scripts. This isn't George's worst but it's not very good either.

Jack: Grumpy old Joe has a job carting body parts out of the hospital for disposal. When he suddenly turns cheerful, a doctor and a nurse sneak over to his house, where they discover that Joe used the spare parts to build "The Patchwork Pal," but when his little buddy failed to chat with him he knocked its block off! Yuck! I like Flor Dery's art, though.

Yecch!

Peter: There's not much surprise in a story whose "twist" is part of its title. That final panel is pretty grim stuff, though.

Jack: Parker has a headache that he traces to old Annie and a voodoo doll that she gave to young Jess. Parker kills Annie by tossing her down a well and continues his campaign to drive Jess's poor family off their land. Jess's father burns all of her dolls since, even though she's developmentally disabled, he thinks she's too old to play with dolls. Soon, Jess has a new doll, one that looks like old Annie. This one leads her to foil numerous schemes cooked up by Parker, until he finally has had enough and kidnaps the girl, intending to kill her. The doll tells her dad where she is and the cops arrive just in the nick of time to save her. Peter, Gerry Talaoc to me is like Ruben Yandoc to you--I can't get enough of him in "Who Killed Raggedy Annie?" and elsewhere!


Peter: Equal parts good Talaoc and bad. His human characters  (in particular, Parker) always seem to have some serious dental issues but Gerry can conjure up some horrifying images with the best of them. The panels of the Raggedy Annie doll lying on Jess's bed are pretty creepy. It's a strange, muddled script, though, as Jess's dad is introduced as a secondary heavy but then transformed into a caring dad by story's end.

Ernie Chan

Weird Mystery Tales 22

"A Death at the Races"
Story by Michael Fleisher and Russell Carley
Art by Franc Reyes

"A Reckoning in Eden"
Story by Mal Warwick
Art by Bill Draut

"Meet My Murderer"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Teny Henson

Peter: Leonard Snively trains greyhounds for the races but feels underpaid and under-appreciated, so he murders his boss and hightails it into the woods. On the other side of the forest, Leonard stumbles onto a rundown old town where the people are strange but seemingly friendly. Snively tells them what he does for a living and they're fascinated. The next morning, Leonard wakes to find the town deserted. As he walks down the street, he is confronted by a band of very big and nasty monsters. They chase him through the streets until he hits a dead end. A fence comes down between him and the hairy beasts and, eventually, he learns that the town is racing monsters and he's the bunny rabbit. "A Death at the Races" is built around a really silly script, with a climax that might have been ironic if it wasn't so telegraphed. Snively appears to be a big, burly dope but thinks (in thought balloons) like a well-educated gentleman. I'm thinking Fleisher's glory days are now behind him, unfortunately, but hopefully he'll prove me wrong. Reyes's art, on the other hand, speeds along like one of the featured greyhounds with our first look at the creatures (below) a highlight.


Peter: "A Reckoning in Eden" is a short-short about a rocket ship finding a replacement for Earth after three thousand years of space travel only to discover that there are already inhabitants and they look startlingly like sit-com characters. Warwick does what he can with just two pages but there's not much of a story and the climax is a bit confusing.

Starring Suzanne Somers as action-camera girl Tina Van Avery!

Peter: Famed photographer Tina Van Avery has taken shots of the most thrilling and daring adventures ever seen by man but one thrill evades her: Tina wants to photograph a ghost. One night, a thug breaks into Tina's lush apartment to steal her expensive equipment and, while in the act, strangles the girl. Days later, the police approach him and show him photos of his criminal deed. Tina had photographed her own murder! "Meet My Murderer" belongs in Ghosts (but I'd have to read it anyway, wouldn't I?) or, if taking the art into account, maybe Sinister House of Secret Love. Amazing that the ghost was able to snap photos of the murder even while Tina was still alive! Very kind of The Old Witch to explain to us exactly what happened in the previous panels just in case we're too dense to get it. That would have been helpful with the "Eden" story.

Proof that you don't have to be dead to have your own ghost

Jack: I had the same question as you, but if you look at the photos, I think a case can be made that Tina is already dead in the first one. In another panel, we see her ghost taking the pictures, so my take on this is that her ghost popped out of her body at the moment of her death and started snapping away. Of course, it would have been easier if she'd just haunted the robber into an early grave, but that would've deprived us of the twist ending.

Luis Dominguez

The Witching Hour 58

"Camp Fear"
Story by George Kashdan
Art by John Calnan

"The Witch of Raven's Pass"
Story by Carl Wessler
Art by Ernie Guanlao

"Who Stalked By Night"
Story by Carl Wessler
Art by Frank Carrillo

Jack: Freddy's imagination and weird fantasies worry his parents, so they ship him off to summer camp, not realizing that it's really "Camp Fear!" At this camp, the boys are encouraged to look out for number one and treat everyone else with contempt. The worse they act, the better they are treated. Freddy gets with the program until his conscience gets the better of him and he fails to murder his bunkmate when they are out in a rowboat. Back at camp, he overhears that his bunkmate is alive and reporting the truth about Freddy's weakness to the head of the camp, who is a Satan worshiper. Freddy manages to escape, but when he gets home no one believes his story, and on returning to the camp they find it a burned out wreck. The real wreck is this story, in which the terrible plot is not helped by substandard art.

Peter: This sleazy, mean-spirited bowl of tripe is my front-runner for Worst All-Around Story of the Year. George just heaps unpleasantness atop unpleasantness, somehow forgetting that unpleasant doesn't automatically equal chilling or disquieting. I can just picture Kashdan at his typewriter rubbing his hands together and exclaiming "My loyal audience of nine year olds will love this one."

Jack: Rory Savage wants to buy a ranch owned by Herb and Jenny Lee because he knows there's oil below the ground. They won't sell, so he visits "The Witch of Raven's Pass" and asks her to kill them, handing her a photo of himself with the couple in happier times. She refuses, he shoots her, and a fire starts, burning the photo. Rory is killed in a fiery car wreck and Jenny--the real witch of Raven's Pass--is satisfied. Well, at least the art is better than that in the first story. The plot? Not so much. For some strange reason, Mildred (the fat witch) is drawn with a mouthful of sharp, pointy teeth.

Peter: Carl Wessler just keeps right on recycling the same old bilge issue after issue. One question though: Since Herb and Jenny were in that deadly photo with Rory, shouldn't they have gone up in flames as well? Yeah, I know; why do I bother asking? This is the first (and last) look we'll get at the art of Ernie Guanlao (1943-2010), yet another of the Filipino artists who stormed the DC Mystery Bullpen in the mid-'70s, thankfully nudging out the likes of Jerry Grandenetti, and elevating the titles (in the artwork department, at least) to something memorable.

Jack: Morty Macree, a mugger "Who Stalked By Night," decides to wear a skull mask to mug honest citizens. After a couple of muggings, the police catch up with him, only to see that his face now looks like the skull mask. Um, huh?

Peter: There's no answer to the question of why this guy's face would have been transformed by the mask. It just is. And that's the sign hanging above Carl Wessler's typewriter.

The Battle Cry Heard 'Round the DC Universe! In the 64th Blazing Issue of Star Spangled DC War Stories! On Sale October 19th!

by Jack Seabrook

How important is it to you to have a job and what would you be willing to do to keep it? Lie? Cheat? Steal? Perhaps murder? That is the question that faces Mr. Crabtree in Stanley Ellin's short story, "The Cat's Paw."

As the story begins, Crabtree applies for a job he saw in the want ads. He is 48 years old, unmarried, and recently laid off after 30 years with the same firm. Two weeks pass and he receives a phone call telling him he has been hired, under terms so appealing he can hardly believe it. He is to have a private office where he will spend six days a week preparing reports that summarize financial information gleaned from a stack of periodicals.

He reports to the small office, which features an immense window whose sill comes just above his knees. Months pass and one day he walks into his office after lunch to come face to face with his employer, who uses the assumed name of George Spelvin. The employer is a wealthy and powerful man who tells Crabtree that he is being blackmailed and that he hired Crabtree to murder the blackmailer.

Crabtree is shocked to learn that his job is only a front and that he was selected solely to carry out a violent crime. If he does so, he may continue working; if not, he is fired. The plan is that the blackmailer will enter the office and ask for an envelope that a friend has left for him. Crabtree will hand it to him and, after the man has placed the envelope in his pocket, Crabtree will push him out of the window to his death. He will then close the window and go back to work.

John Qualen as Crabtree

Sometime later, Crabtree is visited by two policeman, who question him and inform him that a man committed suicide by jumping off the roof right above him. A suicide note was found in his pocket. They leave and he resumes his work.

"The Cat's Paw" ends subtly, with a conclusion that requires a moment's reflection. One must conclude that Crabtree decided to go through with the murder, despite his reservations. His decision to do so shows how important it is to him to maintain a steady, paying job, even after learning that his work is utterly meaningless. He had no proof that the man he murdered was a blackmailer; rather, he took the word of his employer at face value and carried out his instructions to the letter, committing what was, in effect, a perfect murder.

The story's author, Stanley Ellin (1916-1986), was a highly respected writer of short stories and novels in the mid-twentieth century. This was the first of eight episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents to be adapted from his short stories, including "The Faith of Aaron Menefee," adapted for television by Ray Bradbury. The term "cat's paw," which provides the story's title, may be traced back to a fifteenth century fable called "The Monkey and the Cat" by Jean de la Fontaine and refers to a person who is used unwittingly by another to accomplish the other's purpose. That definition fits Crabtree's situation perfectly.

The name "George Spelvin" that Crabtree's employer uses is the traditional pseudonym used in American theater. It was first noted in a program in 1886.

While "The Cat's Paw" is an excellent story, one may question the motives of the main characters. Is it believable that Crabtree, a single, middle-aged man, would be willing to commit murder to keep a meaningless job? Can the reader accept his employer's motive for killing the blackmailer as one simply driven by greed? These issues were of interest when the story was adapted for television, both from the standpoint of dramatic believability and out of concern for the sensors.

Lorne Green as Crabtree's employer

Ellin's story was published in the June 1949 issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, which probably appeared on newsstands a month or two before that date. The tale must have been sold to television at or prior to the time of publication, since an adaptation was broadcast live on the CBS TV series Suspense on June 14, 1949. The teleplay was by Reginald Denham and Mary Orr, the episode was directed by Robert Stevens, who would go on to direct more episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents than anyone else, and it starred Otto Kruger. It is available for free viewing online here.

This version has important differences from the short story. Crabtree is being evicted from his apartment because he has not paid his rent. He is jobless and all of his money goes toward paying the bills for his daughter to be treated in an expensive sanitarium. When he first arrives at his office, he discovers a cat with a note telling him that the cat's name is "Discretion," since it will keep him company and prevent him from being tempted to talk to anyone else about his job. His employer, whom he calls "Mr. X," tells him that the blackmailer is his wife's first husband, a man who had been thought dead.

In exchange for committing murder, Crabtree will receive a generous pension for life when he retires at age 65. After Mr. X makes his proposal and leaves, Crabtree has visions of his landlady, Mr. X's secretary (who offered him the job), and Mr. X, all giving him reasons to commit murder. Unlike the story, where the murder is implied rather than shown, in the TV show we get to see what happens. In this version, a man comes to the office and Crabtree hands him the envelope. The man then sees Discretion, the cat, and becomes terrified; he is so afraid of cats that he backs through the open window and falls to his death. As a result, Crabtree never carries out the crime and his meek and mild personality remains intact.

Madge Kennedy as Laura Crabtree

Crabtree thanks Discretion for saving him from having to make the decision about whether he would commit murder in order to keep his job. He then calls Mr. X and tells him that the man's death was an accident. Mr. X tells him to keep working and not tell the police. In a surprise ending, the real blackmailer then enters the office. It seems that the man who fell out the window was an innocent bystander who was collecting contributions to try to bring back Prohibition! Crabtree tells the blackmailer to go to the man he has been blackmailing and tell him that his plan for murder has gone astray.

The production of "Help Wanted" on Suspense suffers from a performance by Otto Kruger that borders on comedic, as well as from the other problems typical of 1949 television shows: poor lighting, acting that is more suited to the stage than the screen, and limited ability to move the camera. The script, however, begins to address issues that existed in the story. By giving Crabtree a daughter with medical problems and financial needs, he has a stronger reason to want to keep his job than mere pride. Also, by making Mr. X the victim of a blackmailer who threatens to disclose news that would ruin his family, the plot for murder becomes more understandable, if not excusable. While the scene where the man backs through the window out of fear of a cat is ridiculous, the twist ending that finds the real blackmailer still alive is ironic and satisfying.

Right before the fall from the window

Reginald Denham (1894-1983), who co-wrote this teleplay, was born in London and worked as a playwright. He also acted, wrote and directed films from the 1930s through the 1950s. His third wife was Mary Orr (1910-2006), who co-wrote this teleplay; also an actress, she wrote the short story that was the basis for the classic film, All About Eve (1950).

The CBS TV series Suspense, which ran from 1949 to 1954, featured a number of episodes that would be remade for Alfred Hitchcock Presents, which began airing in 1955. "Help Wanted" was among them. The Hitchcock version has a teleplay credited to Robert C. Dennis, based on the Mary Orr and Reginald Denham adaptation of a story by Stanley Ellin. The onscreen credit shows that Dennis based his script on the teleplay written for Suspense in 1949.

Critics, including Edward Hoch, have pointed out similarities between Ellin's story and the classic Sherlock Holmes story, "The Red-Headed League," in which a man is hired to sit in an office and copy an encyclopedia. He does not know that the reason for his hiring was to allow a crime to be committed elsewhere; he was told that he was hired due to the particular shade of his red hair. Perhaps Robert C. Dennis had this in mind when he revised the teleplay for "Help Wanted," since he made important changes that solved some problems that existed in the Denham and Orr version.

"Help Wanted" aired late in the first season of Alfred Hitchcock Presents on Sunday, April 1, 1956, and is the definitive version of the Ellin story. Instead of a daughter in a sanitarium, Crabtree now has an invalid wife and needs money for treatments and an operation to cure her. While he is still the same mild-mannered character that he was in the story and on Suspense, he has a hidden streak of potential violence that emerged when he was told that he was being laid off from his prior job. We learn that he got very angry at the personnel manager who delivered the news and that he might have killed the man on the spot had he not been restrained.

The view from Crabtree's office window

Though his employer is never referred to by name--neither as George Spelvin nor Mr. X--the man tells Crabtree that "For your wife's sake, Mr. Crabtree, I think you'll have to do it." We see that his wife is responding to treatment and, when the fateful day arrives and the man comes to the office seeking a contribution, Crabtree gets angry and tells him to leave, blaming him for costing him his job and depriving his wife of her health. Crabtree leaps up from his seat in anger and the man accidentally falls out of the window, startled by the sudden movement in the confined space.

There is no cat this time and, with the knowledge that Crabtree is prone to sudden outbursts, the scene works perfectly. Outside, we see the employer witness the death and hurriedly put an envelope addressed to Crabtree in a mailbox. We know that it is the $5000 payment that he had promised, which replaces the promise of a pension in the prior TV version. He telephones Crabtree, who tries to explain but is not given the chance. When the real blackmailer comes, Crabtree tells him that he has come too late and will have to take up the matter with the man he is blackmailing. Crabtree says that he no longer works there and hurries out the door, ending the episode on a completely satisfying note.

By making a few minor changes, Dennis solves all of the problems found in the prior TV version and delivers a story that plays well on the Hitchcock series. Credit is also due to James Neilson (1909-1979), the show's director, whose shot and setup choices allow the story to unfold quickly. Neilson had directed 33 episodes of Janet Dean, Registered Nurse in the 1954-1955 television season; that show's producer was Joan Harrison, who was the associate producer of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and who probably brought Neilson along with her to her new assignment. This was the first of 12 episodes he would direct for the Hitchcock series, including Henry Slesar's "On the Nose."

Crabtree is played perfectly by John Qualen (1899-1987), who was born in Canada and who had a long career on stage and onscreen stretching from the 1930s to the 1970s. He was a regular member of director John Ford's stock company and appeared in such films as The Grapes of Wrath (1940) and The Searchers (1956). He appeared in thee episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, including "Shopping for Death."

Lorne Green (1915-1987) is appropriately menacing as his unnamed employer. Like Qualen, he was born in Canada as Lyon Green, and his onscreen career lasted from the late 1940s until his death. As Lorne Greene he became famous for his starring role on Bonanza, which ran from 1959 to 1973; he also starred on Battlestar Galactica in the late 1970s. This was his only appearance on the Hitchcock series.

Malcolm Atterbury as the blackmailer

Crabtree's ailing wife Laura is played by Madge Kennedy (1891-1987), who was a star in silent films. She retired in 1926 but came back as a character actress in 1954 and made movies for another twenty years or so. She appeared in six episodes of the Hitchcock series, including Fredric Brown's "A True Account."

Appearing in a brief role at the end of the episode as the real blackmailer is Malcolm Atterbury (1907-1992), who had small parts in Hitchcock's North By Northwest (1959) and The Birds (1963). This was his only appearance on the Hitchcock series, but he was seen twice on The Twilight Zone, most memorably in "Mr. Denton on Doomsday."

The Alfred Hitchcock Presents version of "Help Wanted" is available on DVD here or may be viewed for free online here.

Sources:

Ellin, Stanley. "The Cat's Paw."Great Tales of Mystery and Suspense. Compiled by Bill Pronzini, Barry Malzberg and Martin Greenberg. Secaucus, NJ: Castle Books, 1981. 239-253.

Joe Kubert

G.I. Combat 107

"The Ghost Pipers!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Joe Kubert

"Dogtag Guard!"
Story by Kin Platt
Art by Ross Andru and Mike Esposito

Peter: Jeb Stuart (the ghost) warns Jeb Stuart (the tank commander) that the Jeb Stuart (the tank) will encounter someone who will attempt to "pipe them out of the war." Taking this to mean an enemy who will blast them to bits, Jeb keeps alert. But even after weathering a couple of major attacks, Jeb continues to hear the Colonel's warning. Then, the men come upon an Irishman blowing bagpipes on the battlefield. He asks them to follow him and leads them to a strange tableau: a World War I battlefield. The Haunted Tank does its part and blows away the bad guys, then finds itself right back in the present, with the piper still in the lead. When the latest battle is done, the crew meet up with another piper, who tells them the story of the ghost. The young man had enlisted in the army and met up with the same fate as his brother did in WWI. Both swore they would lead a tank into battle but both were killed before their dreams came true. Now "The Ghost Pipers" can rest.

Even though this is a series about a Haunted Tank, I never get a supernatural vibe, but this entry is nice and eerie (especially the dead eyes on the pipers). I'm not a fan of the expository but I'm glad we got one here as it's not clear until the final panels that we're actually dealing with two different pipers. Kubert's doing a great job as always but I'm with Jack in missing Russ Heath (who won't return until #114).

Jack: I was blown away by Kubert's cover and art on this story. It starts with a great splash page featuring three vertical panels showing a bagpiping soldier coming closer to the reader and the fine work continues to the end of the tale. It was a little jarring to have what seems like the same scene occur twice, but I liked the idea of two ghost pipers. Kanigher relies less than usual on the ghost of Jeb Stuart this time, and that's a good thing.

Peter: One of the most stringent rules in the superstitious ranks of WWI American G.I.s is the safekeeping of dogtags. Just before his squadron heads out for battle, the rookie is handed a wooden box and told to guard it with his life. If anything happens to the tags, it would spell doom for the owners. The green G.I. dodges tanks, planes, grenades, and prehistoric monsters to keep hold of the wooden box. In the end, his squad comes back safe and they salute their newest hero. "Dogtag Guard" is another gimmick disguised as a story. If the men wanted their tags to be kept as safe as possible, why put them in a wooden box? Our poor rookie looks like he either hasn't slept in weeks or is hopped up on heroin, thanks to the wide-eyed art of Andru and Esposito.

"You're getting sleepy..."

Jack: Prehistoric monsters? No way! It's funny how Platt populates the squadron with a cross-section of immigrant names: Connors, Duwalski, Faschetti, Samuels and Weed sound like the partners in a law firm! Though the story features a nice selection of WWI machines, it is marred by the repetition of the word "dogtags," which I counted no less than 25 times in 10 pages.

Joe Kubert

Our Army at War 146

"The Fighting Guns of Easy!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Joe Kubert

"No Score for a Frogman"
Story by Hank Chapman
Art by Jack Abel

Jack: "The Fighting Guns of Easy!" narrate the tale of Easy Co.'s attack on a farmhouse. Sgt. Rock destroys a Nazi machine gun nest with a grenade, then the guns of Easy bring down an attacking plane. That night, in a sudden snowstorm, the guns face a Nazi infantry march and a new recruit makes a run for it. Rock tracks him down on a frozen lake, where the rookie gives his life to help destroy an enemy tank.

If there has ever been a worse Easy Co. story than this one, I'd be surprised. Kanigher drags out his old gimmick of talking guns, but this time they don't let up! Rock's gun drops the "g"s at the end of words just like its owner, the seasoned guns poke fun at a new gun, and even the Nazi guns answer back with a German accent. The action is by the numbers and the loss of the new recruit is poorly handled. Dear Mr. Kanigher: no more talking gun stories!

Kubert makes the best of a bad story.

Peter: On the second page, we get a panel of Rock firing his Tommy gun but, other than that one quick glimpse, this story focuses on the weapons and keeps the human characters off-panel. The story is unique in one other way: all the dialogue is "spoken" by the weapons. We've had talking tanks and guns and horses and latrines before, but never a story told entirely from the perspective of a non-human character. Unique does not always add up to good, though, and "The Fighting Guns of Easy!" just makes me groan and roll my eyes. Kanigher's dialogue, usually so deep and insightful (well, all right, with the exception of War that Time Forgot and Gunner and Sarge) is downright hilarious. My favorite line comes from the aforementioned Tommy: "Then the moment came that made my bore warm with pride!" I'll bet Bob was waiting for years to work that into a script.

Jack: Submarine commanders, fighter plane pilots, and gun-toting marines all have places to mark to display their enemy kills, but there's "No Score for a Frogman," or so thinks an underwater fighter who laments the lack of a place to tally his victories. In rather short order, he saves his brother's sub by destroying an enemy sub, saves his brother's plane by blowing up an enemy plane, and saves his brother's hide by using an enemy tank to an enemy tank and ship. In the end, his victories come to light and his three grateful brothers paint silhouettes on his frogman suit. It's rare that a dopey Hank Chapman story like this outshines a Sgt. Rock story, but it happens in this unusually poor issue of Our Army At War.

Peter: With all the action this frogman sees, it's a wonder there's still a World War II to be won. And, heck, what a coincidence: this guy runs into all three brothers in one day!

Andru and Esposito

Star Spangled War Stories 116

"The Suicide Squad!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Ross Andru and Mike Esposito

"Baker's Dozen!"
Story Uncredited
Art by Irv Novick

Peter: A disgraced Olympic bobsledder joins the Army and his first mission pairs him with the brother of the man he accidentally killed years before in a tragic bobsledding incident. It's not long before Barry Mace realizes that Vic Morgan still seeks vengeance for his dead brother and the two are at each other's throats constantly while making their way out onto the "frozen wasteland" where ships are being mysteriously destroyed by enemy missiles. Mace and Morgan, aka "The Suicide Squad!", must travel a treacherous toboggan slide and jettison themselves onto the missile silo but encounter deadly roadblocks: prehistoric dinosaurs from the forgotten stone age. The pair manage to destroy all monsters and missiles and make it back to base in one piece, with Morgan assuring Mace that he'll be along on every mission from here on out to make sure Barr doesn't panic.


Well, if not inevitable, it was ideal that Bob Kanigher finally decided to throw a little something new into the dino-mix. After 25 War That Time Forgot entries, the formula had long since dried up. We've had carnival acts, circus acts, trapeze brothers, carnival and circus brothers, and just about every other combination of the same month in and month out. Does the new fabric make for a better suit? Not really, because at the core, this is just another "soldiers-pinballing-from-one-dino-to-another" tale, but it at least gives one hope that at some time in the future we'll be applauding rather than snoring. Here, in fact, the dinos are more of an afterthought. Vic Morgan, who perpetually holds a .45 to Mace's head while they're out on the ice, hardly registers that they're surrounded by forty foot carnivores. He's more interested in reminding his partner (over and over and over) that, in his eyes, Mace is a murderer. The final panel, where Vic shows his feelings have not changed one bit, despite having his life saved by his enemy, is a good send-off and bodes well for future chapters with these two (unless the emphasis then becomes "you killed my brother" ad nauseum).

Tobogganing. It's just that easy.

DC has gotten quite a lot of mileage out of the title "Suicide Squad." Several groups have been formed using the moniker (this incarnation has nothing to do with the super-villain team that will hit the big screens next summer) and the histories are complicated and, frankly, boring, but if you wish to read more, this is a good summary. This World War II Suicide Squad is not the same SS that graced the pages of SSWS #110 and 111 and we'll see a revolving character carousel during its nine-issue run (with Mac and Morgan starring in four of those adventures).

Jack: Here's a classic Kanigher line from this story:

Cats on the battlefield. The mind boggles!

"I felt like an aimless juggler trying to toss a hot potato in the teeth of an audience out for blood . . ."

I was wondering how the Russians could have built a missile silo and been firing missiles without running into a dino-sized problem, but at the end of the story it's revealed that their sub was destroyed and the missiles were left unmanned and on "auto-fire." The timing of this story made me look up the 1964 Winter Olympics, since I suspect Kanigher wrote this early in 1964. It seems a Polish-born British luge racer died in a training run days before the games started; this could have influenced Kanigher to write this story.

Peter: The superstitious Baker Company refuses to accept a rookie, the 13th member, and faces all sorts of mishaps before coming to their senses. "Baker's Dozen" is a really, really, really dumb comedy/drama, one of those annoying wastes of time where the men in the midst of war pay more attention to trivial details (like black cats) than to the exploding bombs around them. What C.O. would allow this sort of thing to run rampant? Irv Novick does his best Joe Kubert imitation here.

Jack: I can see Novick in this story but someone else has to be inking, because it doesn't look like Novick all the way through. Maybe Jack Abel inked it? It's much softer than Novick's usual work.

In our next hair-raising issue, Pooch gets his own series in the House of Mystery! On Sale Oct. 26!

Note: We rely on the fine people at Comic Book Plus and Digital Comic Museum for public domain digital downloads. Unfortunately, a full run of Haunted Thrills isn't available yet so we've had to resort to reading several stories via their reprints in the Eerie Publication titles, similarly available for download at this essential site. Though we'd obviously prefer to use the original comic books, we can't afford to purchase these very expensive issues. We thought this the best avenue rather than missing out on so many terror tales but, of course, it necessitates representing some artwork in black and white. We hope that you will agree with our decision and enjoy the stories in these altered formats. -Jose and Peter

Peter: Nazi Colonel Eric Von Grimm lords over the small Italian village of Basilio, systematically reducing its population daily. His wife, Helga, has developed a taste for fine furnishings, including lamp shades made from the skin of Von Grimm's prisoners. This gives the Commandant an idea: a general is to arrive at the camp and the Colonel's boots are beginning to wear down; maybe a pair made of the "finer material" would impress his boss. Von Grimm shoots one of the prisoners, has him skinned, and brings the "pelt" to the village's finest cobbler. When the man unrolls the skin, he discovers it belonged to his own son. A plan forms in his mind and he gets to work on the boots, delivering them soon afterward. The Colonel is delighted with the results, especially the unique heels the cobbler has devised. Smiling, he tells his men to shoot the man so that he can never tell of the Colonel's atrocities should Germany lose the war. Von Grimm attends the meeting with the General and clicks his heels together in salute. His boots, the heels loaded with dynamite, blow the entire gathering to kingdom come.


It's tough to say you enjoy a story set in a concentration camp, centering around a couple of deviates who skin prisoners for their whims, but this is a nasty, queasy, dirty little classic of the sub-genre with a (literally) explosive climax. Both the writer and artist of "Out of the Grave" (from #11) go beyond the realm of good taste when they depict scenes such as the one showing the cobbler unrolling the skin and displaying his own son's prisoner number. As I've said before (when reviewing the similar "Corpses of the Jury" back in Voodoo #5), the Ajax-Farrell horror stories appeared less than ten years after the atrocities of the Nazis were unveiled. Was this enough time for healing or was the attitude, "Ah, it's just a funny book"? The twist, the dy-no-mite boots, almost allows us to let out that breath we'd been holding while taking in the sheer vileness of the first five pages and laugh out loud. The art has that crude look that would become a staple of the underground comix a decade later; it's perfect for the visualization of a very nasty story.

Jose: Newlyweds David and Sylvia purchase their very own Southern plantation, a defnite move-on-up from their tiny apartment. Though Crestwood is a bit of a fixer-upper, the couple is still joyous over their recent acquisition, even if David can’t shake the feeling that the house seems so familiar to him. General unease becomes full-blown apprehension when David is woken in the middle of the night by an eerie voice calling his name. He follows the cries out into the fetid swamp where the beautiful specter of a dead woman waits for him. The ghost calls David her beloved and says that they will soon be reunited. Despite his horror, David is enraptured by the vision. Dried mud on his feet the next morning convinces him it was no dream and he finds himself longing for the next visitation. Their next boggy rendezvous stirs more passion in David’s breast, and the next morning he’s torn between despising his bewildered wife and holding on to her for fear of what is to come. The specter’s voice becomes too much to bear the following night and David ends up strangling Sylvia to reunite with his phantasmal mate in the churning waters of the bayou.


It’s tough to resist a well-told tale of haunting love. There was a small but considerable run of “supernatural Southern soaps” that cropped up in a few of the pre-codes, and “Screams in the Swamp” (from #10) can certainly count itself a member of that noble tradition. Though its lurid title seems to hint towards a more ghastlier affair at its heart, “Screams” is a somber ghost story that draws its power from the moral/emotional conflict at its center, that of a possible-man-out-of-time facing the harrowing decision of choosing between the woman he knows and loves and the shadow of the one he feels he has destiny has drawn him back to. Ajax-Farrell attempted to tackle (and exploit) the man-with-multiple-lovers theme a few times—the apotheosis in ridiculousness of which has to be the howlingly misogynist “Fear of the Witch” from #15—but “Screams” never seems to be winking at its audience and approaches the text with the serious tone of a doomed romance. And for that we are thankful.

Peter: Dr. Chadwick is convinced that it is the will to live, not love, that is the strongest emotion in the human body. To prove his theory, he hires lovers Mary and Bob to live in a cage with little water or food. He continually taunts them, attempting to convince one to give up the other for a bite to eat. The lovers stay true for a week but then the savagery begins to roll in and soon they are at each other's throats. Chadwick's scientist buddy, Horton, stops in to see how the experiment is progressing and realizes, very quickly, that his colleague has gone mad and the couple need to be released immediately or the authorities will be summoned. Loathe to abort his research, Chadwick locks Horton in with Bob and Mary and watches as another week goes by and the trio become mad animals. While tossing a raw steak into the cage, the scientist slips and his legs enter the cage. The three drooling lab rats savagely tear Chadwick's legs off.


One of the most famous of the Ajax-Farrell horror stories... and for good reason. The truly nasty "Experiment in Terror" (from #13, reprinted in Tales from the Crypt V.1 #10) has a tightly written script (there's no fat or wasted pages in this one) that delves deeper into the human psyche than most pre-coders. Here we have yet another example of how mean-spirited these comic book writers could be, doling out injustice to the innocent. Bob's not a bank robber; Mary's not an adulterer. The future of the loving couple is hijacked simply because they needed enough dough to get hitched. I'm not complaining, mind you; I prefer my horror stories with a bite and "Experiment" provides us with a few of those bites. Chief among them is the climax, where we witness Chadwick falling prey to his subjects and having his legs gruesomely chewed off. Well, at least that's what we picture in our minds as the artist wisely limits what we see to the professor's face and anguished "M-my legs! EEEEEEYOWWWWWW-" The most terrifying take away from "Experiment", to me is that, chances are good, no one will find the three poor souls trapped in that cage. Artist Carl Burgos loved his contorted figures (Chadwick is a hunchbacked dwarf) and he pulls yet another wonderful visualization out of his magic hat; in Burgos' hands, Bob and Mary go from vivacious, loving couple to fierce-eyed wharf rats in a matter of panels. Bill Schoell, in The Horror Comics(McFarland, 2014) calls this one "a mini-masterpiece." I can't argue with that.

Jose: Tortuga, 1703. Sir Giles Romney, governor of the colony, has an especially horrid means of punishing criminals: he has them lashed to wooden posts on the shore so that the hundreds of ravenous crabs coming in from the ebbing tide have a meal all tied and ready for them. Most folks can’t stand the governor’s cruelty, most of all his young wife Damaris who is actually dallying with handsome John Burton, Giles’ secretary. They meet in secret with the help of Damaris’ servant and plan their escape from the island. But on the way back the servant is hailed by Giles’ guards and questioned for her part in the conspiracy. The servant fesses up only after she is given a taste of the crabby treatment. Showing that he has some heart, Giles orders a speedier death for the servant and then cruises past the beach with Damaris in tow so that she can see her lover screaming a curse out as his skin is pincered-off inch by inch. The governor has Damaris locked away and then sets sail for the high seas, but he starts singing a different tune when pirates lay siege to his vessel. The two ships are blown to smithereens and Giles is left as the only survivor. The heavy driftwood that keeps him afloat ends up crushing his legs when he washes up on the beach where Burton’s denuded bones wait for him, and it isn’t long before the air is filled with the clacking of tiny claws and the ghostly laughter of the late, broken-hearted Damaris.


“Terror Below” (from #12) is without a doubt one of the handful of non-E.C. pre-code tales that came closest to successfully emulating that company’s treasured house style. A conte cruel whose gears of vengeance hum smoothly and audibly from the first panel, “Terror” remains on point throughout the entire duration and builds grandly to its inevitable but oh-so-righteous finale. It reads like a costume drama seasoned with a bit of the Grand Guignol to spice up the action. (Slow and gradual consumption by critters of sea and land is a staple of the pulp tradition, and this counts as one of the most squirmy variations of the theme.) Sir Giles is the pompous, utterly vile villain we all love to hate, and his punishment sits right along with with the best poetic-justice endings to come from the hallowed halls of horror comics.

Peter: Archaeologist Matt Taylor is bitten by the deadly temple spider while exploring the pyramids of Egypt. As he lay dying in his tent, a strange, sensual woman approaches and tells Matt's colleague her name is Suthina and that she can save the poisoned man. She puts her lips to his bite and, a few days later, Matt makes a full recovery. Owing his life to the woman, Matt agrees to Suthina's wish to travel back to the States with him. When the pair arrive at Matt's home, he has to explain to his frosty wife, Molly, that Suthina will be aiding him in his research and so will be staying at the house with them. It's not just the idea of a gorgeous dame living in the same four walls as her hubby but also the plethora of dusty crates Suthina has moved into her room. One day, while cleaning, a big ugly spider dashes across the floor in front of Molly and she kills it, drawing ire and a slap to the face from her house guest. Later that day, as Molly is trying to relax from her trying day of house cleaning, the door opens and several spiders march in and attack the terrified Molly, picking her bones in a matter of minutes. Suthina dumps the leftovers into the incinerator but the foul smell draws Matt downstairs and he makes a gruesome discovery. Confronting Suthina, Matt becomes entangled in a giant spider web and the sultry, sexy maiden reveals her true self to the doomed Matt. Then she devours him.


No, this doesn't contain the deepness displayed in "Experiment in Terror", but "Web of the Widow" (from #16 and reprinted in Weird V.1 #11) is a heck of a lot of fun. Matt seems to be one of the biggest chumps in the history of funny books, thinking that bringing home a babe from Egypt won't rock the boat. Then, opening his incinerator and emitting a puzzled "A human skull! F-freshly burned! But who - and why?" and confronting Suthina with "What the heck is going on around here? What's that skull doing in the furnace? Where is Molly?" Bright boy. Then there's the siren, Suthina (think Gale Sondergaard), who hasn't thought out her master plan beyond eating Matt and then setting her sights on a vacuum cleaner salesman named Christopher Fly ("His name is Fly! Oh no! This is too good! This is terrific!"). Suthina explains to Matt, just before she dines on him, that she's come to America to escape her enemies but what kind of enemies could a human spider fear (a giant wasp?)? Has she come to conquer America with her army of twelve spiders? And why does her body transform (into that rarest of spiders, the six-legged variety) but her head remain human? Don't ask me any of these questions because I... don't... care! Sometimes all you need from your pre-code horror stories is a sultry babe who can hide her stinger under a Dior.

Jose: Jack Burch sits in the lobby of the Rex Arms while his girl Liza is upstairs trying to explain to old flame Gregor that she is in love with Jack now. The saddened Gregor promises to do something desperate, and even as Jack tries to console the weepy Liza that everything will be alright Gregor takes a nosedive from his window right onto the sidewalk in front of them! Needless to say, Liza is mortified and eventually takes ill, losing more of her vitality every day. When Jack explains the situation to the foreign doctor attending her, the doc tells Jack he thinks Liza is the victim of “Satan’s disease”, a form of vampirism that Gregor’s tortured spirit may be committing on his beloved. The doctor promises to return with the necessary tools to expel the evil, but a stroll later that night reveals to Jack that the old man has been coincidentally struck down in the road by a hit-and-run driver. Jack nabs a parcel from the body before anyone notices and upon opening back at home finds a passage from a text on vampire-defense and a few choice relics. No sooner does he review these items than Liza is moaning in terror at the approach of a wispy, cloaked ghoul floating through the window. Jack bravely cuts his own wrist and fills a bottle with his blood to entice the revenant from Liza while brandishing a talisman to keep it at bay. Its hunger too great, the vampire mists its way into the bottle to drink and Jack corks it into a glass prison. Liza soon gets well but Jack still has his little vampy in a bottle. Perhaps you would like to take it off his hands…?


The biggest thing that “Devil’s Bride” (from #16, reprinted in Weird V. 1 #10) has going for it is Jack Burch. So many times in the pre-code horrors (and contemporaneous comics in general), the leading man fell into one of two categories: the Lysol-clean hero of unassailable virtue, or the unremitting, typically-lusty villain with a heart of mold. Those rare instances when writers were able to strike that happy middle ground—and, you know, make their characters seem a little more like people—would yield some beautiful results, and Jack is surely one of them. As our narrator, Jack comes off as a stereotypical wiseguy at first, even a little bit heartless for the small remorse he feels for taking Liza away from Gregor and his flippant attitude towards the suicide of same, but as the story goes on Jack proves himself as a caring lover with an impressive resourcefulness and fiery attitude that saves everyone’s bacon. (“Go on! Get in there!” he chides the demonic Gregor. “Wet your chops on some of that nice blood! My blood!”) The unknown artist renders the slobbering fiend as an ample match for Jack, two suitors fighting for the hand of Liza, and the writer’s addition of the old myth about suicides turning into vampires upon their death breathes a little refreshing air into the hoary creature. But it’s Jack Burch that we come away rooting for in the end. If only the folks at Ajax-Farrell could’ve given him his own series. I would’ve bought that for a nickel!

Peter: Detective Bill White and his partner Mike Todd answer a call and find a mutilated blonde ("She might have been pretty - once...") torn to shreds, as if by an animal. Nearby, the pair find their only clue: a huge three-toed footprint. The next night, a man is viciously mauled and lives long enough to give a description of his attacker: a demon with scales and talons! Again, nearby, a unique footprint is found. By the following week, the city has lost nine of its occupants to the murderer but White has a theory: he believes the monster is the evil spirit Kehama, a demon from the center of the Earth that can take human form and must eat flesh to survive. To his surprise, his commissioner shows interest in the theory and authorizes the use of policewomen as bait. The plan goes awry when Bill is clobbered from behind and the bait is gobbled up. Bill gives chase, tracking the killer by its patented three-toed footprint, and discovers the creature has doubled back and waits for the detective in Bill's apartment. White enters and the monster explains that it would have murdered Bill back in the alley but he needed the detective's body. The final panel reveals that it is the Kehama, not Detective Bill White, who has been relating the story.


Hardboiled detective meets inhuman monster in "Fanged Terror" (from #18), a nicely illustrated noir standout from the final issue of Haunted Thrills. More than anything, "Fanged Terror" resembles an episode of Kolchak: The Night Stalker, with its Kehama creature and the driving narrative. Amazing that, on a whim it seems, Bill visits a library and exits with the solution. What would send Bill into the library in the first place and what card file indexes "mythological flesh-eating creatures" (Bill's boss asks the man: "Huh! You mean you can read?")? The art here is top-notch for a pre-coder, with some panels right out of 1950s film noir. Though the finale, where Bill/Kehama lets the reader in on his secret, brings a smile ear to ear, I'd have liked to see a couple more panels depicting the monster jotting down the story in his notebook, attempting to hold a ballpoint with his giant three-fingered hand!

Jose: One would think it obvious not to get involved with a saucy lass with a name like Cynthia Hyde, but thick-in-muscle-and-skull farm laborer Tom Court can’t help but fall ass over tea kettle for the blonde beauty. Cynthia can’t wait to dump the boor, and she wastes no time in pursuing artist Tony Penberty, a fact which Tom finds out right after defending his lady’s honor in a bar scuffle. Efficiently jilted and maddened by jealousy, Tom sharpens his trusty scythe and lies in wait as the two lovebirds picnic in the isolated countryside of Dorset. Their afternoon tryst is brought to a screaming halt when Tom thunders out and slashes them to ribbons, dumping the murder weapon and their bodies in a deep bog and sending their car over a seaside cliff. Tom’s brought into the constabulary for questioning, but he chuckles the whole matter off since nothing can be stuck to him without the corpses turning up. The killer’s happy spot of fishing takes a dark turn when two hissing swans begin to menace him, snapping their beaks at his face. Tom realizes with cold dread that the swans have the eyes of Cynthia and Tony just before they stab out his own peepers, leaving him moaning and blind as they take flight to the heavens.

“Blade of Horror” (from #16, reprinted in Weird V. 2 #4) may seem a tad slight clocking in as it does at a lean five pages, but its short length gives the tale just the right amount time to deliver its final bite with a quiet power. It’s a fairly uncomplicated story, but it’s told with the assurance and grace of practiced hands plying an old trade, much like Tom does himself. Though Tom is depicted as a bit of a lummox, his anger over Cynthia’s romantic slight and the insane turn his machinations take come off as natural and even induce a touch of sympathy. The story really earns its stripes for the interesting manner in which Tom’s supernatural punishment is delivered. The elegant forms of the swans is an unexpected juxtaposition of beauty and horror, their seemingly-harmless appearance making their act of blinding Tom and leaving him to stumble through the rest of his life in complete darkness all the more cruel. For once in the pre-codes, death seems to be the more preferable of the options.


Peter: All his life, Wilbur Cummings has let people walk all over him. The poor little mouse avoids any kind of decision or confrontation for fear he'll be made to look a fool. One night, Wilbur trips and  has a fatal fall down his stairs. His soul arrives at the Gates of Heaven and Wilbur is excited to finally be in a place where he belongs. Unfortunately, Saint Peter has a nasty surprise for Wilbur: there's a place for a man who does good but not for a man who "never did anything much!" Dejected, Wilbur wanders the clouds until he falls between a gap and into a volcano. This time he appears at the Gates to Hell and demands an audience with Satan. Ol' Sparky asks Wilbur what evil he has done that warrants a pass into the exclusive club. Wilbur thinks long and finally offers that, as a child, he had stolen a watermelon from a neighbor's yard. The devil has the man thrown out on his ass for wasting his time. Once again without a home, Wilbur dusts himself off and wonders what he'll do next when a robed figure approaches. Death tells Wilbur Cummings that he feels sorry for him and is giving him one more chance at life on Earth but that he must do something either very good or very bad. As Wilbur approaches his house, he sees his wife in the upstairs window and wonders if he'll do something good (buy her that new house she's been ranting about) or something bad...


The very last story in the final issue of Haunted Thrills, "No Place to Go" is a deranged variation of It's a Wonderful Life but much funnier. From his hellacious marriage to his rejection from St. Peter (poor Peter can't even remember the man's name, calling him Wilbur Cummings and Wilbur Stevens in successive panels!) to his hilarious short time in Hades ("... you poor excuse for a sinner!"), Wilbur is comicdom's Saddest Sack, receiving satisfaction only in the final two panels. Nice touch leaving Wilbur's decision up to the reader's imagination. I know what I'd do.

Jose: In an old Roman camp near Dorset (again with bloody Dorset!), a series of bizarre killings has Scotland Yard baffled and word on the street linking the crimes to a horrible monster that can vanish in the blink of an eye. Fully acknowledging this belief as truth, the police force smartly assigns two patrolmen (!) on the night shift to keep an eye out for the critter. The bobbies get more than they bargained for when the slithery, dragon-like beast materializes and chomps down on one officer and leaves his pal shooting ineffectually at it. Realizing the extent of their ordeal, the Yard calls in supernatural expert Dr. Christopher Fenn to handle the spooky business. The doctor believes the monster is a “psychic manifestation of evil”, a leftover curse from the Druids that they placed on the heads of their sworn enemies, the Romans. Journeying to the site with Wendy—whether she’s wife or secretary we never find out—Fenn summons the spirits of three Roman soldiers using an incantation from the Devil’s Catalog. Fenn entices the soldiers to destroy the monster that murdered them long ago, figuring the only thing that can kill one ghost is another. His plan goes swimmingly, but with the serpent now dead the soldiers turn their swords on the humans and prepare to slaughter them for the inconvenience. Fenn and Wendy flee and then remind the soldiers they must hold off their punishment until the humans have had a fair trial. This stalls the centurions just long enough for Fenn to find the right spell and send them wisping away back to the underworld.


Deviations from the standard issue vampires and zombies and mad doctors were at times few and far between in pre-code land, so a tale along the lines of “Monster in the Mist” (from #17) always manages to come as a gentle respite from the same tired rehashings. It’s a rather gentle story when compared to some of the grue-splattered yarns that filled the pages of Haunted Thrills and others, and almost reaches into high fantasy territory with its depiction of the swords’n’sandals action. The injection of some historical background and mythology does much to enliven the intrigue and action, and the writer pulls a nice switcheroo when he shows us that the would-be saviors of the tale are just as bloodthirsty as the beast they have slain. Dr. Fenn himself isn’t the coolest (or entertainingly ineffectual) paranormal investigator we’ve seen so far, but the artist renders him and the rest of the cast with a rough, not-quite-finished style that adds a bit of charm here to an already smart and handsome tale.

War is Hell

Peter: Lieutenant Murphy is awarded the Silver Star for merit in combat but Murphy has self-doubts about whether he should have been given the medal in the first place. After all, the real heroes died on the battlefield and he was one of the lucky ones. In the end though, Murphy must admit that "Life is funny - and so is death, in a way! My men earned the medal, not me! But maybe the general was right - I'm wearing it for them!"

The vast majority of the stories I've picked over the last twelve chapters of Dungeons of Doom for "Stinker of the Month" have been tales that have put me to sleep or scripts so inane they defy description. Not so with "Badge of Glory". Oh, it's not a very good story, make no mistake, but my main objection to the story is that it has no business in Haunted Thrills. Yes, I'm well aware of the "horrors of war" and all that but if I want to explore that aspect of man's inhumanity to man, I'd pick up Our Army at War or Battleground. There's not one panel here that justifies its inclusion in a horror title. I assume "Badge of Glory" was actually slated for appearance in one of Ajax-Farrell's five war titles but all five had been axed prior to its appearance in Haunted Thrills #12 so the editors naturally dumped it into the first slot available. Not only does "Badge" come equipped with a cliched script (with stereotypical Asian soldiers), but it's also saddled with insanely ugly artwork and a baffling final-panel about-face from the main protagonist (after spending eight pages bemoaning his new medal, the light suddenly comes on in his head as if he's received a telegraph from the Ajax editor informing him his time is up). I've read a lot of stories for the DC War blog and this is not the worst I've ever slogged through but it deserves its "Instantly Forgettable" status.

Jose: Henry Cravens gets some bad news from the doctor: he has a malignant disease which he will soon die from. (Henry, not the doctor.) Henry bemoans his terrible diagnosis and savors all the beautiful nuances of life on his way home from the office. Now he’ll never know how really good that novel he never finished would have been. Alas! Henry writes out a meager last will and testament before bedtime and naturally suffers a vivid nightmare of his own death once asleep. The entire process from discovery and bereavement to interment and purification are seen in "vivid" detail. Henry awakens from this night terror only to give himself a heart attack from fright. But alas! Henry kicked the bucket too soon to see the note from the Doc that Henry’s test results were mixed up with some other poor sap’s and that he’s actually A-OK. Henry’s departing ghost doesn’t take kindly to the late notice and tears the Doc’s throat out as punishment.

The horrors of eczema.

“If I Should Die—” (from #18) already has a tired plot working against it for starters, but the uncredited writer and artist proceed to let the reader down even further by failing to put anything into the story resembling effort. The script plods along for the duration without so much as a twinkling of excitement, and during the two crucial parts when you really expect some steam to pick up, the nightmare sequence and the vengeful ending, the art department blows the job in a big way. Not only are the illustrations throughout several rungs below coloring book-pedigree, but the juiciest bits of the story are completely weenie-fied so that the shot of Henry being “consumed” by hundreds of ravenous worms turns into him squeezing invisible pimples on his face and the gory finish for the doctor is communicated through an exterior shot of his office building and a speech bubble of his delirious pleas. It’s just as exciting as it sounds. If you should die before finishing this story, consider yourself luckier than Henry Cravens.


NOTABLE QUOTABLES

Dan was recognizable from his accent.

"All right, you old witch, I'm taking charge here! Gimme all the food you got, and all your money! Try to hold out and I'll wring your scrawny neck!"
- "Murder on the Moor"

"John Adams was a law-abiding man. When the authorities banned black magic rites on his small island, he thought out his duty very carefully and then decided his action. Long had he suspected old Yvonne of witch practices, and besides she was careless about paying her rent..."
- "Witch's Horror"

“Like ripe black fruit the figures dangle from the tree…”
- “Blood in the Sky”

“Colonel Eric von Grimm and his wife Helga were a loving couple—they loved to inflict pain, to hear the dying screams of those poor unfortunates who were not of the master race!”
- “Out of the Grave”

“Women! I’ll never understand them! Just because Gretchen has a lampshade of human skin—Helga must have one! While I—I haven’t even got a decent pair of boots!”
- “Out of the Grave”

“Allow me to introduce myself! I am the Cruel Cavalier—and I will kill you!”
- “Death Laughs Last”

“For the first time he feels fear stir in him—a feeling like cold worms moving in his entrails…”
- “Rendezvous with Doom”

"For the first time I touched her! She seemed to enjoy being petted, and watched me with her limped brown eyes..."
- "Death Do Us Part"

"Goodbye, Tasha! Thanks for everything! And when I hear people talking about dumb animals again, I'll tell them about you!"
- "Death Do Us Part"

-"Web of the Widow"

“For Hubert had a way with women—a way to do away with them, that is!”
- “Frigid Fear”

“A simple, routine business of opening a bank vault for the day’s work… and out popped the Devil!”
- “Wheel of Terror”

"Ohh, please hurry! The Merchants' Bank. A robbery..."
"Don't get so excited, lady. We'll be right there... But did you say the devil held up your bank?"
- "Wheel of Terror"

Even ghosts like Haunted Thrills!

“So, like a lamb to slaughter, the man from nowhere walks into the muttering ring of corpses…”
- “Trumpet of Doom”

"Looks hopeless! We'll never get to him! Guns are no good against those - (ugh) - things!"
"We're licked! Licked by a lot of corpses!"
- "Trumpet of Doom"

“I see no hope in exorcising this succumbus [sic], Mr. Farson!”
- “Fear of the Witch”

Reed: …Except that I’m going to kill you, too! You were a little too greedy! Now you neither get my body or my wife!
Doctor: No! Stop! You’re insane!
Reed: Hah-hah! Maybe I am! But you’re dead!
- “The Devil Collects”

“This is a crazy story! Or maybe not so crazy after all, maybe it’s just ghoulish and horrible and sickening!”
- “Devil’s Bride”

“Y-you pick a spider up and fondle it! You’re insane!”
- “Web of the Widow”

"Strange! We've got an incinerator for burning rubbish! And there's something I don't like about this smell! It seems vaguely familiar - like the burning ghats by the Indus River! I know - scorched bones!"
- "Web of the Widow"

Nannette the Tiger says these quotes are greeeeat!

“Not a cloud in the blue English sky, not a note of menace in the peaceful Dorset downs—yet cruel murder stalked the hedges!”
- “Blade of Horror”

"I know a way that might work, Jim! And it -- it isn't murder! But we might get rid of her!"
"Tell me, baby! I'll listen to anything -- except actual murder!"
- "Mirror of Madness"

“A foul smell fills the night! Fangs glisten and a long forked tongue licks out! Fire and smoke belch from the fetid mouth of the beast from the past! The constable never has a chance…”
- “Monster in the Mist”

“But when you monkey around with psychic phenomena, Wendy, you’ve got to be ready for anything!”
- “Monster in the Mist”

Vanya decides to shed her current lover.
"How could I have loved him? He is ugly to me now! And he dances like a cow!"
- "Devil's Ballet"

Sam Dexter was afraid! Sam Dexter had reason to be afraid! Because Sam was pretty sure he was going crazy! Insane! Every time he looked in a mirror he saw himself - as Napoleon! Was he Sam Dexter? Was he nuts?
- "Die Screaming"

"It's not only the mirror! I find myself reading battle maps, panning campaigns, things like that! And when anyone mentions Waterloo, I scream out loud!"
- "Die Screaming"

Peter's parents knew something was wrong after he finished reading the final issue of Haunted Thrills

So the ancient Roman camp once more sleeps beneath the blood red moon! The dank night mist rises and curls over the ruins like an ever-changing shrowd [sic]!
- "Monster in the Mist"

"My work! The novel I'll never finish! It all seems so unimportant now! And it would have been a good novel, too!"
- "If I Should Die -"

"Poor Henry! Tough to die in your prime like this!"
"Yes, he was a good man! A good writer, too, but he didn't live long enough to really write anything good!"
- "If I Should Die -"


STORY OF THE MONTH

Peter: Sometimes it's very hard to explain why certain stories resonate the way they do. With nearly forty terror tales to choose from each month, it's extremely hard to narrow it down to just one example. There was no such anguish this month. When I read the camp classic known as "Die Screaming" (from #17), I immediately knew this had to be my Story of the Month. A quick read through might evoke "What crap!" from the majority of our readers but I implore you to read deeper into the context. I sincerely believe that our uncredited writer put his tongue firmly in his cheek and took the Mad Magazine fork in the road, offering up a parody of the type of story Haunted Thrills (and, indeed, all the pre-code titles) stuffed their zines with and a wrap-up worthy of a hardy WTF?!. Go ahead, tell me I'm wrong. I've read five hundred plus horror stories in the last ten months so I may be ready for a strait-jacket of my own (I just hope mine is as easy to break out of as our protagonist's). Campier than a pink parasol, I give you:






Jose: My picks for “Story of the Month” have generally fluctuated between “uppers” and “downers”. There’s been just as much corny goof-offs here as there has been bleak horror. Today’s selection is closer to the latter camp. Although it’s not quite near the soul-crushing despair of “Monumental Feat” or “Corpses… Coast to Coast”, “Trumpet of Doom” (from #14) certainly has its share of shocking frissons, not to mention a good deal of originality. Taking the standard zombie-master-out-for-revenge plot as its template, “Trumpet” gives it a fresh twist by incorporating elements of Biblical mythology. And in more ways than one, as the late appearance of a mysterious, unnamed character seems to testify. If “Trumpet” didn’t already send your eyebrows flaring with its depiction of a full-on revolt of the undead, then the holy-punishment-from-the-heavens conclusion (after the villain has revoked his sins to boot!) is sure to blow your mental gates wide open.










The Comics
Haunted Thrills #10-18


#10 (July 1953)
Cover Uncredited

"Death at the Mardi Gras"
Art Uncredited

"Screams in the Swamp"
Art Uncredited

"Murder on the Moor"
Art Uncredited

"Witch's Horror"
Art Uncredited







#11 (September 1953)
Cover Uncredited

"Blood in the Sky"
Art Uncredited

"Death at the Throttle"
Art Uncredited

"Dead Man's Chest"
Art Uncredited

"Out of the Grave"
Art Uncredited






#12 (November 1953)
Cover Uncredited

"Terror Below"
Art Uncredited

"Badge of Glory"
Art Uncredited

"Death Laughs Last"
Art Uncredited

"Voodoo Vengeance"
Art Uncredited







#13 (January 1954)
Cover Uncredited

"Experiment in Terror"
Ar by Carl Burgos

"Rendezvous with Doom"
Art Uncredited

"Death Do Us Part"
Art Uncredited









#14 (March 1954)
Cover Uncredited

"Frigid Fear!"
Art Uncredited

"Wheel of Terror"
Art Uncredited

"Trumpet of Doom"
Art by Robert Hayward Webb

"Dying is So Contagious"
Art Uncredited







#15 (May 1954) 
Cover Uncredited

"The Devil Collects"
Art Uncredited

"Terror on Location"
Art Uncredited

"Fear of the Witch"
Art Uncredited

"Death is the Jury!"
Art Uncredited





#16 (July 1954)
Cover Uncredited

"Devil's Bride"
Art Uncredited

"Web of the Widow"
Art Uncredited

"Blade of Horror"
Art Uncredited









#17 (September 1954)
Cover Uncredited

"Mirror of Madness"
Art Uncredited

"Devil's Ballet"
Art Uncredited

"Die Screaming"
Art Uncredited

"Monster in the Mist"
Art Uncredited






#18 (November 1954)
Cover Uncredited

"Tiger -- Tiger!"
Art Uncredited

"If I Should Die --"
Art Uncredited

"Fanged Terror"
Art Uncredited

"No Place to Go"
Art Uncredited

Luis Dominguez

Ghosts 43

"The River of Phantoms"
Story by Carl Wessler
Art by Frank Redondo

"The Boy Who Cried Ghosts"
Story Uncredited
Art by Buddy Gernale

"Specter in the Stone"
Story by Carl Wessler
Art by J. B. Ingente

"3 Corpses on a Rope"
Story by Carl Wessler
Art by Lee Elias

Jack: Kurov, a Nobel Prize winner in physics, tells reporters that he escaped the Soviet Union with the aid of a ghostly boatman, who ferried him safely along "The River of Phantoms." His story is seconded by the captain of the ship on which he now travels. In 1906, the captain's family had fled Czar Nicholas with the aid of the same ghostly boatman, who turned them all into specters just long enough to avoid being killed by bullets from the czar's soldiers. An unusually evocative story from Wessler, it made me look up Kurov and the Ghostly Boatman of the Dnieper but, alas, both appear to be invented. There is a real river by that name, though.

Peter: The art by Frank Redondo keeps this one from being a total waste of time.

Jack: Belgium, 1970, and young Jean-Pierre is "The Boy Who Cried Ghosts." After he annoys his grandparents twice with his hollering, they lock him out the third time, and soon Gramps finds Jean-Pierre dead in the cemetery outside. Three pages is plenty for a silly little story like this.

Peter: This one made no sense at all to me. How did Jean-Pierre die? And how would he then see his own ghost?

Jack: Alabama, 1904, and train engineer Robert Musgrove is killed in a crash just before he is to be wed. His wife soon disappears, but later local residents observe a "Specter in the Stone," an image of the young woman imprinted on the monument that marks Robert's grave. Another short tale--two pages--but decent art.

Peter: Another confusing one. So the woman died and then became part of the stone? How much time passed before she became part of that stone? Ingente was yet another member of the Filipino Invasion at DC and, while he displays a nice style, he only had a few more credits (chief among them as inker on a couple issues of DC's Kong the Untamed) before dropping out of sight altogether.

Jack: Baltimore, 1849, and three medical students steal the body of Edgar Allan Poe from its grave to sell for anatomy studies. A church bell rings and Poe's ghost warns the men that they will be "3 Corpses on a Rope" and that they all will die by the rope that rings the bill. One by one, they pass away, the first two at the foot of the bell tower and the third under water when he tries to dispose of the deadly rope. Messing with real people is dangerous, as Wessler discovers in this tepid tale, but Lee Elias surely could have done a better job of rendering the writer whose face is so well known.

Peter: The climax saves this one from being a total ho-hum. Four strikes and you're out this issue but at least we get pretty pitchers to look at.

Bill Draut

The House of Secrets 136

"Buried Treasure"
Story by Jack Oleck
Art by Frank Reyes

"Last Voyage of the Lady Luck"
Story by Maxene Fabe
Art by Ramona Fradon

Peter: Jeff Hunt believes that his grandfather's fortune should go to him and not to his two brothers so, after the old man decrees that the grandson who finds the "Buried Treasure" inherits the fortune, Hunt murders his two siblings and prepares to make a "killing." When Gramps falls ill and sends his man-servant, Chin, out on an errand, Hunt pressures his grandfather for the location of the fortune, while confessing to the murders. The old man has some 'fessing of his own to do: he suspected Jeff of the crimes and played ill. Chin enters the room, having heard the entire monologue, and he and Jeff battle. Hunt is accidentally killed and Gramps has him buried in a special coffin: one made of solid gold, his entire fortune.

Right next to "the swamp witch on the edge of the bayou" in the cliched and overused plot device department is the greedy relative. Lord knows Jack Oleck has used this one countless times before and it's showing its age. The only deviation here is, of course, the solid gold coffin. A nice twist but it can't save this from being a bore.

Jack: Boring yes, but I was happy to see a quick bit of karate at the end when Chin chops Jeff. The credit on this story says Frank Reyes but all the way through it looks like Alex Nino was involved, perhaps in the inking. Many of the panels really look like Nino's style.

Peter: Young Paul Parker's parents are lost at sea and he's forced to live with his aunt and uncle, two elderly, crusty barnacles who couldn't care less about the boy and make no bones about it. The old timers are feeling the money pinch as they've just invested all their money in a new ship. Feeling rejected, Paul races from the house with suicide on his mind. He makes his way down to the docks, where he runs into a salty old sea dog who shows Paul the boat his uncle has just bought, a broken-down pile of lumber that may not make its way out of port.

The old man tells Paul there's a way to make sure the ship succeeds and then shows the lad a "mystic ship," a child's size boat on rockers. They take the ship back to the house of his (perturbed) relatives and he learns how to "sail" the toy. Sure enough, his uncle's boat breaks all sea records on its first journey and, soon, the old codgers are rich. Thinking nothing of sharing their wealth with their young ward, the couple instead pressure Paul to keep the fame and fortune alive. Unfortunately, the second trip doesn't go so well and Paul's uncle is fuming, threatening to send the boy to an orphanage if their luck doesn't return. The boy returns to his room and, when the ship leaves for its next voyage, hops back aboard his mystic ship. The next morning, Paul's uncle bursts in to share the good news: the voyage had been a success. He finds the lifeless body of Paul, his lungs filled with water.

A very downbeat ending to this enchanting fable (well, excise all the child labor laws being broken and it's a bit of a light fantasy, no?), which rewards the guilty and punishes the innocent, something we see very little of here in the DC Mystery titles. Ramona Fradon's art has run hot and cold for me but, on "Last Voyage of the Lady Luck," it's bullseye perfect, cartoony enough for the subject matter and whimsical enough to make the reader expect a happy ending. Then Maxene Fabe lowers the boom! If the story ran uncredited, I'd swear this was from the desk of Michael Fleisher. Only Mike has been this mean and cruel to his characters in the past. Watch for "Lady Luck" to pull into Top Ten Harbor in a couple months.


Jack: Maxene Fabe does a nice job of "paying tribute to" (ripping off) D.H. Lawrence's 1926 short story, "The Rocking-Horse Winner," even down to naming the boy Paul and following essentially the same plot, replacing a race horse with a sailing ship. If this story caused anyone to seek out Lawrence's fiction, that's a good thing, but without crediting the source that's hard to imagine. Fradon's art is outstanding and reminded me in one panel of something Will Eisner would have drawn in the late '40s.

Bernie Wrightson

The House of Mystery 236

"Death Played a Sideshow"
Story by Coram Nobis (David V. Reed)
Art by Steve Ditko and Mike Royer

"Deep Sleep"
Story by Jack Oleck
Art by Paul Kirchner and Neal Adams

Peter: Tom Mapes is in love but his object of affection won't have a thing to do with him so he goes to see carnival "spiritualist" Dr. Krupke for advice. Unknown to Tom, Krupke is a con-man and charlatan; he tells the boy to bring all his money to burn in Krupke's urn in order to prove that love is more important than money. Like a dope, Tom falls for the act and brings his entire life savings to burn a little at a time. Krupke switches the dough out for counterfeit, which he burns in his "sacred urn." Once the dough is gone, he tells Tom not to propose marriage for three days (the carnival leaves in two), but the intended gets wind of Tom's foolishness and elopes with another man. When the frazzled and broken-hearted young man comes back to demand his money be returned, the con-man bashes him over the head and dumps his body in the river. When Tom's friends are told of his death, they go to the sheriff and the group hatches a plan. They'll scare Krupke into confessing by having one of the boys pose as Tom's ghost. That night, Krupke is visited by a scary spirit and exits the tent, screaming for sanctuary in jail. The boys are excited that they've succeeded until they find out the ruse got waylaid;  they realize it was really Tom's ghost!


Groan. Not this one again. How many times did we see the old "sorry, Bob, I couldn't get the werewolf make-up on in time, the road washed out, and I got a flat tire, so what happened?" climax when the DC horror titles were chock full of reprints? If you were in love with a girl and she didn't love you back, why would you go to a fortune teller? Didn't this town have a Swamp Witch Haddie like every other DC town? The return of Steve Ditko sounds great in theory but this Ditko wasn't the same guy who lit up our childhoods with Spider-Man and Dr. Strange. By 1975, Steve was doing his work predominately for Charlton but had just set up shop again at DC, where he worked on Shade, the Changing Man, Stalker, and a revival of The Creeper. "Death Played a Sideshow" should have appeared in one of those Charlton titles; it certainly doesn't fit in the House of Mystery.

Jack: Peter, m'boy, you are 100% wrong! Ditko was great at Charlton and his return to DC was wonderful, just like this story. The tale moves along pleasantly and is nice and simple, without the convoluted, confusing twists and turns we see from Wessler and Kashdan. The art is clean, simple and smooth, and I thought it was delightful. I did not see the twist ending coming because I was having such a good time. I know we've seen the "Banquo's Chair" switch a zillion times but for some reason it fits perfectly here.

Peter: John Lawson is summoned to the estate of his friend, Alan Trent, and asked to watch over Alan and his sister Elizabeth should anything happen to them. Alan tells John that he and his sister share a rare disease that makes them appear dead. They both fear being buried alive and ask John to stay with them as a safeguard. Elizabeth dies very soon afterward and Alan inters her in the family mausoleum with a chain connected to a chime inside the house. Should Elizabeth "rise from the dead," she will be saved. John stays but, after a week of no sleep, he's lost his patience. When Alan falls asleep, John chooses that moment to relax a bit as well. Alan awakens, relating a horrible dream about his sister and the men rush to the mausoleum. There they find that Elizabeth had awakened and struggled to leave the tomb but was too weak to succeed. Alan is beside himself and so John agrees to live out his days with the man, feeling guilty that he'd drugged John on the night Elizabeth rang the chimes.

Had the DC Mystery Bullpen run out of ideas by 1975? The two stories in this issue seem to make a good case in the affirmative. "Deep Sleep" is about the most unoriginal Jack Oleck script we've seen. Yes, there have been bad ones, but nothing so cribbed as this Frankenstein-like stitching together of several Poe stories. The return of Neal Adams should be a celebration but if anyone can see a hint of Neal in there, please point it out to me. It's evident to me that Paul Kirchner got his inspiration from old Hammer film stills (Alan Trent is clearly Peter Cushing and in one panel, we get Peter Cushing's head on Chris Lee's Dracula body!), with the rest of the art see-sawing between eerie and uninspiring.  Unfortunately, this issue is a sign of things to come.

Hammer's Greatest Hits

Jack: I was excited when I saw Neal Adams's name on this story, but I am at a loss trying to figure out what he did. Granted, the layouts are kind of nice and there is some spooky work with shadows and color, but the faces and figures look nothing like any Neal Adams art I've ever seen. The last page has a cool layout with three narrow panels depicting a character drinking from a glass; they remind me a bit of what Neal was doing (briefly) in the X-Men during his short run on that title.

Luis Dominguez

Unexpected 169

"What Can Be Worse Than Dying?"
Story by George Kashdan
Art by Ruben Yandoc

"How Ugly the Face of Death!"
Story by George Kashdan
Art by Alfredo Alcala

"5 Miles to Midnight"
Story by Wesley Marsh (Murray Boltinoff)
Art by Lee Elias

Jack: Matt Halstead thinks he got away with sabotaging his own Middle Eastern oil wells to collect the insurance money, but when fall guy Reza shows up and vows revenge, Matt knows he will soon wonder: "What Can Be Worse Than Dying?" Reza was on the receiving end of some Middle Eastern justice that left him missing an arm, a leg and an eye, so when Matt returns to the states his dog is first to feel the pain, losing a leg. His son then loses an arm after a car crash. Matt tries to protect his wife by pretending she lost an eye in a fire, but the fire gets out of control and Matt becomes Reza's last victim, losing an arm, both legs and an eye. I am not one of those fans who loves to see gore, so I found this story to be in bad taste. It's a shame Ruben Yandoc's art is wasted on something like this.

That's just wrong!

Peter: Not bad. Not bad at all, but everything about "What Can Be Worse..." is wrong for Unexpected; it belongs in one of the titles that spotlights darker material like HoS or HoM.

Jack: Wilson staggers through a future wasteland, suffering from radiation poisoning. He is captured and subjected to surgery to try to halt his deterioration, but the operation fails. He is sent back to the wasteland to live among the other freaks, who looks like us--the normal folks below ground look like monsters. "How Ugly the Face of Death!" is derivative but the art is rather impressive. It's funny that the last two stories by Alcala featured similar themes.

In Interlaken, NY, Rod Serling just rolled over in his grave.

Peter: Should have been titled "Farewell to the Master," as this is the last we'll see of Alfredo Alcala after a tenure of three years and 59 stories. As far as I'm concerned, this journey has only strengthened my argument that Alcala was the best artist who ever drew for the DC Mystery line but, unfortunately, "How Ugly..." is not nearly his best work. Though there's no inker credited, I have to believe there was one involved as this Alcala looks buried under an inkpot. This little 3-page rip-off of "Eye of the Beholder" (from The Twilight Zone) is easily forgotten but what will be remembered are at least a half-dozen horror classics Alfredo put his pencil to from 1972 through 1975.

Jack: While wandering through the Scottish countryside, James Macrae and his young son Donald happen upon the little town of Midnight, where they visit a house to pay their respects to the dead. To James's horror, the townsfolk are celebrating the death of a miser named Angus Ferguson, who suddenly sits up in his coffin, announces that he's not dead, and orders them out of his house. He tells James and Donald that they are the only decent people he has met and gives them the key to his safety deposit box. The townsfolk go crazy and James fights them off, telling Donald to run for it.

Confused and lost, Donald winds up back where he started and has to hide in Ferguson's coffin from the returning townsfolk. His coffin-mate is dead, shot by the villagers, who haul the coffin out for burial. A fight breaks out among the ruffians and Donald is spared, happily reunited with his father. A complicated little story, "5 Miles to Midnight" is easily the highlight of this issue of Unexpected, and Lee Elias's art is growing on me.

Peter: A strange one, this. Boltinoff tricks us into thinking the old man is the villain when he's actually the "innocent." The climax is weak but I liked the set-up enough to give "5 Miles to Midnight" a thumbs-up.

Ernie Chan

Weird Mystery Tales 23

"The Quiz Show"
Story by Michael Fleisher
Art by Fred Carrillo

"Fair Exchange"
Story by Sergio Aragones and Steve Skeates
Art by Wally Wood

Peter: Horace Perkin is caught embezzling by his boss and given one week to repay the 25K he's "borrowed," or it's lights out for Horace. Wonderfully for Horace, his afternoon mail brings an invitation to guest on Outwit the Clock, a TV quiz show which pays out big bucks. Horace arrives at the show and is put through a series of dangerous stunts, such as bobbing for apples while his head is in a guillotine. Horace manages to survive all the ordeals he faces on "The Quiz Show" and is rewarded with a new car and forty grand. Ecstatic, the embezzler drives off the set, through the door and discovers he's been shrunken. He's run over by a taxi and squashed. The host of the show and his three gal-pals all change back into witches and ride their brooms into the night, laughing merrily. Mike Fleisher's script is pretty dumb (although I'll admit the final panel drew half a chuckle) and it's not helped at all by Fred Carrillo's generic art.

Jack: We usually can count on Fleisher for a good story with a killer twist ending, but not here. I was enjoying the story quite a bit, despite the artwork, until the dumb twist at the end. I was thinking, "why did he and his car suddenly shrink?" and then I found out that everyone on the quiz show was a witch! Makes perfect sense. Was it a coincidence that they targeted Horace, or did they know about his embezzling? Fleisher does a good job of satirizing a mid-'70s TV game show, but he should have come up with a better ending to tie the whole thing together.

That's definitely Wally

Peter: Seymour can't stand his rich, smothering Aunt Sybil and the little weasel wants to eliminate her and gain access to her wealth. Seymour's girlfriend has a better idea: they'll trick the gardener, Don Pascual, into murdering Sybil and they'll be free and clear. They drug the man and make him believe he's dying and then Seymour appears in Don's room, disguised as Death. Delirious, the man asks Death if there's any way he can immediately avoid the afterlife and he's told the only way is to murder Sybil and then the Grim Reaper will grant him a stay of ten years. Seymour throws his aunt a party and, at that shindig, Pascual kills Sybil. When Seymour and his girlfriend arrive on scene, they discover that their ruse worked too well and Pascual has gone mad, believing he's made a deal with Death for even more years. He shoots them both. Two "greedy relatives" stories in one month is a bit much but at least "Fair Exchange" has a decent twist in its tail. Wally Wood, much like Steve Ditko, had seen better days. I'm wondering if someone else inked this without credit as there are only a few glimpses of the genius on display here; the art is drab and lifeless, two adjectives I'd never applied to Wally's work before.

This, though, is debatable

Jack: I liked this one quite a bit as well. It looks like mid-1970s Wally Wood to me. Wood's return to DC around this time was exciting to me, just like Ditko's return. As you note, the twist is a good one.

Luis Dominguez

Witching Hour 59

"Reunion in Blood"
Story by George Kashdan
Art by Ruben Yandoc

"The Hanging Judge"
Story by Carl Wessler
Art by Buddy Gernale

"The Corpse Wore Shoes"
Story by Carl Wessler
Art by E.R. Cruz

Jack: Paul Carlin returns to Carlinsberg at his father's urgent request, only to find his hometown a mess. It seems a monster has been killing townsfolk and being a general nuisance. Paul learns that the monster emanates from his father, whom the villagers were loath to kill. Paul announces that he'll take care of it and goes to his father's house, where he finds that Emil, a servant, has already killed the old man. The fact that the monster's latest rampage occurred after Pop's death means that Paul is a monster, too, and he and Emil grapple until both are dead. The end of "Reunion in Blood" would be more surprising if we didn't see a monster coming out of Paul on the very first page!

Spoiler alert!

Peter: This is not bad for a George Kashdan script (always with my disclaimers, right?) but did Georgie really believe he'd surprise us with that finale? With the exit of Alfredo Alcala (whose last DC horror story appears in this month's Unexpected), Ruben Yandoc becomes the go-to guy for creepy, detailed art.

One angry judge!

Jack: Judge Bradford Karnes is known as "The Hanging Judge" because he sentences murderers to hang each and every time. After having committed murder and receiving a similar sentence, the judge kills his lawyer and escapes from prison, UNEXPECTEDLY also killing the messenger who was bringing word from the governor that his sentence had been commuted. Did I say UNEXPECTEDLY? Oops, wrong comic. Sadly, other than the narration by the three witches, The Witching Hour and Unexpected have become interchangeable.

Peter: Well, we can at least be glad "The Hanging Judge" was only three pages long.

Jack: Lorraine Abernathy is a pretty, hired girl with designs on her employer, Jeb Kemp. When a tornado approaches, Lorraine locks Jeb's wife Julie out of the storm cellar, causing Julie's death. "The Corpse Wore Shoes" that Lorraine fancied, so she steals them from Julie's coffin and takes to wearing them, even to her wedding to Jeb a few months later. Julie's coffin rises from the grave after a flood and then again after an earthquake, but the third time it comes back Lorraine loses her mind and the Kemps find those pretty shoes right back where they belong. Have there been many story titles more mundane than this one? At least we have some nice-looking female types drawn by Mr. Cruz.


Peter: Lori steals the shoes off his dead wife's corpse and all this dope can say is "I wish you'd found a better way to be thrifty!"? Then the guy opens up his wife's coffin in front of his children? There's something a bit off about this family.


Tales of Ghost Castle 3

"The Demon's Here to Stay!"
Story by Jack Oleck
Art by Ernie Chan and Bill Draut

"A Very Private Hell!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Frank Redondo

"In the Eye of the Beholder"
Story by Mal Warwick
Art by Bill Draut

Peter: Andre LeBraun's a big boy and his parents become worried about their son when he starts exhibiting symptoms of telekinesis, which wouldn't be such a big deal if they didn't live in a village known for burning witches at the stake. Andre just wants to be left alone with his dog but, when the village medicine man becomes involved and recommends an exorcism, there's going to be hell to pay. When the votives and pews take to the air and spin, the exorcising priest throws up his hands and the doc turns Andre into the town sheriff. Andre is burnt at the stake and his heartbroken parents return home.

Andre's cur shows up and is given a very unfriendly welcome by Paul LeBrun. Suddenly, the house comes down on Paul and his wife and, as he is dying, the man realizes that the wrong witch was burned at the stake. "The Demon's Here to Stay" is a really long story that meanders; every other panel seems to be Paul and his wife discussing how strange their son is with yet another party. This is the ugliest Ernie Chan art I've ever seen, almost Draut-ish in its awfulness, but the whole affair is semi-saved by a twist I never saw coming. Sometimes that's all it takes to elevate a DC Mystery story from dreck to... well, not complete dreck.

Jack: You taught me well, because I knew it was the dog by page four. Ernie Chan must have drawn stick figures for layouts because this looks 100% Draut to me.




Peter: Tyrone Blake murders his young girlfriend, Tina, when she decides to end their relationship, and then he runs home to his wife and children. But Tyrone can't seem to escape his evil deed, as it plagues his dreams and taints everything he sees. When his wife suggests they move to the country, Tyrone jumps at the chance to escape the city and his memories but, even with the new surroundings he can't shake Tina. The exact opposite of the opening story, "A Very Private Hell!" has a strong foundation, a clever gimmick (Frank Redondo uses a "split screen" format to show how Tyrone sees everything bleakly while his wife takes in the beauty around her), but a weak and inane climax. Bob Kanigher seems to be batting .500 with his mystery stories lately.

Jack: The gimmick of having everyone else see things as they are while Tyrone sees them through a lens of horror was interesting, though never explained. I suppose it was due to his own guilt. Frank Redondo's art is okay, but he's no Nestor.

Peter: Aliens search Earth for civilization and are delighted to find the planet teeming with life. Unfortunately, for mankind, life is in "The Eye of the Beholder" as we discover these visitors are made of metal and they perceive our vehicles as the real civilization. When they spy the occupants of the vehicles, they believe them to be parasites and drop a nasty "bug bomb," wiping out mankind. An amusing three-pager with a nice twist (something we don't see much of in these short-shorts) and the best art you can expect out of Bill Draut.

Jack: I completely agree. This one was fun and the art fit the story perfectly. It's a clever idea to suggest that the machines are the real inhabitants of Earth and that the humans are parasites who latch onto them. Mal Warwick's stories are more science fiction than horror.

Peter: And that ends the three-issue run of Tales of Ghost Castle, a title launched at a time when the sales of the DC Mystery line were dwindling. This won't be the last short-run horror zine launched in the 1970s, as 1978 will see five issues of Doorway to Nightmare, an anthology hosted by Madame Xanadu, a mystic who would find fame and fortune among the spandex decades later. The highlight of DtN was the cover art by Xanadu creator Mike Kaluta.

In the 65th TNT-Pineapple-filled Issue of Star Spangled DC War Stories... You Will Believe That Planes Can Fly in Train Tunnels! On Sale November 2nd!

by Jack Seabrook

Stanley Ellin's short story, "The Orderly World of Mr. Appleby," first published in the May 1950 issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, was adapted for television twice and is a good example of how the changes made for televised versions in 1956 and 1980 reflect the tastes and mores of the times.

Mr. Appleby, a "small, prim man," as described by Ellin, decides to murder his wife and consults a "text on forensic medicine" that he finds in a used book store. He reads of a case where a woman died "after what was presumably an accidental fall on a scatter rug in her home." A lawyer charged her husband with murder but the accused died of a sudden heart attack before anything was proved. Mrs. X had been bringing her husband a glass of water and the lawyer speculated that the man could have put "one hand behind his wife's shoulder, another hand along her jaw, and with a sudden thrust" produced the same result as a fall on a scatter rug.

Appleby is devoted to his shop, where he sells antiques and curios, but when his mother died he needed a new source of money to support the unsuccessful business. He married a woman who did not appreciate his love for the items on his shop, so he murdered her and used her money to stay in business. He married and killed five more wives, each time moving to a new location, but eventually the money ran out and he was forced to seek out a new bride.

Robert H. Harris as Appleby

He meets Martha Sturgis who, though "slovenly and strident," has half a million dollars in the bank. He woos and wins her and she comments often on how Appleby reminds her of her own father. Her lawyer, Gainsborough, makes the arrangements and soon Appleby is once again thinking of murder for profit. Forced to live in his new wife's disorderly home and fed meals too rich for his taste, "Appie," as Martha takes to calling him, is miserable.

One evening, he decides to set his plan in motion and asks her to bring him a glass of water. As she approaches, Appleby places one hand on her shoulder and the other on her jaw, only to hear Martha ask, "Is that what happened to all the others?" To his surprise, she knows all about his prior wives. It seems Martha's parents were the couple that Appleby read about in the textbook: her father murdered her mother by the very method that Appleby adopted for his own series of crimes. Martha decided to get revenge by marrying a man similar to her father and making him unhappy for the rest of his life.

Martha tells Appleby that Gainsborough has enough evidence to convict him of six murders. The lawyer calls every night to check on her and will turn the evidence over to the police if she is not there and in good health when he telephones. Gainsborough calls and Appleby summons his wife, who promptly slips on the scatter rug, falls, and fatally hits her head. Appleby hears Gainsborough on the other end of the telephone line telling him, "Your time is up!"

Meg Mundy as Martha

Like "The Cat's Paw," the prior story by Stanley Ellin to be adapted for Alfred Hitchcock Presents by Robert C. Dennis, "The Orderly World of Mr. Appleby" is a perfect fit for the series. The main character is an ordinary, rather dull man who does extraordinary things. Domestic murders are committed, and there are not one but two twist endings. The first TV adaptation was broadcast on CBS on Sunday, April 15, 1956, near the end of the first season. The title card states that the teleplay is by Victor Wolfson and Robert C. Dennis, based on the story by Stanley Ellin. At this late date, it is not likely that we will determine why it took two writers to adapt this story for the small screen, but it is possible that Wolfson had some difficulties and Dennis corrected them.

While the TV show follows the same basic plot as the story, it also includes significant changes.The show opens by cutting out the story's first section, in which Appleby has already murdered six wives. Instead, we see Martha Sturgis shopping at Appleby's store. A new character named Dizar is introduced; he demands payment of $12,000 for inventory that his father shipped to the curio shop. This increases the pressure on Appleby to come up with money in a hurry and dramatizes his dilemma by adding a somewhat threatening character from the Middle East. Martha drops a valuable antique and it shatters on the floor, foreshadowing her own fall at the end of the show.

We then see Appleby at home with his current wife, who is slovenly and unhappy. He asks her to cash in her insurance policy so he can pay Dizar, but she refuses. He takes a book that was hidden at the back of his bookcase and consults it; the book's title is Accident or Murder, and the fact that it was already there and hidden suggests that he was already thinking about killing his wife.

Appleby brings in a throw rug and arranges it on the floor in front of his chair. He consults the book, asks for a glass of water, bends down as if to tie his shoelace and, when his wife is in position, yanks the rug out from under her. The image of Appleby sitting back in his chair with the rug pulled up to his chest and a stricken look on his face is quite memorable and will be repeated later in the episode. His wife falls and dies when her head hits the stone fireplace hearth; presumably, Wolfson and Dennis decided that a fall to the floor was insufficient to ensure sudden death and added the contact between head and stone.

Appleby immediately calls the police to report an accident, foreshadowing his position at the end of the episode, where he remains on the telephone after Martha's fatal fall. The fact that he has to consult a book to follow the steps to murder suggests that he has not done it before, unlike the story, where he already had murdered six wives without getting caught. The financial pressure on Appleby continues to be a focus of the teleplay, as he pays Dizar the money he owes and then learns that he will not receive any more inventory unless he pays for it on delivery. Dizar suggests to Appleby that he sell more items to Martha Sturgis, who was in the shop when Dizar first visited, and Appleby takes this advice to heart, visiting the woman at home and attempting to make a gift to her of an antique jewel box, though she insists on paying for it.

Gage Clarke as Gainsborough

Appleby begins to court Martha, and Robert H. Harris, in the lead role, is delightfully smarmy in the way he flatters the lonely spinster. They are married and he moves into her home, where he is unhappy with the disorder around him. She, on the other hand, is pleased at the thought that he might lose his shop, since it would mean that he would spend all of his time at home with her. Gainsborough telephones, as he has done every night since her father died, and we see a shot from Appleby's point of view of Martha's feet on a small throw rug. It is clear that he is starting to think about murder. By adding the detail of Gainsborough's nightly call prior to the conclusion, Wolfson and Dennis set up the climax neatly.

Money troubles again rear their ugly head and Appleby comes home one night to say that he must pay Dizar $7000 by the next day or he will lose his shop. Martha refuses to lend him the money. In a parallel to the earlier scene with his first wife, the desperate need for quick cash drives Appleby to attempt a murderous act. Once again he arranges the rug on the floor, sits down, requests a glass of water, bends to tie his laces, and suddenly yanks the rug from the floor, this time pulling it all the way up to his chin. However, there is no sudden fall; instead, Martha asks: "Was that how you did it before? Was it Accident or Murder?" She tells him that she found the book and Gainsborough found out about his first wife.

Michael Ansara as Dizar

Here, the show diverges in a very important way from the story, as there is no mention of Martha's parents. Instead of seeking revenge for her mother's murder, she sees it as her duty to protect other, unsuspecting women from Appleby by remaining his wife. Wolfson and Dennis must have decided that the coincidence of having Martha be the child of the couple about whom Appleby reads in the textbook was too far fetched, and they may have been correct. The Martha of the TV show appears to have been genuine in her affection for Appleby and it is clear that she was disappointed to discover his true colors. The final scene is the same as that in Ellin's story, though when Martha falls she hits her head on a stone hearth, just like Appleby's first wife.

Other than streamlining the plot and making it fit into a half-hour format, the changes wrought by Wolfson and Dennis make Appleby less of a Bluebeard and more of a victim of circumstance, if that can be said of a man who murders his wife to get her money. The threat of financial ruin is increased and is used as the explanation for his crimes. Perhaps the killer of six wives would not have been as palatable to the censors in 1956 as the killer of one wife.

The story was first published here

"The Orderly World of Mr. Appleby" was again adapted for television in 1980, this time by Robin Chapman, and broadcast on June 7, 1980, during the second season of Tales of the Unexpected. While the color remakes of stories originally shown on the black and white Alfred Hitchcock Presents are usually not as good as the originals, this episode is an exception and may be a better adaptation of Ellin's story than the 1956 version. This time, voice over narration by series host Roald Dahl explains that Appleby had already killed three wives to support his business; from 1956 to 1980, the acceptable number of wife murders had tripled! The show occurs, inexplicably, in what appears to be England between World War One and World War Two; perhaps the events of the tale seemed to require an old-fashioned setting. In this version, Martha is presented as a much stronger and more forthright woman. She smokes cigarettes incessantly and dominates Appleby physically and emotionally from the first time they meet. Unlike the 1956 version, she often comments on how much Appleby reminds her of her father; this is carried over from Ellin's story but had been removed from the earlier teleplay by Wolfson and Dennis.

Once Appleby and Martha are wed, there is a strong undercurrent of sex in the show that was lacking in the story or the earlier TV version. Martha walks around the house in a nightgown, seems to have a ravenous sexual appetite, and wants her husband to spend more time at home so he can share her bed more frequently. At one point, she hops into bed and says to him, "I'm looking for a distinct improvement tonight." The most memorable images from the earlier version are removed: Appleby does not kill his wives by yanking the rug out from under them. Instead, as in the short story, they slip on the rugs themselves. In another detail from the story, Martha reveals to Appleby at the conclusion that she hated her father, who married and killed her mother for her money by means of a slippery rug on a polished floor. There is no mention of the textbook, Appleby does no formal research into murder techniques, and Martha's parents were not written up in a true crime narrative.

Martha's accidental death

The concluding fall is done in slow motion and is not terribly convincing, especially since Martha hits her head on a wood floor and immediately dies. Elizabeth Spriggs gives an outstanding performance as Martha and Robert Lang is very good as Appleby, though not as wonderfully obsequious as Robert H. Harris in the earlier version. In all three versions, a killer gets away with murder but is done in due to a death he did not engineer; in this way, "The Orderly World of Mr. Appleby" fits in with other episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents where a criminal is punished by fate for past crimes.

Victor Wolfson (1909-1990), who is credited as having co-written the teleplay for Alfred Hitchcock Presents with Robert C. Dennis, wrote books, plays, documentary films, and episodic television. He wrote eight episodes of Suspense, the precursor to the Hitchcock series, in 1951 and 1952, and he wrote an episode of Janet Dean, Registered Nurse, the series produced by Joan Harrison, in 1954. He wrote or co-wrote six episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, including another Stanley Ellin classic, "Specialty of the House."

"The Orderly World of Mr. Appleby" was directed by James Neilson (1909-1979), who directed twelve episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, including "Help Wanted."

"Your time is up!"

Appleby is played by Robert H. Harris (1911-1981), a great character actor who started in theater and then had an onscreen career from the late 1940s to the late 1970s. He was in nine episodes of the Hitchcock show, including Ray Bradbury's "Shopping for Death," Fredric Brown's "The Dangerous People," and Robert Bloch's "The Greatest Monster of Them All."

Meg Mundy (1915- ) plays Martha; this was one of her two appearances on the Hitchcock series. She was on TV from 1949 to 2001 and turned 100 years old earlier this year.

Playing Gainsborough, Martha's lawyer, is Gage Clarke (1900-1964); he was also in Henry Slesar's "The Right Kind of Medicine" and appeared in two other episodes of the Hitchcock program.

Finally, Michael Ansara (1922-2013) is effortlessly menacing as Dizar. Born in Lebanon, his long career on screen stretched from 1944 to 1999. He was on Alfred Hitchcock Presents three times, including "Shopping for Death," and his many other TV credits included starring in Broken Arrow (1956-1958), "Soldier" on The Outer Limits, and a classic role on Star Trek. He was married to Barbara Eden from 1958 to 1974.

Note the interesting radio on the left

I plan to write a piece discussing the relationship between Suspense, Alfred Hitchcock Presents/Hour and Tales of the Unexpected in the future; the three series (and the 1980s color remake of the Hitchcock series) have much in common and often adapted the same stories for television.

The 1956 version of "The Orderly World of Mr. Appleby" is available on DVD here but is not currently available for free online viewing. The 1980 version may be viewed for free online here.

Sources:

Ellin, Stanley. "The Orderly World of Mr. Appleby."Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine (May 1950). Rpt. in Murderous Schemes: An Anthology of Classic Detective Stories. Ed. Donald Westlake. New York: Oxford UP, 1996. 298-315. Print.

In two weeks: "The Belfry," starring Jack Mullaney and Pat Hitchcock!

Irv Novick

All American Men of War 105

"Killer Horse--Killer Ship"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Irv Novick

"Tunnel Dogfight!"
Story by Hank Chapman
Art by Jack Abel

Peter: Captain Johnny Cloud must take to the skies in a jinxed ship, a jet whose two previous pilots never made it back alive. To make matters worse, the plane's insigne is a white stallion, resembling the same nag who made part of Cloud's childhood miserable. Can Cloud break the run of bad luck and tame the "Killer Horse--Killer Ship"? A whole load of preposterousness going on in this one. Johnny's surname should be iCloud as the poor guy's got way too many memories to store in one brain. The "biggest fish story" of them all happens in the final act when Cloud is forced to evac from his plane and is (luckily) approached by the same horse from his childhood (we know because it has a black lightning bolt above its muzzle)! I mean, Bob Kanigher doesn't even explain it away at the climax as battle fever or a concussion. Johnny gets aboard and rides the damn thing! Can't wait for the episode when Johnny thinks back on how tough it was constructing an A-bomb as a child.

Jack: On top of all that, we had the same gimmick of a ship that killed prior pilots just three months ago in "The Flying Coffin" (Our Fighting Forces 85, July 1964). Now Bob Kanigher is borrowing ideas from Hank Chapman! Novick's art is good, though, especially in the air battle scenes.

Peter: Before the outbreak of WWI, Gilbert is humiliated by a German cad named Von Roon and, while they're fencing, war is declared. Von Roon swears he'll defeat Gilbert on the battlefield. The two then play a deadly game of "anything you can do, I can do better" over the skies of Europe. Finally, Gilbert bests the German ace in a "Tunnel Dogfight!" This one's just as outlandish as the Cloud story (the climax has our hero blowing up his adversary--while both are in the tunnel--and flying away safely!) but it's got a charm like the 1940s serials. Joe Kubert and Russ Heath are untouchable but Jack Abel is fast becoming a very dependable artist.


Jack: This is some of the best art we've seen from Abel and Chapman keeps the corny dialogue to a minimum. The plethora of WWI planes are welcome and Abel's use of white space and borderless panels is impressive. The appearance of the zeppelin is also welcome.

Joe Kubert

Our Army at War 147

"Generals Don't Die!" (Book One)
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Joe Kubert

"Straw Pilot!"
Story by Hank Chapman
Art by Joe Kubert

Jack: Why is Sgt. Rock wearing a helmet with a general's star and leading a different company into battle? When his C.O. was wounded and Sgt. Rock drove him to an aid station, the sergeant's jeep was blown off the road on the trip back. Coming to his aid was a one-star general, who grabbed Rock's grenades and lobbed one at the tank that had blown up the jeep.

The general ran at the tank and is shot down, so Rock struggled to his side and used the remaining grenade to destroy the enemy's lumbering machine. Rock carried the dying general to safety in the woods and heard the man's story. Alex Bentley may have been big and strong, but his talents lay in administration and management rather than heroics on the playing field or the battlefield. Now, all he wants is for his youngest son to know he was a hero and deserved a medal. The general dies and Rock takes his helmet and stars, impersonating the man as he leads his company into battle.

How to cheer up Dad when he's off fighting the Nazis.

That's where part one of this exciting story ends! We'll have to wait for next issue to see what happens in part two, when Easy Co. arrives to help and Rock's cover is blown. Other than a brief sequence where the general's stars start "talking" to Rock, begging him to take them with him into battle, this is well done, though as Peter notes below, American men had a skewed view of what it meant to be a hero in 1964.

Peter: Given the classy cover and the epic length (27 pages over two issues), I was expecting a classic. What I got was another skewed look at what it took to be a man in the 1940s (you were not a real man unless you got your hands bloody). Don't get me wrong; it's not a bad story (surely not as bad as the gawdawful "talking munitions" pap we got last issue); it just doesn't live up to its presentation. Rock has definitely gotten himself into a bind out of sympathy for the dead "desk General." Impersonating an officer is a court-martialing offense!

Jack: Taylor is the new pilot in the WWI flying squadron, but Morgan tells everyone he's a rat for stealing his girl back home. Taylor turns out to be nothing but a "Straw Pilot!" who can't complete a mission without failing. Morgan keeps cleaning up his messes. Finally, the skipper send them out together on a mission, each in his own plane. Both are shot down and taken prisoner, so both must bust out of the prison compound and escape together. This time, Taylor saves Morgan, who finally develops some respect for his rival. Above average Chapman, despite over use of the word "straw," this story is elevated by Kubert's contribution.

Peter: I was so disappointed when I got to the final panel and realized we wouldn't get to see the splash page scarecrow fly a WWI plane! What a cheat. That would have been a whole lot more fun than the story we got (albeit gorgeously illustrated), which is nothing more than the obligatory repetition. Every squadron seemed to have two guys who just couldn't get along for ten pages but managed to sort things out in the end. Readers must have thought they'd gotten an early Christmas present when opening up to find not one, but two Kubert beauties this issue.

Joe Kubert

Our Fighting Forces 87

"Battle of the Boobytraps!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Jack Abel

"The Only Survivor!"
Story Uncredited
Art by Gene Colan

Jack: Riding a P.T. boat en route to the start of a five-day pass, Gunner and Sarge (and Pooch!) find themselves smack dab in the middle of a "Battle of the Boobytraps!" The hi jinks begin when a Japanese plane destroys the P.T. boat, leaving the trio to fight their way in and out of trouble on a series of enemy rafts and boats. After destroying hat seems like half the Japanese navy, the trio are sad to learn that, due to an enemy counterattack, all leaves have been canceled.

Adding Jack Abel to the mix has certainly improved matters in Gunner and Sarge land, and this is a fairly exciting story. I was surprised to see that Pooch was able to handle wearing an underwater mask and scuba gear, but then he IS Pooch!

Peter: Bob Kanigher must have been reading lots of Hank Chapman scripts since he drops in all kinds of Chapman-isms, like referring to a diving plane as a "flying meatball" (what does that even mean?). Gunner, Sarge, and Pooch is still nothing but silly prattle but at least it's better illustrated once Grandenetti's work dried up on the DC War titles and Jerry headed for Charlton and Warren. Perhaps the only interesting aspect of this throwaway is the cameo by PT Boat skipper, Captain Storm, star of his own DC title for 18 issues from June 1964 through April 1967. Though Storm's book falls out of the scope of our DC War journey (we're only covering the anthologies), the skipper will return at the tail-end of the 1960s as part of the war team, The Losers (co-starring Gunner and Sarge and Johnny Cloud), in Star Spangled and Our Fighting. The Losers were just that, refugees from cancelled series that took on the "tough" assignments. Jack will be relieved to hear that Pooch was a semi-regular as well.

Jack: In the wake of a terrible battle in the desert, one U.S. tank and one Nazi tank are left standing, the commander of each thinking that he is "The Only Survivor!" They quickly spot each other and a deadly game begins, as each tries to take advantage of what they find in the desert to ensure their own survival, knowing that the first to report back to base carries with him valuable information about a weak spot in the enemy's defenses. The Nazi tank commander destroys a land mine, blows up a barrel of fuel, and shoots a man with a canteen of water, all in the name of making sure he comes out on top. Yet, in the end, the American tank commander is the only one left standing as the Nazi tank, manned only by the commander, sinks slowly under a hidden wet spot in the sand.

Each month, I am happier and happier to see Gene Colan contributing to the DC War comics line. This is his best work yet! It's too bad we don't know the name of the story's writer. This is the sort of tale that works best as a backup, since it doesn't have a heroic series character.

Peter: When we decided to tackle the DC War comics a couple years ago, I naively thought we'd get gritty, violent tales of men at war with disturbing images and snappy writing. Yes, I was quite naive and had not thought about the impact the CCA would make on the writers of four-color war stories but, still, I wasn't expecting Gunner and Sarge or TNT pizzas. I can say with great confidence that "The Only Survivor" will be my pick as Best Story of the Year and could end up in my Top Ten DC War Stories of All Time when we get to that in the distant future. Everything about this grim classic works; its unflinching portrait of just what men will do during conflict packs quite a punch. Gene Colan's art has a heck of a lot to do with the success of "The Only Survivor" but the script is aces as well.

In the next horrifyingly hen-pecked issue of Do You Dare Enter? On Sale Nov. 9th!

Peter Enfantino was once president of the Jimmy Olsen fan club!

Bill Draut

The House of Mystery 237

"The Night of the Chameleon"
Story by Russell Carley and Michael Fleisher
Art by Frank Thorne

"Double Exposure"
Story by Jack Oleck
Art by Ruben Yandoc

Peter: Eddie "The Chameleon" Baker, the notorious assassin, has managed to duck into impossible scenarios, elude the police, and kill anyone he's paid to target. His latest mission is to snuff out two mob snitches before they can testify. The first one goes without a hitch but the second target, Tom Dorsey, will be a bit harder to get to since he's being guarded in a hospital room. Baker manages to sneak in by impersonating a top cop and eliminates the target but getting out of the hospital proves to be a bit of a problem. The Chameleon must impersonate a patient waiting to go into the O.R. When he's wheeled in and prepped, Baker attempts to escape but discovers the two O.R. surgeons are really the two men he's just gunned down! The police later find The Chameleon in the O.R., lobotomized. "The Night of the Chameleon" had me hooked right up to the silly reveal of the two dead men turned ghoulish surgeons. It's a pretty silly panel and takes you right out of the suspense, eliciting a snicker rather than a gasp. Over at Marvel University, we've been discussing Frank Thorne's knowledge of the female body (on Red Sonja), but here he does just as well sans any chain-mailed Amazons.


Peter: Poor Paul Taylor only wants a little time to work on his invention, a process that allows a roll of film to produce a solid object of the subject, but his shrewish wife will have none of his nonsense. When Paul falls for a shy girl at work, it gives him the incentive to change his life. He tells his wife he wants a divorce but she vows to take him to the cleaners. That night, Paul has a breakthrough with his invention and then has a brainstorm. He'll shoot footage of himself, bring a twin to life and murder his wife. The plan works and the inventor is sentenced to die but laughs at his executioners as he is hanged, knowing he'll be resurrected when his girlfriend projects his indie film. Only one flaw in Paul's plan: his stepson, enraged by the murder of his mother, burns Paul's lab to the ground, destroying his step-father's film.

"Double Exposure" has a unique gimmick and great art by Yandoc. The shrewish wife bit is a little overdone and Oleck doesn't address the fact that the Paul who will be reborn through the projected footage wouldn't actually be Paul but closer to a clone, wouldn't it? Why wouldn't the junior genius create his twin first and send the newbie to do the dirty work?

Ernie Chua

The House of Secrets 137

"The Harder They Fall"
Story by Carl Wessler
Art by Ernie Chua

"The Magic Elixir"
Story by George Kashdan
Art by Ricardo Villamonte

"Suit of Lights"
Story by Steve Clement and Robert Kanigher
Art by Ruben Yandoc

Peter: "Near-billionaire" Lloyd Chanin has nightmares about losing everything and becoming a skid row bum, so he runs his business as ruthlessly as he can, stepping on as many throats as possible. Only one thing in the universe averts his grasp: lovely Andrea. Though Lloyd promises he'll be a Senator someday and she'll be a Senator's wife, Andrea keeps dodging the question, annoying Lloyd to no end. Then one day, Lloyd is told that Andrea is actually marrying Raphael Brentley, Lloyd's opponent in the Senatorial race, and that she's been cozying up to Chanin to learn his strategies. This sends Lloyd into a spiral and he becomes the skid bum he always dreamed of. Yep, that's the end of "The Harder They Fall," boys and girls. Lloyd doesn't murder Raphael and run against a corpse in the election. He doesn't go see the old witch at the edge of town. He doesn't even discover Andrea is a vampire. I'm not sure whether I should be happy that none of those scenarios came to pass but what I'm left with isn't much to crow about. What the heck is a story like this doing in HoS and what did the kids think about it way back when? I guess Wessler thought he'd come up with a killer plot and couldn't place it in House of Maudlin Mainstream Drama so... here it was dumped.

The most exciting panel we could find from this loser

Jack: I kind of liked it, in a Grading on the Curve Since It's By Carl Wessler sort of way. What I took from the ending was that he was on Skid Row all along and his life as a ruthless billionaire was his nightmare, instead of the other way around. Chan's artwork is nice, for the most part, though there are some shaky panels. Most troubling of all is that we're seeing Wessler and Kashdan in House of Secrets.

Peter: Con man Charlie Whipple goes from burg to burg selling his Cure-All, one dollar a bottle. Then he hits the small village of Jacobsville, where the townsfolk inform Charlie they have no need for happy water, they've got their own pond filled with "The Magic Elixir," a potion that can raise the dead. The con man sees dollar signs flashing before his eyes and he forces one of the locals to take him to the pond but when he gets there, he gets a really big surprise. The town can come back from the dead because they're all vampires  (a rip-off of the classic "Midnight Mess" from Tales from the Crypt)!!!! So, here's a village filled with vampires and they have to set up an elaborate ruse to get one victim? Tell ya what... these bloodsuckers better learn to fly real quick or they're going to be down to skin and bones (accent on the bones) in no time. And odd that George sets this in present time since, as far as I know, traveling medicine men were long since extinct by the 1970s. Only Kashdan could take two cliches and present them as if he thought they were unique ideas.


Peter: Ruiz longs to be a matador but all he can work himself up to is assistant to the great Morelito, a legend who wears the "Suit of Lights." Jealous of his boss, Ruiz murders Morelito and cons his way into the matador position. Just before his first fight, Morelito appears before him in a mirror and informs Ruiz that he was a warlock and that he will have his revenge even in death. As Ruiz heads through the tunnel, he feels faint and then, once into the arena, he discovers that he has become a bull. Oh, Robert Kanigher strikes again. It's only once Morelito is killed that we discover he was a dabbler in black arts. Did this hobby lead to his legendary status? Who knows? It's a pretty random wrap-up and the "twist," that Ruiz becomes the bull to be struck down, has been used a thousand times before.

Jack: It's sad that, in an issue with stories by Wessler and Kashdan, the worst story belongs to Kanigher. I had to read the last page a couple of times to figure out what happened. Then when I did, I was sorry! Even Yandoc's art seems tired, just like the dopey twist in the tail of this very weak story.

Nick Cardy

The Witching Hour 60

"The Body in Cold Storage"
Story by Carl Wessler
Art by Ruben Yandoc

"Over Your Dead Body"
Story by George Kashdan
Art by Lee Elias

"Time to Kill"
Story by Carl Wessler
Art by Jess Jodloman

Jack: When Lew Carey tells Jess Rowan that he plans to give the cops info that'll put Jess in the slammer if Jess doesn't pay him the $200 he owes him, Jess brains Lew with a fireplace poker and hides his body in a meat refrigerator in the pantry, figuring that his sister and brother-in-law won't be back for three days and so won't discover "The Body in Cold Storage." Harriet and Harvey Kimball, Jess's unfortunate relatives, come back from vacation early and find the body right away, but Harriet convinces Harvey not to call copper because Jess has enough problems.

After dumping a corpse in the woods, Harriet remembers her manners

The World's Best Relatives hide the body in the woods and return to their car, only to find that the body beat them back and is sitting in the rear seat. They try to hide it elsewhere but it keeps coming back, so they leave it on a sidewalk. The corpse makes its way to Jess's house, where it confronts its killer. Later that night, Harriet and Harvey come home drunk to find the corpse sitting in the parlor and Jess in the freezer. A terrible attempt at comedy with dashed-off art by Yandoc, this story just plunges along without even trying to make sense.

Peter: Dark comedy only works if it's funny and this is not funny at all. It almost seems like, at times, Wessler's lost a few pages of his script and couldn't find them. How do the dopey couple not know that Lew is still alive? More important, if Lew can get up and walk to the car, why can't he signal to the dunderheads that he's not dead?! A crack is starting to show in the Yandoc foundation: all his male protagonists are beginning to look alike.

Jack: Marcus Crowe has made a career out of making plaster death masks, but when Edward Weems comes along with a plan to make the masks from rubber, Crowe rejects him as an upstart. Soon, Weems is driving Crowe out of business. Crowe begins sneaking around, making masks of people's faces right when they die to capture their final expression before rigor mortis sets in. Some kids scare him on Halloween and his heart fails, so he uses his own face for his final mask. Lee Elias's art is the best thing about "Over Your Dead Body," which is actually above average for Kashdan. But when is it set? It doesn't seem contemporary and I don't know if death masks were ever very much in demand.

Peter: And the die roll seven. About the same odds George Kashdan writes a decent story but this one was pretty good. It doesn't make sense that Crowe would expand into a niche market like "pre-death masks" but then the old man was cracking up so I'll give George that one. And then, in the climax, we get the equivalent of one of those creaky Lovecraft finales where the narrator writes about his own death in his journal ("It's coming through the door... It's got its hands around my throat... Arrrgggghhhh!") when Crowe fashions himself a death mask. Extra points to Kashdan for coming up with a unique plot hook for once.

Jack: A young soldier named Oskar Lumax lost money to a fellow soldier named Reuder. When he goes to steal the money back, he's caught by an officer. Lumax kills the officer and frames Reuder. When they line up the firing squad to execute Reuder, Lumax's gun misfires and he confesses to the murder right before expiring. "Time to Kill" is short and overly complicated. Jodloman does his usual job of providing some sketchy panels and some nice facial close ups.

Peter: At three pages, it's neither good nor bad but that panel of Lumax's rifle backfiring is pretty brutal.

Jack: I know it's faint praise, but this issue of The Witching Hour was not awful.

Joe Orlando & Bill Draut

Weird Mystery Tales 24

"Death is a Wind-Up Bear"
Story by Michael Fleisher
Art by Ricardo Villamonte

"The Strange Ones"
Story by Jack Oleck
Art by Mike Kaluta

Peter: Two thugs murder the kindly corner teddy bear salesman (every town has one, right?) and then become victims of the murderous toys. "Death is a Wind-Up Bear" is disjointed, meandering, and ultimately, deadly dumb. This has got to be the nadir of Fleisher's DC horror career. I'm not wasting any more time on this one. Disagree with me on this one, Jack, I dare you!

Jack: At this point, Fleisher is writing stories that read as if they're written by someone trying to copy Michael Fleisher's style and not doing a very good job. This one has all of the standard elements: an innocent person violently murdered, a weird revenge plot, a gruesome finale. One problem is that it seems so rote by now. The wind-up teddy bears escape from the police station unnoticed and then manage to walk on the old man's coffin even when it's buried underground. The story would have been much more interesting if it showed just how those teddy bears escaped and burrowed under the earth--it would be like Wes Craven directing Toy Story!


Peter: In the future, romance and emotion have been banned, but two young lovers, Anne and James, escape their society to try to find a place where they belong. Chased by "enforcers," the couple end up in a "neglected" part of the city where they find their way into a library. With the "enforcers" closing in, Anne and James stumble into the "Romance" section and discover a way out by reading Romeo and Juliet. Though I'm not a fan of mixing science fiction with my horror in these DC titles, "The Strange Ones" is about the best SF we've seen on this journey and easily the best mystery story I've read in quite a while; like opening the window after your house has been filled with dead fish for three weeks. Yep, it's very reminiscent of Logan's Run (which had not yet been adapted to the big screen) but it's well-written and has a killer finale. It also has Mike Kaluta's incredible art, easily the best we've seen this year. If there's a Best Pin-Up Babe in our Year's Best category this year, my vote goes to Enforcer-147, who's very vintage Catwoman-esque.



Jack: I'm surprised you liked this one so much! As I read it, I kept thinking that I would have liked it a lot more when I was a teenager, because it seems like something a teenager would come up with. It's amazing that Jack Oleck had such an innocent imagination at age 61! Did you know he was Joe Simon's brother in law? I was a big fan of Mike Kaluta in the '70s and he was one of those "fan turned pro" type of artists that I enjoyed following. His art here is very nice in spots but seems unfinished in others.

Peter: The letters page reveals that this will be the final issue of Weird Mystery Tales as the readers "haven't been chasing chills quite as hard recently," and horror host Eve will move over to the pages of Plop! Sales stats will bear out that the readers weren't chasing chills in any of the DC horror titles in 1975, but then sales of funny books were down all across the board (Batman saw a 20% drop from 1974 to 1975) in the mid-'70s and would continue to plummet. Looking back at my notes for the 65 tales that appeared in the 24 issues of Weird Mystery Tales, I rated 15 three stars or better (with the best story, the Michelinie/Nino "Neely's Scarecrow" appearing in #16). While I'm essentially saying that less than 25% of the WMT stories were good enough to recommend, I'd stack that percentage against the whole of Unexpected, The Witching Hour, and Ghosts any day.

Jack: I agree that it was a pretty solid comic for most of its run.

Luis Dominguez

Secrets of Haunted House 4

"The Face of Death"
Story by Jack Oleck
Art by E.R. Cruz

"This Rat Will A-Maze You!"
Story by George Kashdan
Art by Paul Kirchner

"Bird's Eye View"
Story by Maxene Fabe
Art by Nestor Redondo

Jack: Carl Talbot is a thief and a murderer, but when he crosses the river into Mexico the law can't touch him. Wounded, fatigued and thirsty, he collapses in the desert and is rescued by Indians who are descended from the Aztecs and live in old ruins. They nurse him back to health. One day, he witnesses a native whose leg is crushed in an avalanche of rocks. The local medicine man cures him and Talbot insists the man call upon his Old Gods to provide the killer with a new face. Talbot shoots a native boy to show that he means business and, soon enough, the Old Gods are summoned and provide him with a new face. Talbot does not realize that he has been given "The Face of Death," however, and when he returns to the city he is immediately shot by the police, who recognize his new face as that of Carlos Ramirez, a criminal who is wanted dead or alive.

Oleck spins a decent story, though I guessed the ending about halfway through. Cruz's art is smooth and satisfying, but there is nothing special about this tale.


Peter: Nice twist ending but when these bad guys are soooo bad they become comedic, the story loses me a bit. Carl Talbot is that kind of character. Decent plot, good twist, great art.

Jack: Professor Hodges implants tiny electrodes in the brains of lab rats so he can train them to run through a maze. One day, an accident kills the professor. What his assistants don't know is that his consciousness was transferred into the brain of the rat he was working on, a rat that now has a real talent for running through the maze. Two pages of bad art and another obvious twist ending make "This Rat Will A-Maze You!" only slightly more useful as filler than another house ad.

Peter: Paul Kirchner's pop-art is just awful but that last panel is a hoot.

Jack: Stella Stafford is a beautiful, young fortune hunter who sets her sights on old, wheelchair-bound Lord Ringling, a wealthy bird-lover. She pretends to share his passion and they are soon wed, but she hates looking after his birds. When he catches her attacking the flying creatures, he changes his will, and she quickly lures him to his death as he accidentally wheels himself off a cliff.

Stella burns the new will, inherits Ringling's money, and moves to California, where she is swept up in a whirlwind romance with Tony, a handsome young man. They marry and head off on a honeymoon, but when Stella stays alone in their honeymoon cottage while Tony goes for a walk, she is attacked and killed by a huge number of birds led by Ringling's favorite parrot. Or was she? Tony returns to find her dead of a heart attack, clutching a single feather. Maxene Fabe's stories do bring a female perspective that is often lacking in the DC Horror line, and "Bird's Eye View" is a classic, if unoriginal, take on the revenge motif.

Peter: This one's way too long (and it has a Robert Kanigher vibe to it) but Redondo's art is fabulous. I wonder if Tony inherits the 25 million pound estate. Lucky chap!

Jack: Letter writer Robert Lugo comments on how it seems that the overabundance of DC Horror comics has a bad effect on the writers and "their poor brains need a rest." It appears that he was right, because after many months of seven titles a month, we are now down to five, and next month it will be even fewer.

In the next issue of Star Spangled DC War Stories The conclusion of the epic "Generals Don't Die!" On Sale November 16th!

by Jack Seabrook

The last episode of the first season of Alfred Hitchcock Presents to feature a teleplay by Robert C. Dennis is "The Belfry," broadcast on CBS on Sunday, May 13, 1956. The story upon which it is based is also titled "The Belfry," by Allan Vaughan Elston, and it was published first in the October 15, 1932 issue of Adventure, a pulp magazine that ran from 1910 to 1971. By the mid-1930s, around the time that this story was published, Adventure was considered the number one pulp magazine in America.

Allan Vaughan Elston (1887-1976) had a degree in civil engineering and worked on railroads and as a cattle rancher in the early decades of the twentieth century before turning his hand to fiction. In his long career as a writer, he had scores of stories published from the 1920s to the 1940s; he then began writing novels, mostly westerns, and these appeared from the early 1940s to the mid 1970s. His stories served as the basis for three films and seven TV episodes, two of which were for Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

The murder weapon--an adz

Elston's short story "The Belfry" begins as Clint Ringle stands alone in a forest glade at night in the pouring rain. He is hiding from a posse of men who are searching for him, since he killed Walt Norton. The storm helps keep him hidden from view and he follows the posse back to town and begins to implement his escape plan. Ringle recalls the day before when, in a fit of jealousy, he had murdered Norton, who had just become engaged to be married to Ella Marsh, the pretty schoolteacher who was also the object of Clint's affection. Now he returns to the site of his crime: the schoolhouse, a "structure of one long room with a gabled roof" that features a belfry at the rear.

"The Belfry" was first published here

Ringle climbs into the bell tower and finds it a cramped space. Muffling the clapper with his rolled up coat, he settles in to his hiding place, certain that no one would think to look for him high above the center of town. He plans to remain there for four days, until the search is abandoned, and then make his way to safety under cover of darkness. Sneaking down from the tower at night to steal scraps of food from a refuse can, he stays alive and hidden as the days pass and the children return to school.

He fears that he will be exposed when the children play a game where they toss a ball back and forth over the roof of the schoolhouse; once, it falls into the belfry and he is able to kick it out without anyone noticing. Ringle manages to remain hidden until Sunday, when the schoolhouse is used for a church service and he hears mention of an event planned for three o'clock that afternoon. When the hour of three passes uneventfully, he settles down for a nap, sure of escape later that night. Yet three o'clock was the hour of Norton's funeral and, when one of the mourners enters the schoolhouse to pull the rope and ring the bell, it hits the sleeping Ringle, who wakes with a shout--and is lost.

"The Belfry" is a beautifully written tale of suspense. It begins cinematically, with Ringle hiding among the post oaks as rain pours and lightning flashes. Elston's descriptions of events contrasts with the dialogue of the characters, who speak like hillbillies; the author's words give these common country folk a nobility that their own expressions lack. The murder is sudden and brutal, as Ringle throws his adz at Norton's head: "The blade bit deep, and Norton fell dead on the steps." The story is almost biblical in tone and Ringle resembles Cain, who killed and tried to hide.

Jack Mullaney as Clint Ringle

Elston creates real suspense when Ringle hides in the belfry and has a Godlike perspective on the events below him. He must prevent the bell from ringing by mistake while allowing it to ring when the townsfolk want it to do so. "His nerves were like devils jumping on his brain," writes Elston, and the suspense is ratcheted up during the children's game of ball, as the reader realizes that, with every throw, the chance of the ball landing in the belfry increases. During the Sunday service, the preacher offers a quotation from Numbers 35:16 that is right on target. There is a great final paragraph:

Men came on the run: soon on all sides great, gaunt post-oaks, with crooked arms and gnarled knuckles, reached for the killer.

The conclusion beings the story full circle by depicting  the men of the town as trees of the sort that sheltered Ringle during the opening storm. The natural world that had provided protection has had enough and exacts vengeance on the man who threw the town out of balance with his rash act.

Ozark County, MO

Elston's story takes place in a location that is real and recognizable. The events transpire in Ozark County, in south central Missouri, just north of the border with Arkansas. The time is less exact; it is a time before motorcars, at least in the rural south, and a time of one-room schoolhouses, which places it somewhere in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century. This time would have been within living memory of readers when the story was published in 1932; by 1956, when it was adapted for television, it was a time that was receding further and further into the past.

"The Belfry" was reprinted as the first story in the 1947 collection, Fireside Mystery Book, which may be where it came to the attention of the person responsible for selecting stories for Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Elston's tale presents some technical challenges: how to depict the opening storm, how to film in the cramped space of the belfry, and how to express the thoughts of a man who most remain quiet while hiding. Unfortunately, Robert C. Dennis failed in his attempt to turn a suspenseful story into a suspenseful half hour of television. Blame must be shared with director Herschel Daugherty and star Jack Mullaney, for "The Belfry" is a sub par episode on nearly every count.

Pat Hitchcock as Ella

The show opens with a shot of the bell ringing in the belfry; the camera then pans down to observe children pouring out of the door of the one-room schoolhouse. Ella prepares to go and Clint approaches her, holding a small, hand axe. He tells her that he is building a house for them and suggests that they get married as soon as school is out. Ella tells him that it is all in his mind and that she just got engaged to Walt. Clint gets angry and grabs her, at which point Walt appears and there is a confrontation. Clint murders Walt with one swing of the axe.

In the first scene, which (as so often happens on Alfred Hitchcock Presents) takes a flashback from the story and moves it to the start of the show, Clint is portrayed as simple-minded, with slow speech and confused facial expressions. His status as an infantile moron will become more apparent later in the program. He runs into the woods, to the house he is building, and it starts to rain. At this point, Clint begins to speak in voice over, something that will run through the rest of the episode. It is an attempt to convey his thoughts to the viewer, but it does not work and, instead, we find him describing things that we can see on screen without his help.

The posse searches the woods

There is a sound of dogs approaching and the posse of men pursues him in a very small woods that is obviously a studio set. There is the sound of thunder but no rain; it is hard to tell if it is supposed to be raining or not, but the initial scene in the short story loses all of its effectiveness due to the day for night filming, the cheap set, and the inept voice over narration. Clint barely escapes but there is no suspense at all; part of the problem is an inappropriate use of stock music cues that do not match the action on screen.

Soon, Clint hides in the belfry, still clutching his axe. The confined space requires extended use of medium closeups and tight closeups; the acting required is beyond the ability of Jack Mullaney, who recalls Jerry Lewis in one of his simpleton roles. Daugherty does create one nice trick shot, which he repeats a few times during the show; it depicts a view from Clint's perspective in the belfry, through a hole in the floor, looking down at the tops of the heads of the men gathered below in the schoolhouse.

As he sits alone in the belfry, Clint tends to suck his thumb, an act intended to show that he is a childlike moron. The thumb sucking is reminiscent of a scene in Fritz Lang's While the City Sleeps, also released in 1956,  where John Drew Barrymore, playing a serial killer, sits alone in his room reading a comic book--his choice of reading material is meant to show the viewer that he is an idiot with stunted mental growth, much like Mullaney's Clint Ringle in "The Belfry," sucking his thumb to put himself to sleep.

After alternating scenes of people talking and Clint in the belfry, he sneaks down at night to steal food from a child's desk in the classroom, taking time to scrawl a message on the board for Ella: "Ill git you to." He is angry at Ella because she does not love him or appreciate the favor he did for her by killing Walt. The next day, the children's ball game plays out differently than in the story. Here, the ball lands in the belfry and a boy begins to climb up to retrieve it until he is called back to the classroom by the sound of the bell. After the children are dismissed, Clint is about to climb down and kill Ella when the sheriff appears to walk her home and keep her safe.

Another close call occurs when the boy returns to climb up and get his ball; this time, the sheriff again appears on the scene and calls the boy down just in time. The Sunday church service is an uncomfortable affair; the adults sit in the children's desks in the schoolroom as the preacher addresses them from behind the teacher's desk. Daugherty appears to have lost track of the time of day here, as the service begins in daytime but we soon see that it is dark outside and raining. Still later, it is only three o'clock in the afternoon and the funeral takes place at the graveyard.

Worst of all is the show's conclusion, where a mourner comes back to ring the bell as Clint sleeps in the belfry. The bell rings and appears to bash Clint in the forehead. He lets out a terrible scream and it is unclear whether the bell hit him and killed him or whether the shock merely scared him. At this point, the man below begins to ring the bell with vigor, and one is left with the unpleasant impression that it is repeatedly bashing Clint's skull.

Looking down from the belfry

It's too bad that the creative team behind Alfred Hitchcock Presents did such a bad job with "The Belfry," because Allan Vaughan Elston's original story is excellent. Fireside Mystery Book may be borrowed for free here from the Internet Archive and the story is the first one in the book.

This was the first of 27 episodes of the Hitchcock series to be directed by Herschel Daugherty (1910-1993) and, happily, he would go on to direct many memorable shows, including Fredric Brown's "The Cream of the Jest," Robert Bloch's "The Cure" and "A Home Away From Home," and "Mother, May I Go Out to Swim?" with William Shatner. Daugherty directed 16 episodes of Thriller, a couple of Star Treks, and numerous episodes of other TV shows. He began his career as a dialogue director in movies in the late 1940s and occasionally played bit parts onscreen, but directing for television was by far his busiest job.

The star of "The Belfry" is Jack Mullaney (1929-1982), whose career on screen ran from the mid-1950s until 1980. He appeared in four episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

Dabbs Greer as the sheriff

Patricia Hitchcock (1928- ), the master's daughter, plays Ella Marsh, the schoolteacher. She began her career on TV in 1949 and she began appearing in films in 1950. She was in three of her father's films and appeared in ten episodes of the half-hour TV show, including "The Older Sister,""The Glass Eye," and Robert Bloch's "The Cuckoo Clock." She had a handful of other TV and movie roles over the years.

The best performance in "The Belfry" comes from Dabbs Greer (1917-2007), who plays the sheriff. He began acting at age eight and was in movies from 1938 and on TV from 1950. His last TV role was in 2003 and he was seen on the Hitchcock show twice.

"The Belfry" is available on DVD here or may be viewed for free online here.

Sources:

"The Belfry."Alfred Hitchcock Presents. CBS. 13 May 1956. Television.
Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Web. 29 Oct. 2015.

In two weeks: "Crack of Doom," starring Robert Horton and Robert Middleton!

Joe Kubert

G.I. Combat 108

"The Wounded Won't Wait!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Joe Kubert

"Private War!"
Story by Hank Chapman
Art by Jerry Grandenetti

Peter: Jeb Stuart (the ghost) warns Jeb Stuart (his namesake) that the Jeb Stuart (the tank) will encounter a "rock that's going to turn steel into ashes." As usual, the Jeb runs into several altercations that lead the Sergeant to suspect the friendly ghost was right, only to have yet another incident occur. When the tank is ambushed by anti-tank guns, all the men except Jeb are injured and the only thing that saves them all is the appearance of Sgt. Rock! Some of Rock's men are wounded as well and the Sarge tells Jeb they should get the guys to the local field hospital pronto. When they arrive, the hospital is under fire and pulling up stakes. Rock blocks the convoy and tells the doctor that "The Wounded Won't Wait!" As the doc is examining the boys, enemy fighters attack but Rock and Jeb are able to ward them off.

The doctor explains that they'll need to go to the new hospital location as some of the men need operations. Along the way, the men are attacked yet again but the convoy eventually reaches the new site and the men of both comic strips get the attention they need. Good tale, but this could just as easily have been a straightforward Rock story; no reason for the Jeb Stuart to be involved other than to continue the war character crossovers. We're not getting much "haunted" out of this tank, are we?

Jack: I was thinking the same thing. The Haunted Tank stories have become repetitive in that we get a prophecy from the ghost at the beginning and then Jeb spends the rest of the story trying to figure out what it means. The appearance of Sgt. Rock on the cover took away any suspense about what the ghost meant when he referred to a "rock," and as soon as our favorite sergeant appears, he takes over the story. Kubert's art looks hurried in spots, which may be because he was drawing a lot of pages every month at this point.

Peter: Joe and Phil are in love with the same dame back home but she'll only marry one of the guys: the one who becomes the "bigger hero." The boys fight a "Private War" in order to log more kills but, in an ironic twist after both become heroes, the gal marries a pencil pusher! I was thinking, right up to the finale, that these guys should call a truce and then look for a girl who isn't so shallow but Hank Chapman soars in and gives us a great climax. Jerry delivers one of his more solid jobs with "Private War," with the exaggerated facial features kept to a minimum.


Jack: It's been awhile since we've been saddled with a story illustrated by Jerry G and, as I started this one, I was determined to try to like it. Well, that lasted till page two. Jerry's geometric faces are hard to like. The panel where he draws eight biplanes is cool, as is the one where the men march wearing gas masks, but any decent spots in the art are overwhelmed by ten bad ones. Hank Chapman's purple prose doesn't help, and clunky phrases like "a bouquet of Fokkers" show us why Bob Kanigher, for all his faults, was the king of DC war comics.

Joe Kubert

Our Army at War 148

"Generals Are Sergeants--With Stars!" ("Generals Don't Die!" Book Two)
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Joe Kubert

"The Sour Milk-Run!"
Story by Hank Chapman
Art by Joe Kubert

Jack: Impersonating the late General Alex Bentley, Sgt. Rock leads Bentley's men to fight off attacks from two Nazi planes by using a destroyed tank as cover. Rock receives a call on the walkie-talkie to alert him that a runner is coming from Easy Co. with news on how soon reinforcements will arrive. Though Rock worries that the runner, Ice Cream Soldier, will blow his cover, a bomb renders the combat happy Joe blind and deaf just in time. Rock leads the men in battle to defeat Nazi tanks before the sergeant/general is knocked out by a blast. His men think he was killed and he slips back into the woods, where he switches stars for stripes with General Bentley's corpse. He carries the body to the aid station, where he gives Bentley's stars to the general's son, whose father is recognized as a hero at last.

Though Kanigher and Kubert spend five pages to recap last issue's events, the final ten pages of "Generals Are Sergeants--With Stars!" deliver the goods. Rock sums up the message of this series when he says, "a G.I.'s best cover is his fighting heart." The maneuver to defeat the Nazi planes is very clever and there is real suspense as Ice Cream Soldier approaches and we wonder if Rock will be found out.

Peter: The conclusion to "Generals..." is just as average as its first chapter but it did contain one standout sequence, when Ice Cream Soldier is blinded and deafened but relaxes a bit at the touch of the Sarge's hand on his shoulder. Ostensibly, he knew it was Rock. I may be asking for too much but I do hold this series to a higher standard than any of the others (for obvious reasons when you consider two of the sister series feature dinosaurs and a pooch who can talk more intelligently than his G.I. masters), but this monster "epic" just seems ho-hum to me.

Jack: A pair of frogmen who can't seem to complete their missions successfully are given an easy task: parachute in near a Nazi sub, blow it up, and swim home. When their plane is attacked en route, they are dropped into the middle of the desert and their easy job becomes "The Sour Milk-Run!" By means of some camels, a stolen tank and a hijacked plane they make it to the sub and blow it up; a life preserver bobs to the surface providing proof of the mission's success. Hank Chapman's writing is as bad as ever but it is more than balanced by spectacular art from Joe Kubert.

Peter: Though it contains all the cliches (two likable dopes who just can't seem to catch a break but who'll be re-christened "heroes" within ten pages) and a bit too much of the Chapman touch (what the hell is a "TNT pretzel" anyway?), I liked this exciting little sea adventure much more than the main attraction. I've added the line "Cut your chute shrouds on the hubba-hubba" to my repertoire of party patter.

Joe Kubert

Our Fighting Forces 88

"Devil Dog Patrol!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Jack Abel

"The Last Volunteer!"
Story by Hank Chapman
Art by Gerald McCann

Jack: The wily Col. Hakawa has a new plan--attack the marines on the beach from both sides! While a tank shoots at the beach from inside the jungle, a sub lobs torpedoes onto the beach from the water. Gunner, Sarge and Pooch take to the drink to blow up the sub and then rejoin the other gyrenes to hold off the tank attack.

One day, a kitten washes ashore and Pooch takes to it like a kindly uncle. Unfortunately, Pooch is lost to the enemy after an accident on patrol, and those dastardly Japanese train our favorite pup to attack Marines on sight! At the van of a "Devil Dog Patrol," Pooch leads the enemy right to Gunner and Sarge's hiding place, but when the kitten jumps out to greet the dog and is shot by an enemy soldier, Pooch snaps out of it and, fortunately, the good guys win again. Kitty survives with only a flesh wound.

Peter is going to love this story! We finally have crossed over into full kiddie-land with the addition of a cute kitten to the Gunner, Sarge and Pooch team. What's next? A talking duck?

Peter: To think we were just this close to losing Pooch and that spineless wimp, Gunner, just couldn't lower the boom. I love the "secret pocket airfield" hidden on the other side of the waterfall as if Gunner and Sarge went in and exited into the Land that Time Forgot. How could they not have seen the planes landing right on the other side of the hill? At least Bob realized this series was spinning its wheels and decided to add a dangerous new element: an intelligent kitten! Things are looking up.

Jack: American soldiers must climb the Needle, a steep mountain, to knock off a Nazi sniper at the top. After others fail, Bronson is "The Last Volunteer!" He comes from a family of mountain climbers but fears making the trip upwards due to a traumatic event before the war where a German guide sent his father and brother to their death during a guided climb. After blowing up a Nazi tank and a Nazi plane and nearly falling to his death on the way up, Bronson reaches the top and discovers that the Nazi sniper is none other than the guide who had killed his family! A fight ensues and Bronson survives as the Nazi falls to his death, victim of his own booby-trapped rope.

It looks like this is the only time we'll see pulp/comic artist Gerald McCann, and that's a shame, since his art is really nice and gritty.

Peter: I must say I was taken completely by surprise when the Nazi lookout at the top of The Needle turned out to be Kurt Krieg! My goodness, what a coincidence. And right on top of the coincidence of our hero ending up at the same mountain that killed his family! Imagine that. The graphics soar above the dumb script, however, thanks to newcomer Gerald McCann. A former pulp illustrator, McCann will contribute this single story to the DC War titles.

Joe Kubert

Star Spangled War Stories 117

"Medal for a Dinosaur!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Ross Andru and Mike Esposito

"TNT Eight-Ball!"
Story by Kin Platt
Art by Jack Abel

Peter: The lovable duo of Morgan and Mace (you know, the "Only Suicide Squad members who hate each other more than the enemy"?) are sent to a remote Pacific island to find out why an experimental bomber has gone missing. When the boys arrive, they learn that the island is inhabited by (gasp!) dinosaurs from the terrible Stone Age. M&M are terrorized by several giant creatures until, finally, they're forced off a cliff and onto an enormous egg. The egg hatches and out pops a baby pterodactyl. After some initial bumps in the road, the boys make friends with the winged terror and eventually, it saves their lives. Dropping them off at the beach, little Terry waves bye-bye as the Suicide Squadders set sail with their intel.


When the C.O. tells Morgan and Mace that a top secret experimental bomber has disappeared without a trace and not one soul on Earth can figure it out, I almost raised my hand and said, "Sir, you must have read the report about carnivorous dinosaurs in the Pacific. There's your answer," but the guys stayed quiet so I thought I should, too. I know I'm beating a dead horse by bringing this up but you have to wonder if Bob Kanigher even remembers writing the last installment of this series when Morgan and Mace survived and made it back to their comrades to tell the story of dino-island. Only, dinosaurs must have been so commonplace during World War II that they forgot to mention what they'd been through or assumed their C.O. would be bored by the tale. Even more bizarre is the reaction the dopey duo have when they first spot a dino on their return visit:


Morgan: I'm sweating so much--I'm imagining there's a dinosaur standing like a roadblock in front of us!

Mace: I'm imagining it too!

These two are not only absent-minded but amnesiacs! Mace giving Morgan constant reminders that he's going to shoot him if Morgan even thinks about deserting was a nice touch last issue but Bob does it to death in "Medal for a Dinosaur" and the monotony kills the gimmick real quick.

Jack: Morgan is such a jerk that Mace should let the dinos eat him! A typical Morgan and Mace exchange goes like this:

Morgan: Do what I say or I'll shoot you!

Mace: OK!

Over and over and over. Why doesn't Morgan just do it himself? Why does he hold a gun on Mace and tell Mace to shoot something? Is this a power thing?

Peter: Simmons has it bad. His old college coach is now his Sarge and the guy has it out big time for Simmons, who can't seem to do anything right as far as the older man is concerned. Simmons can't shoot straight, he trips over his own shoe laces, and he throws grenades "like an old lady in a rocking chair." Luckily, Simmons comes up aces when it's needed the most and, suddenly, the Sarge thinks the kid is a "TNT Eight-Ball." This one is pure dreck and formula, with a litany of Don Rickles-esque put-down one-liners that get more stale as the pages turn.

"... and your mother wears army boots!"

Jack: That's two stories in one issue where I think the guy who's being abused should stop putting up with it! If poor Simmons couldn't stand up to Coach, he should have let Sarge get run over by a Nazi tank. I want to start a movement to boost the self-confidence of DC war comics G.I.s.

In the Next Chilling Issue of Do You Dare Enter? Jack and Peter Reveal Their Picks for Best and Worst of 1975! On Sale Nov. 23rd!

Luis Dominguez

Unexpected 170

"Flee to Your Grave"
Story by George Kashdan
Art by Ernie Chua

"No Sleep for the Dead"
Story by Leo Dorfman
Art by Ruben Yandoc

"A Change for the Hearse!"
Story by Carl Wessler
Art by Noly Panaligan

Jack: Professor Travers decides to act as his own guinea pig to test out a new invention that will increase the human body's buoyancy, allowing man to float and potentially reducing pollution by eliminating the need for cars, planes, etc. His partner, Reese, tries to kill Travers with an overdose so that he can claim the invention for himself. UNEXPECTEDLY, the overdose turns Travers into a big, green monster who starts to grow very large and also to float.

Escaping the police and Reese, who wants him to "Flee to Your Grave," Travers hides among the other balloons in the New York City Thanksgiving Day Parade until he is discovered. The cops shoot the big Superman float beneath him and the escaping helium causes Travers to revert back to human form. He becomes the man who fell to Earth and his fall is broken by Reese, who is killed.

It shouldn't work, but it does! This story is so goofy that I couldn't help liking it by the end. There is no explanation for why Travers turns into a big, green monster--he just does! Kashdan and Chua also achieve the rare feat of showing Superman getting shot in a DC comic.

Peter: As dopey as this story is, you could almost believe that George is aiming at parody but I never assume the best when reading a Kashdan story. That's Sam Elliott, by the way, in a final panel cameo as Prof. Travers.

Sam Elliott?

Jack: On her death bed, Abigail makes her husband, Corliss, promise to bury her with her favorite jewelry. As soon as she dies, Corliss grabs the jewels and gives them to his girlfriend Angela to wear on their wedding day a month later. Abigail's ghost knows that there is "No Sleep for the Dead," and comes back to reclaim her jewels. When Corliss heads for the crypt to see if the corpse is bedecked with jewelry, the heavy lid of the coffin falls on his head and kills him. The opening caption tells us that it's April 1897 in Withersborough, England, so this must be a story that was intended for Ghosts, where Dorfman is fond of putting a specific time and place on his tales to add to the sense of reality.

Peter: That's a pretty nasty climax for a script written by Leo Dorfman, a guy known for such Ghosts classics as "The Phantom Lunchbox" and "The Specter Wore Tennis Shoes." Nice to see Leo's got a dark side to him as well and I wish it had come out more often.

Jack: Owing $25,000 to a murderous loan shark named Tully seemed like a death sentence for Lew Duryea until he was thought to be killed in a plane crash. In fact, his face is horribly disfigured, but he's alive and has a bag of money, so he calls his wife and asks her to meet him at a motel. She shows up with her lover Tully in tow and Lew escapes to a nearby Dungeon of Horrors, where his attempt to hide is a fatal failure. In "A Change for the Hearse!" the treacherous lovers discover too late that the suitcase of money was booby trapped with a bomb that goes off in their faces! Whew! A lot can happen in a bad Carl Wessler story. Panaligan's art is very impressive and this story is right up there with the first one this issue in how silly yet entertaining it manages to be.

Peter: The admission, by Joanne, that she'd been in love with Tully for months was a bit random but the explosive climax makes up for it. A good issue for dumb but enjoyable tales.

Bill Draut

House of Secrets 138

"Where Dreams Are Born"
Story by Jack Oleck
Art by Frank Redondo

"Night Watchman"
Story by George Kashdan
Art by Leopoldo Duranona

"Snake Bite!"
Story by Steve Clement
Art by Romy Gamboa


Peter: Danny's got a special gift: when he sleeps, his dreams pull him into the books he reads and allow him to bring back souvenirs, like a giant diamond found in the land of Sinbad. Unfortunately, for our young hero, his foster parents get wind of this amazing gift and want to cash in big time. They demand that Danny take them with him on his next trip to dreamland and, when the boy refuses, they beat him mercilessly. At last, Danny agrees and transports them, not to a land filled with diamonds but to a cave housing a two-headed dragon. The greedy meanies are gobbled up and Danny returns to our world where he's greeted by one of his buddies. Danny tells his compadre the whole story and then opens the book he's been reading, revealing inside the very issue of House of Secrets we're reading! "Where Dreams Are Born" has a clever meta-climax but the story is ruined by abysmal art from the weaker of the Redondos.


Jack: Abysmal? Have you forgotten about Jerry Grandenetti and Sam Glanzman? This is at least the third story by Jack Oleck where an unhappy boy escapes into a dream world. I was taken by surprise by the conclusion. It's like one of those comic covers where the characters are reading a comic and the cover is of them reading the same comic and . . . you get it.

Peter: Chintzy Hiram Higgs refuses to pay for a security system even though his construction yard has been broken into several times. One day, a creepy old codger named Samuel Slitt arrives, offering Hiram an offer he can't refuse: he'll be "Night Watchman" of the yard for half the cost of Hiram's insurance and total privacy at the yard. Hiram, smelling a great deal, agrees but, one night, as he;s driving by the yard, he hears a scream and investigates. He discovers Sammy with a dead body. Slitt tells him to forget about it as long as Hiram is happy with his services. The cheapskate agrees but greed gets the better of Hiram after a while and he decides to fire the old creep. He surprises Sammy, who turns into a giant bat and drains Hiram's blood. Sammy laments that now he'll have to find another job. Pretty predictable plot but at least we get the spare, atmospheric art of Leopoldo Duranona.

Jack: For my money, this art was worse than that of Frank Redondo in the prior story. At least the stranger wasn't the Devil, which was what I was expecting, though the vampire angle was drained of blood long ago.

Peter: Convict Cayle Chapman escapes the chain gang and heads into the swamp, where he's captured momentarily by tiny Indians. Breaking his bonds, he holds the chief hostage and demands food. The little people agree to his demands but it's not long before Chapman gets antsy and attacks the Indians again. He reaches into their cave to grab some more hostages but, instead, grabs hold of a deadly snake. This one's all over the map. In fact, I'd bet it was heavily edited since there are jumps where some exposition may have been. In any event, the story's bad and so's the art; perhaps editor Orlando was doing us a favor by curtailing this loser. An unusually awful issue of HoS.

Jack: A very violent story, as well, since there are four murders in the first two pages! The most interesting thing in this issue is the note in the letters column about a new series starting in two issues featuring a recurring character called the Patchwork Man, written by Gerry Conway and illustrated by Nestor Redondo. I presume this is when Conway got mad and quit Marvel. I'm always happy to see work by Nestor.

Luis Dominguez

Ghosts 44

"The Phantom Who Saw His Future"
Story Uncredited
Art by Noly Panaligan

"The Specter Wore a Badge"
Story by Martin Pasko
Art by Ruben Yandoc

"The Case of the Murdering Specters"
Story by Carl Wessler
Art by Lee Elias

"James Dean's Curse on Wheels"
Story Uncredited
Art by John Calnan

Jack: Lew Ferrara is a U.S. pilot in France in the waning days of the Second World War and he's being haunted by a nightmare in which his plane is shot down and his crew of ten is killed. He tries to get himself and his crew out of the next mission but is instead sent to a shrink, who tells him that it's all in his head. Feeling better, he takes off with his crew, only to be shot down by Nazi tanks. He emerges from the wreckage to tell his pal that he only counted nine bodies on the plane, but as he dissolves in a ghostly fog we realize that he is dead and is "The Phantom Who Saw His Future." The ending is rather subtle and I had to study it a bit to figure out that Lew was a ghost, but this is twice this month that Panaligan has surprised me with above average art.


Peter: "The Phantom Who Saw His Future" has a really dumb title but, make no mistake, this is top-notch in both the script and art department. The final scene, of Lew stepping from the plane and not realizing he's dead, is a real chiller.

Jack: Chicago police officer Pat O'Horgan warns his wife to be careful because they live in a bad neighborhood, but she ventures out anyway to see a movie. On her way home she is held up by two thugs who are scared away by a silent policeman who pulls a gun on them. Sharon goes home to await her husband's return but later learns that he was killed at the very spot where she was accosted. It seems that "The Specter Wore a Badge" and the policeman who saved her life was the ghost of her husband, whose wedding ring she found on the ground at the crime scene. Confusing, yes, but nice art by Rubeny.

Peter: Not much of a wife if Sharon didn't recognize her husband. The expository is a little confusing: so did the hoods actually kill Pat earlier and, if so, did he get revenge against them after his wife's attack? I need to know.

Jack: Looking for a home outside London in 1949, Jason and Hester Randall are taken by a real estate agent to Temple Garden, in whose basement a couple of ghosts put on quite a show: the ghostly man carries the ghostly woman to a waiting grave, they fight, and both are killed by gunfire. In this ghoulish episode of Love it or List It, the Randalls decide not to Love It. The police investigate but find no evidence of a body buried in the basement. Yet "The Case of the Murdering Specters" is recalled a year later at a party, when the Randalls reconnect with a young couple and realize they're dead ringers for the ghosts. Was the basement scene a portent of things to come? The Randalls don't want to be buttinskys and decide to keep their mouths shut, but months later the scene plays out in real life and they realize that they should have spoken up. What they saw was a portent rather than a remembrance. I don't care what Peter says, I like Lee Elias's artwork.

Peter: "Murdering Specters" is a dead ringer for one of those 1950s House of Mystery classics with its "gosh-wow" expository and its retro Lee Elias art (Elias is what Frank Robbins could have been had he learned anything about human anatomy). Thumbs up! Well done, Carl!

Jack: For 13 years after the fatal crash, "James Dean's Curse on Wheels" continues to spell trouble for its subsequent owners. Who cares? I am so over James Dean. If there's one guy who got way more press than he deserved, it's him. I'm not even a fan of his little sausage links.


Peter: To borrow a phrase used in this very story, the plot and script "tax reality" and my patience but, amazingly enough the facts are pretty much on the money according to this (poorly proofread) site. That doesn't make this a good story but it does make you say "Hmmmm."


THE BEST AND WORST OF 1975

Peter

Best Script: David Michelinie, "Neely's Scarecrow" (Weird Mystery Tales #16)
Best Art: Michael Kaluta, "The Strange Ones" (Weird Mystery Tales #24)
Best All-Around Story: David Michelinie/ Alex Nino "Neely's Scarecrow"

Worst Script: Steve Skeates, "The Last Out" (House of Secrets #134)
Worst Art: Lee Marrs, "Fight" (Weird Mystery Tales #19)
Worst All-Around Story: George Kashdan/ John Calnan "Camp Fear" (The Witching Hour #58)

Best Cover:Unexpected 166, Luis Dominguez

TEN BEST STORIES OF THE YEAR

  1 "Neely's Scarecrow"
  2 "The Veil of Death" (Weird Mystery Tales #20)
  3 "The Strange Ones" 
  4 "The Island of Crawling Flesh" (House of Secrets #131)
  5 "Feud with a Phantom" (Ghosts #35)
  6 "The Inheritors" (Tales of Ghost Castle #2)
  7 "The Last Voyage of the Lady Luck" (House of Secrets #136)
  8 "The Doomsday Yarn" (House of Mystery #230)
  9 "One Man's Poison" (Weird Mystery Tales #21)
10 "Killer Instinct" (House of Secrets #132)

Jack

Best Script: Maxene Fabe, "The Spawn of the Devil"
Best Art: Arthur Suydam, "The Island of Crawling Flesh"
Best All-Around Story: "The Spawn of the Devil"

Worst Script: George Kashdan, "Camp Fear"
Worst Art: Don Perlin, "The Phantom Hound"
Worst All-Around Story: "Camp Fear"


Best Cover: Weird Mystery Tales 21, Bernie Wrightson
TEN BEST STORIES OF THE YEAR (in no order)

  1 "The Doomsday Yarn" (House of Mystery 230)
  2 "The Island of Crawling Flesh"(House of Secrets 131)
  3 "The Last Tango in Hell" (House of Mystery 232)
  4 "The Bewitchment of Jeremiah Haskins" (House of Mystery 234)
  5 "Wings of Black Death" (House of Mystery 235)
  6 "The Spawn of the Devil" (House of Mystery 235)
  7 "Death Played a Sideshow" (House of Mystery 236)
  8 "Fair Exchange" (Weird Mystery Tales 23)
  9  "Double Exposure" (House of Mystery 237)
10 "Cake!" (House of Mystery 233)

In Our Special Year-End Double Issue of Star Spangled DC War Stories: Will Sgt Rock Dominate the Top Ten Again? Find Out on November 30th!

by Jack Seabrook

"Crack of Doom" is based on a short story by Don Marquis called "The Crack of Doom" that was first published in the September 6, 1930 issue of Collier's and later reprinted in the February 1956 issue of Playboy, which is probably where Joan Harrison saw it and decided to buy the television rights.


Marquis (1878-1937) was a popular newspaper columnist in the 1920s who also wrote short stories. Best known for his series of stories featuring Archy and Mehitabel, a cockroach and a cat, there are over two dozen books that collect his work. A couple of movies were made based on a play he wrote and he spent a brief spell in Hollywood in the early 1930s writing dialogue for films; only four TV shows have been made based on his writings. Read more about Marquis at this excellent website.

"The Crack of Doom" begins in the card room at a men's club when several men tire of bridge and decide to play poker. Tom Ackley asks his old friend Mason Bridges to join them, but Bridges surprises him with a strenuous refusal. A week later, Ackley asks Bridges why and Bridges tells the story of the time he stopped being an honest man and, for a few hours, became a crook.

Ten years before, Bridges had been a partner in a firm in a suburb of New York City where, among other things, money was kept in a safe to help local merchants make change after banking hours were over. The partners in the firm felt free to borrow from the safe and leave I.O.U.s. Bridges, a poker fiend in college who now played twice a week in a small game among friends, was unhappy that Sam Clinker, a local politician with a large bank account, had begun to "bull the game," bluffing frequently and making large bets. Bridges did not like Clinker, thinking that the man had turned a friendly game of cards into a high stakes proposition, and was determined to get the best of him.

From the original publication

One night, Bridges realized that losses over the course of his last two games had left him in debt to the firm over $4000. He and his wife Jessie had $9000 in the bank, so he knew that he could pay back the money, but he wanted to win the money back by beating Sam, who had left $10,000 in the firm's safe that day. Borrowing $2000 of Sam's money from the safe, Bridges joined the game and, before he knew it, he had written a check for $2500 and was down a total of $8500. Thankful for the $9000 he had in the bank, he went home and woke Jessie to tell her, but she broke down and told him that she had lost money at bridge and then lost the rest of the $9000 trying to recoup her losses by playing the stock market.

Bridges reassured her and did not tell her about his own problem, but he suddenly realized that, without the $9000 safety net, he was now a crook who would probably lose his standing in the community and go to jail. He went to the office, took a bottle of scotch from the safe, and began to drink; deciding on a plan, he took another $5000 of Sam's money from the safe before returning to the game.

Hope, despair and alcohol drove Bridges to play Clinker's game and to bet big himself: as the night wore on, he won, lost, and won again, his vision blurred, his insides burning. The last hours passed in a haze, but he never forgot the last hand of poker he would ever play. Clinker had three tens and a king showing while Bridges had three queens and a king showing. The pot got bigger and bigger; Bridges raised $4000 and Clinker countered by raising $10,500; Bridges wrote a worthless check for $20,000 and threw it on the pile of money and checks, goading Clinker into calling him. Suddenly, Bridges looked at his hole card and saw that it was a jack--in his drunken, emotional state he had thought it was a queen.

"I waited for the shattering blast of the last trump," he told Ackley, but it never came. Clinker decided to fold rather than to put more money in the pot, and Bridges had won. He knew that he would not have had the nerve to bluff had he known the real card in his hand and decided that he would never again put himself at the mercy of a playing card. Bridges tells Ackley that that night was the reason he will never again play cards for money.

Robert Horton as the older Mason bridges

"The Crack of Doom" is available to read for free online here. It's title is a reference to biblical signs of the end of time and the waking of the dead on the Day of Judgment. In the story, Bridges mentions "the last trump;" this, combined with the story's title, shows the importance he placed on what he thought would be a turning point in his life.

Don Marquis writes a suspenseful tale that contains an interesting ethical question: when is a man a thief? Bridges takes money from his office safe and leaves an I.O.U. As his borrowing mounts, he believes himself to be an honest man because he knows he can repay the money from his savings. Yet when his wife reveals that the savings are gone, he realizes that he cannot repay the debt and is now a thief. Later that night, he wins back all of the money and can repay the debt, so he is no longer a thief. The question is an interesting one that could be debated at length but, happily for Bridges, Clinker does not call his bluff.

Robert Middleton as Sam Clinker

Robert C. Dennis adapted the story for television and it was broadcast on Sunday, November 25, 1956, as his first contribution to season two of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Directed by James Neilson, the show is a success that remains faithful to the story while enhancing it in ways that take advantage of the medium of television.

Though the story by Don Marquis begins in a men's club, Dennis moves the setting to a train racing through the night. Inside a bar car on the train, Bridges tells his story to Ackley. As Bridges, Robert Horton is made up to look like he is in his mid-40s to early 50s, with graying hair at the temples and a small mustache, and his colleagues appear to be of similar age. The story of the poker game is presented in flashbacks, with Horton looking much younger. Using a train setting for the frame sequence puts the men together in a confined space with time to kill; the darkness outside, lit occasionally by passing lights, and the sound of the moving train add a great deal of atmosphere and urgency to the tale.

This shot recalls 1940s private eye films

Dennis sets up the conflict between Bridges and Clinker by adding a scene in Bridges' office on the afternoon before the big card game. Clinker brings money to put in the safe and the two men are shown to be already at odds. That night, the card game is played at a large, octagonal table and Neilson mixes medium shots, close ups and overhead shots of the table.

Horton is wonderful as Bridges; handsome and heroic, he contrasts well with Robert Middleton as Clinker, who is overweight, more than a decade older than Horton, and menacing. Voice over narration by Bridges is used sparingly to convey his thoughts as he borrows more money from the office safe. By switching from the card game to scenes with Bridges alone to scenes in the present, Dennis keeps the story moving. High-contrast lighting is used in the late night office scene, as Bridges takes the last of Clinker's money from the safe. The voice over narration gives this portion of the episode a feeling like a 1940s detective film.

Dayton Lummis as Tom Ackley

Regarding the story's climax, it is important to remember that these shows were filmed to be aired once or twice and not to be studied carefully. The first view of the hold card is blurry and we can't tell what it is. There is a second insert of the card where it is clearly a Queen, though Bridges keeps his fingers over the "Q"s in the corners. In the final shot, the card is clearly a Jack. To someone watching the show without knowing the ending, the shot of the Queen card will pass by unnoticed.

Gail Kobe as Jessie Bridges

Dennis ends the show with a humorous incident after Mason leaves the club car. Ackley is asked if he would like to make a little bet to see who will pay for drinks and he refuses, having learned his lesson from Bridges' story.

"Crack of Doom" is a very entertaining adaptation of a classic story of suspense, where the writer, the director, and the actors all work together to bring to life the words on the page.

Director James Neilson was at the helm for twelve episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents; the last reviewed here was "The Orderly World of Mr. Appleby."

Robert Horton (1924- ) was onscreen from the mid-1940s until the late 1980s and is still alive at age 91. He also had a career on the Broadway stage. He was on Alfred Hitchcock Presents seven times and starred in the series Wagon Train from 1957 to 1962. He maintains a website here.

Horton as the younger Bridges

Playing Sam Clinker is Robert Middleton (1911-1977), who was born Samuel Messer and who was a constant presence on episodic TV from the early 1950s until the late 1970s. He was on Alfred Hitchcock Presents three times and Thriller twice.

In small roles are Gail Kobe (1932-2013), as Jessie Bridges, and Dayton Lummis (1903-1988) as Tom Ackley. Kobe was also seen in the hour-long episode, "The Black Curtain," and Lummis was in Hitchcock's The Wrong Man (1956).

"Crack of Doom" is available on DVD here or may be watched for free online here.

Sources:

"Crack of Doom."Alfred Hitchcock Presents. CBS. 25 Nov. 1956.
"Don Marquis: Tall Tales and Light Verse."donmarquis.com. 15 Nov. 2015.
"The FictionMags Index."The FictionMags Index. 15 Nov. 2015.
Grams, Martin, and Patrik Wikstrom. The Alfred Hitchcock Presents Companion. Churchville, MD: OTR Pub., 2001.
IMDb. IMDb.com. 15 Nov. 2015.
Marquis, Don. "The Crack of Doom."Collier's: 6 Sept. 1930, 7-9, 40, 43. UNZ.org. 13 Nov. 2015.
Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation. 15 Nov. 2015.
In two weeks: "John Brown's Body," starring Leora Dana, Russell Collins and Hugh Marlowe!

The game

Irv Novick

All American Men of War 106

"Death Song for a Battle Hawk!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Irv Novick

"Battling Tin Can and Wooden Crate!"
Story by Hank Chapman
Art by Win Mortimer

Peter: Johnny Cloud is shot down and sinks to the bottom of the ocean but at least memories of his childhood keep him company. Johnny remembers a hawk who came to his rescue one day when he was being attacked by a grey wolf. Coincidentally, years later, a hawk finds its way into Johnny's cockpit as he's making a run at a remote rocket base situated between two rocky walls. All others have failed but, with help from his winged guardian angel, Cloud rounds third with the winning run. The hawk becomes a mascot to the team and almost seems to show the pilots the way to victory on every mission. Then the unthinkable happens: Swift Hawk flies into the open cowling of a dirty stinking Nazi pilot and sends him to hell but the poor bird can't get out of the ship in time and ends up singing a "Death Song for a Battle Hawk."

The agony of the bird's death snaps Johnny out of his nostalgia just in time for his magnetic torpedoes to fire at a passing enemy ship. The resulting explosion tears the cockpit to bits but Johnny is ejected and sent to the surface, where he is rescued and, presumably, treated for a bad case of the bends. Back at base, Johnny discovers that Swift Hawk has laid an egg and "junior" hatches before the startled pilot's eyes. A flashback within a flashback can sometimes lead to confusion and, of course, that's part and parcel for this series. Things can tend to get murky at times and you have to try to remember which past you're currently in. With all the room afforded this story, it's strange that the finale seems so rushed, as if Bob suddenly remembered this wasn't a two-parter. A sequel of sorts to "The Battle Hawk" (#92, August 1962).


Jack: Another scene where a pilot has to fly through a cleft in a rock? How many of those clefts were there? The bit where Johnny gets back to base and sees all of the other pilots holding their pets is just weird. One guy has a pet monkey and another has a pet squirrel. Are we supposed to think that monkeys and squirrels were running around in the cockpits while Johnny Cloud's air fighters were waging war against Nazi planes? I don't recall seeing fur and feathers before in this series.
Peter: Two competitive chums find their game escalated once they are drafted into the first World War. Pete ends up flying a rattly old Spad and Frank is encased in a deathtrap of a tank. The rickety vehicles don't stop the boys from trying to outdo each other and a twist of fate leaves them relying on each other to survive. "Battling Tin Can and Wooden Crate" is a rickety old carcass with an engine that sputters. The phony bickering and outlandish stunts would never be tolerated in a real war. These guys almost forget they're out there fighting for something; while bazookas are aimed at them, all they can think of is what the other is up to. Unless I've missed something in all the notes I've taken, this is the first time we've seen Win Mortimer illustrate a DC War story. It'll also be the last as he'll soon be busy on superhero strips like Legion of Super-Heroes and Adventure Comics. He'll re-enter our radar with a handful of appearances in the DC horror titles (which, to make things even more confusing, we've already covered thanks to our Monday Morning Quarterbacks status) in the mid-1970s. Mortimer's art on "Battling BlahBlahBlah..." isn't too bad; it's almost got an EC feel to it.

Jack: When I saw Mortimer's name on the credits for this story, I thought "uh oh," but it's half-decent work, much better than the terrible script by Chapman. "Frank shook the boing-boings out of his steel skimmer" is one pearl, and he gets close to an R-rating for "I must flame this fok out of the sky." Worst of all is the sloppy lettering that results in misspelled words like "frauline" and "champage." The bickering between soldiers is about at the level of "you got peanut butter on my chocolate!"

Joe Kubert

Our Army at War 149

"Surrender Ticket!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Joe Kubert

"Jackass Patrol!"
Story by Hank Chapman
Art by Jack Abel

Jack: Sgt. Rock thinks back to 1942 and the events in North Africa that led to Easy Co.'s first battle. Nazi Col. Von Krizt studied air recon photos of U.S. troops marching toward German positions and selected Easy Co. at random, intending to force them to surrender and then use their cowardice as a propaganda victory. Planes launch an air attack and drop "Surrender Ticket!"s on Easy Co.; the first casualty of Rock's group is a handsome soldier nicknamed Prince Charming. Easy marches on and is next fired on by ground artillery; the C.O. leads them through the firestorm but is killed.

The men of Easy Co. began to dehydrate and march toward the next water source, only to find it guarded by German tanks that fire on them, killing a thirst-crazed G.I. who breaks from the group and runs toward the water. The German tanks rumble away, but not before filling in the water hole. Rock and his men press on in search of a water source, the surrender tickets looking more and more inviting. Another air attack results in the death of a G.I. nicknamed Beanpole, and Easy Co. marches on, finally spotting three German tanks sitting quietly, waiting for the American troops to surrender. Rock and his men attack head on, guns and bazookas blazing, defeat the tanks, and take Von Krizt prisoner, handing him one of his own surrender tickets to turn in at a P.O.W. camp.

Kanigher and Kubert are firing on all cylinders in this story, as we fill in another piece of the background story behind Easy Co.

Peter: 1964 was not a banner year for Sgt Rock stories; there have been way too many lightweight scripts for a series that used to claim the lion's share of my Top Ten every year and "Surrender Ticket" puts an end to that drought. This is the best Rock since "Dead Man's Trigger" back in #141 (which, not coincidentally, was also an "early tale of Easy"). The downpour of Surrender Tickets and the waning reserve of the men of Easy make for gripping reading.

Jack: Tired of playing second fiddle to Sgt. Mule, PFC Mulvaney is happy to get a three-day pass, but when an emergency arises he is pulled back to the front and sent on a "Jackass Patrol!" It seems that there are hidden guns about, and only Mule and Mulvaney (sounds like a buddy cop show) can find and destroy them. That they do, earning the mule another medal and Mulvaney another chance to seethe. My expectations for this story were at rock bottom and I was rather pleasantly surprised, though there are a few too many panels of Sgt. Mule laughing at his rider with a big "Hee Haw"! The story follows a familiar pattern established by Bob Kanigher in his Haunted Tank and Johnny Cloud series: the main character is given a vague assignment and passes through a series of trials, each time thinking he's reached the end.

Peter: The third in a series that makes me appreciate Pooch. And, yes, there are more to come. Speaking of which, with all the war crossovers happening at the time, where was the "Pooch and Jackass" team-up?

Joe Kubert

Showcase 53

"The Battlefield Jury"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Joe Kubert and Irv Novick

"Hot Corner"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Joe Kubert
(reprinted from G.I. Combat 59, April 1958)

"Frogman S.O.S.!"
Story by Bob Haney
Art by Russ Heath
(reprinted from G.I. Combat 60, May 1958)

"Battle Arithmetic!"
Story by Bob Haney
Art by Ross Andru and Mike Esposito
(reprinted from G.I. Combat 52, Sept. 1957)

Jack: This is the first of two issues of Showcase to feature "G.I. Joe," though the inside of the comic includes only four new pages of story and art wrapped around three reprints. The Kubert cover is striking. The stories were all published before July 1959, where our coverage started.

Peter: Was this, perhaps, DC's way of tying itself to the popular Hasbro action figure, which began its decades-long hold on the toy market only months before?



THE BEST AND WORST OF 1964

Peter

Best Script: Uncredited, "The Only Survivor" (Our Fighting Forces 87)
Best Art: Gene Colan, "The Only Survivor"
Best All-Around Story: "The Only Survivor"
Best Cover: All American Men of War 101 (Russ Heath)




Worst Script: France Herron, "TNT Duds" (GI Combat #103)
Worst Art: Jerry Grandenetti, "Battle of the Empty Helmets" (Our Fighting Forces #82)
Worst All-Around Story: "TNT Duds"


TEN BEST STORIES OF THE YEAR

  1 "The Only Survivor"
  2 "Blind Man's Radar" (G.I. Combat #104)
  3 "The Iron Sniper" (Our Army at War #138)
  4 "Surrender Ticket" (Our Army at War #149)
  5 "Prisoners of the Runaway Fort" (Our Fighting Forces #82)
  6 "Battle Seas Hitchhiker!" (Our Fighting Forces #86)
  7 "The Last Target" (All American Men of War #104)
  8 "Dinosaur Sub-Catcher" (Star Spangled War Stories #112)
  9 "Dead Man's Trigger" (Our Army at War #141)
10 "A Firing Squad for Easy" (Our Army at War #139)

Jack

Best Script: Robert Kanigher, "Suicide Mission! Save Him or Kill Him!" (The Brave and the Bold 52)
Best Art: Joe Kubert, "The Ghost Pipers!" (G.I. Combat 107)
Best All-Around Story: "Suicide Mission! Save Him or Kill Him!"
Best Cover: G.I. Combat 103 (Russ Heath and Jack Adler)




Worst Script: Hank Chapman, "The Battling Mustaches!" (Our Army at War 139)
Worst Art: Jack Abel, "The Return of Sgt. Mule!" (G.I. Combat 104)
Worst All-Around Story: "The Return of Sgt. Mule!"

TEN BEST STORIES OF THE YEAR (in no order)

  1 "Suicide Mission! Save Him or Kill Him!"
  2 "Brass Sergeant!" (Our Army at War 140)
  3 "Dead Man's Trigger!"
  4 "Easy's T.N.T. Crop!" (Our Army at War 143)
  5 "The Sparrow and the Tiger!" (Our Army at War 144)
  6 "The Ghost Pipers!"
  7 "Generals Don't Die!" (Book Two) (Our Army at War 148)
  8 "Surrender Ticket!"
  9  "Easy's Lost Sparrow!" (Our Army at War 138)
10 "The Only Survivor!"

Entering the final year of our DC Horror Coverage, Jack Seabrook (pictured above)  reminds us all what reading too many bad horror comics can do to you! 1976 - the final year - begins in one week!

Note: We rely on the fine people at Comic Book Plus and Digital Comic Museum for public domain digital downloads. Unfortunately, a full run of Strange Fantasy isn't available yet so we've had to resort to reading several stories via their reprints in the Eerie Publication titles, similarly available for download at this essential site. Though we'd obviously prefer to use the original comic books, we can't afford to purchase these very expensive issues. We thought this the best avenue rather than missing out on so many terror tales but, of course, it necessitates representing some artwork in black and white. We hope that you will agree with our decision and enjoy the stories in these altered formats. -Jose and Peter

Peter: Three intrepid adventurers, two men and a woman, attempt to conquer Everest but the mountain's natural hazards are not what the trio fear. Halfway up, the travelers and their guide, Oog, encounter a ghostly apparition that warns them to turn back, that he is the spirit of Karl Morton, a climber who had died on Everest years before. Undaunted, the party moves on and soon stumble upon the icy grave of Morton himself. Just as they finish unearthing the corpse, a storm kicks up and an avalanche kills all but Sandra, who flees blindly through the freezing wind, pursued by the ghostly Morton. Deciding she'd rather die in a fall than at the hands of the horror at her heels, Sandra falls from a cliff but, incredibly, lands on a snow bank far below. Karl Morton appears out of the snow drifts to inform Sandra that he likes her spunk and, as a consolation prize for surviving Everest, he's going to allow her to live and tell civilization of the ordeal she's been through as a warning to all comers. Weeks later, in a hospital bed in Tibet, Sandra learns that her hair has gone white and her skin aged. Her lasting reward for conquering Everest.


Even back as a wee funny book reader, I always valued the story over the art. I still do, but sometimes there are exceptions. "Death on Ice" (from Strange Fantasy #6) is one of those exceptions. The story is involving enough but, by now, we've read dozens of similar plot lines; no, it's the fabulously atmospheric art that drew me in and kept me involved. Our first glimpse of the skeletal Morton, through the blinding snow, is almost as nerve-jangling as being there in the flesh. Right from the intro, when our narrator tells us, "My name is Sandra Scott and the story I'm about to tell is true, every word of it! And this is how I looked before the story began several months ago," we're on edge. What does this pretty girl mean, "...this is how I looked..."? [Maybe more importantly, how is Sandra able to narrate her flashback from her unravaged body?!] It's only when we get to the finale (which is a bit of a letdown when you think of all the things this ghostly corpse might do to poor Sandra) that the true meaning of her words becomes apparent. Rare, also, is an early 1950s heroine who's not terrorized in her kitchen but on the face of Everest, vowing she'll "keep up with the men."

Jose: On an evening patrol in an old cemetery, two gendarmes cross paths with a withered old coot who insists that he is on a most important errand: he is trying to find a skull! The gendarmes humor the monk-like figure and listen to the strange history that has led the stranger to this point, beginning almost a thousand years ago. In tenth century France, the man, Jules, was an alchemist in love with the fair Anne and who promised her that he would discover the elixir of life. Experimenting in his lab that night, Jules mixes just the right draught and is now on the path to euphoric immortality. He tells Anne the good news but, as a precaution, has created an antidote to the potion that will restore them to mortal life should Jules’ next mixture fail to give Anne eternal life. A good idea, but Jules is arrested as a witch before he can meet up with Anne and upon being released from his harmless torture session discovers that Anne met similar charges and was strangled to death, the amulet buried along with her. Naturally, Jules is distressed and is now forced to roam the earth as an undying lover without a companion. Now the old man is sure that Anne’s remains lie in a newly restored crypt and, with further indulgence from the police, finds what he is looking for. After the old man takes the antidote, the gendarmes are astounded to see two skeletons resting peacefully together.


With a general setting and final coda that identifies it as a kissing cousin of Victor Hugo’s classic Notre-Dame de Paris, “Skull Scavenger” (from #6) is a macabre mini-epic that manages to effectively course the byways of romance, tragedy, and horror in the span of eight pages. The narrative shows a level of detail and care missing from many other tales, and while it may not be perfect or even logic-proof the effort is certainly more than commendable. (For instance, Jules is smart enough to create a mortality-restorer should his plans go bust but dumb enough to pawn it off to his girlfriend even when he’s the only immortal one at this point.) It really is too bad that much of this art remains unaccredited, as I dig the Gothic, line-heavy work on display here and I’m almost positive I’ve seen this artist a few times before in the Ajax-Farrell titles. Whoever you may be, anonymous Iger Shop freelancer, know that I dig your style!

Peter: Peter and Anne Doyle buy a gloomy old fix-'er-upper from Mr. Black, a strange man who gives them a bargain too good to be true and throws in the furniture as a bonus. Anne goes to work to liven the place up but makes a startling discovery: a box containing milk bottles filled with fresh blood! Not wanting to upset Peter (and his weak heart), Anne (naturally) hides the bottles in the basement and heads back upstairs to dust. Just then, the eerie Mr. Black comes to the door, demanding his bottles, and Anne flees to the basement in horror. Black follows her and, discovering the hidden bottles, gorges himself on their contents. The blood drinker strongly cautions the terrified young housewife to forget all she's seen or she will fall victim to "Anemia Ultima!" Anne begs Peter to come home from work but, when her husband comes to the door clutching his chest, she chickens out and claims a bad case of nerves. Peter knows something's up and finally gets the full story from his frazzled mate, hypothesizing that Black is a vampire and had forgotten to change his delivery address with the "bloodman." The next morning, the bloodman indeed arrives but, much to the dismay of our lovely couple, not to deliver but pick up. "Two bodies! - Paid... in... full!"

Up front, "Nightmare Merchant" (from #7) merits inclusion not for its outstanding quality or award-worthy art but for its sheer insanity. Throughout the story, the reader wonders why the hell Mr. Black would move out of his cushy place and then forget to let his neighborhood plasma delivery man know he'd left but then, with our twisted finale, we get our answer: to pay his tab! But why would he forget his stashed supply? Good question! I say in order to jump-start the events that lead to his debt eradication but then I've got a forgiving attitude when it comes to nonsensical horror stories that contain just a whiff of originality or audacity. I'm sure the Freudians among us would make the conjecture that the entire incident takes place within the fevered brain of Anne Doyle, who's been starved for sex and attention since she married the frail Peter (hell, the wimp practically has a heart attack just coming home in a rush -- how could he perform in the sack?) but, no, this is just a loveably dopey urban nightmare. It's always fun to compare the original presentations to their altered reprintings in the Eerie Publications titles and "Merchant" may be one of the most extreme examples. In its original form, "Nightmare Merchant" is relatively blood-free (save, obviously, for the milk bottles) but, as you can see from the splash pages below (taken from Terror Tales V1/N7, March 1969), just about every Eerie panel has been gored up (laughably, Mr. Black is drooling blood onto the sale contract and Peter doesn't even blink, let alone infarct) for its jaded Viet Nam-era audience. Though Strange Fantasy #7 is not currently available online, you can read the original version of "Nightmare Merchant" here.

From Strange Fantasy #7

And its re-dressing from Terror Tales. Note not only the oozing orifices of Mr. Black, but also the gash in Anne's lovely face.

Jose: B. S. Fitts, publisher of the “foul, filthy, but high profitable” yellow rag the Daily Whisper, puts in another long day at the office verbally abusing his tortured staff when he gets news from his doctor that the old boy is due for a long rest if he’s to make the most of his remaining years. And before you can say “R&R”, Fitts’ trusted butler enters with an anonymous package from Transvania (yeah) containing a strange mud that purports to have rejuvenating properties. Astounded by the energy boost he gets from the mud, Fitts hops on the next train to Transvania where he meets the enigmatic Madame Satin, owner of the health clinic where the geezer will be staying. Satin shows she has an unorthodox method for administering relaxation when she has two burly attendants ambush Fitts in bed the next morning, strip him down to his drawers, and dump his wrinkly keester in a mud bath. The mystery mixture smoothes Fitts’ temper out immediately and leaves him in a state of euphoria that temporarily clouds his judgment when he signs over all his assets to the clinic upon his death as an act of charity. Too bad for the old boy that Madame Satin is looking to collect immediately, as he finds out the next day when the attendants toss him into an empty grave and fill it not with the miraculous mud but with wet concrete. (For some reason they only cover him up to the neck just to then deposit him another grave and fill it with dirt. Talk about inefficiency!) Fitts isn’t in the ground long before his grumpy spirit calls upon Satin’s other past victims to gang up on the villainess and return the favor.

Why bury 'im alive once when you can do it twice?

Though its serviceable art suffers from some unfortunate cluttering in the panels (all the harder to distinguish detail in the B&W reprint from Weird V. 3 #1), “Grave Rehearsal” (from Strange Fantasy #7) is a feisty little yarn with loads of personality that allows it to rise in estimation. Fitts is a great, irascible old coot in the same tradition as J. Jonah Jameson, like a plumper Keenan Wynn that rages against just about anyone who dare speak to him. It’s his blustery attitude that makes the story as engaging as it is, a refreshing change from the typical baloney-flavored Good Guys and Girls who typically find themselves in the clutches of Evil in these stories. The story shows further invention in the addition of Madame Satin, a whip-wielding witch straight from a Margaret Brundage illustration, not to mention the non-traditional setting that puts a unique spin on the buried-alive motif. It all ends with a nice double-wink that finds Satin’s concrete-sealed corpse identified by her now-smiling skull ring and the late Fitts turning in the story of his death to his own trash rag!
Peter:"Little Pat Patrick was a mama's boy." At least that's what the neighborhood kids thought of Pat and his shoulder length hair but poor Pat can't help it. His hair seems to have a life of its own and thwarts any attempts at barbering. As he grows older, Pat's hair grows unmanageable and begins to grow thickly on his body as well. Tired of insults and snide remarks, Pat (now completely covered with long flowing hair) becomes a hermit and hibernates in the hills. Returning one day for food, Pat discovers he likes human flesh and learns he can consume a full grown man, bones and all, in a matter of minutes. As is usually the case, the authorities frown upon this activity and chase the giant ball of fur into a warehouse where they dump a vat of hair remover on him. Pat manages to take two more of his torturers out before being reduced to "nothing but a small pile of dandruff!"


Like "Nightmare Merchant,""Hair Yee-Eeee" (from #9) scores high on the Inanity Meter but still manages to impress with its stark art and high level of humor (when Pat becomes completely engulfed in hair, he tosses away his clothes with a simple "These... are... a... bother!"). Though the surroundings differ, the monster of "Hair..." is obviously a knockoff/homage of Hillman's The Heap, a swamp monster  that had just completed a healthy run of eleven years in Air Fighters Comics. Pat is called a shape, a mass, and an ex-being, before our narrator finally fesses up and labels Pat "the heap." There's not much sense to the story, of course; we never find out why Pat's mane overruns him and if he'd never had a haircut in his life, that mess on top of his head would be a heck of a lot longer but it's got a goofy charm to it. Chief among the ingredients that make up this wacky soufflé  is the art, co-created by the legendary Steve Ditko.

Jose: Peter is called to the bedside of his dying grandfather Hubert so the old man can relay a message of great import: Peter must go to the familial estate of Marsdale and kill a clock! Needless to say, Peter is flummoxed by his relative’s words and remains haunted by them as he arrives at Marsdale with his friends to fix up the dilapidated manse. As they soon note, there is an imposing clock tower on the grounds but, failing to see the clock’s luminous face snarling at them, are unable to understand Hubert’s insistence to have it destroyed. Later on author Mike decides to venture into the clock tower thinking it’d be a crackerjack setting for his next mystery novel. But the only murder Mike contemplates is his own when the floor suddenly slants up and deposits the screaming scribe into the clock’s hungry gears. Peter and the two ladies go out looking for Mike later, and he and Jenny witness the horror firsthand when they see the bloodslick cogs and are almost devoured themselves before Peter can crack off a shot into the machinery. The party figures on hightailing it out of there but the ambulatory clock snatches poor Alice right from her room just as she’s packing. Peter and Jenny run straight into the woods to escape the flesh-hungry clock but the timepiece easily corners them. Full from its meal, “[t]he clock strikes four times—and then only silence…”


For wearing such a risible premise on its sleeve, “Death Strikes Four” (from #8) remains a surprisingly competent affair that never once cracks cute about the notion of a full-sized clock tower getting up and running after some tasty victims. The image has a similar nonsensical resonance as the Dish and Spoon of nursery rhyme fame, and the overall arc of the story resembles “The Demon Tree” episode from the old time radio program Dark Fantasy. (From one Fantasy to another!) This story in particular seems to telegraph many hallmarks of the slasher genre thirty years before the trend would catch on in cinema, including everything from the foreboding old coot, the isolated killing grounds, the group of friends picked off one-by-one, the investigation into the disappearance of said friends, and the downbeat ending that sees the heroes meeting death at the hands of the not-so-dead killer. There’s even a choreographed jump scare where Peter attacks Jenny in the clock tower after seeing her slinking shadow on the wall. Add to that the fact that the out-of-use clock requires the blood of the innocent instead of conventional oil to lubricate its rusted and you have yourself a good time.

Peter: She was known simply as "Sister" but "Sinister" might have been a better nickname for this little street urchin. Adopted by a "high-strung, irritable woman," Sister is constantly finding the jar of devil's candy and ransacking it. What begins as simple child's play becomes deadly serious when Sister throttles the woman with a noose and leaves the body for her foster father to discover. Refusing to cover for the little girl, the man reports the murder to the police but, once the cops arrive, the suspicion is cast on him rather than on Sister. No one will believe his story and soon he stands trial, is found guilty, and hanged for the girl's crime. When Sister is returned to the orphanage, a psychiatrist takes interest in the child and soon comes to believe she's the real culprit. Before his suspicions can be shared, Sister stabs him to death and burns his notes. Later that night, as the girl sleeps, her new guardians sigh and wonder aloud why the doctor would commit suicide in front of such a sweet little girl.

The same year William March wrote The Bad Seed (and two years before it was adapted for the big screen), Strange Fantasy #10 gave us "Bloody Mary" (a really dumb title since there's no Mary amongst the cast), a fascinatingly sick and twisted six pages that supports the argument that having kids can kill you. Like the unfortunate protagonist of "Hair Yee-Eeee," we're never given an explanation for Sister's psychotic tendencies other than she's "a devil's child." One day she makes the leap from stealing sugar to lassoing old women and finds the carnage to her liking. Ostensibly, this is simply a "bad seed" but one panel, in which she tells the doctor he's getting too close for comfort ("You know too much, you question-asking old fool!"), almost leads this reader to believe the girl really is a demon. The sequence where Sister's foster father comes home and finds his wife dead on the couch and then rants about blame is hilarious but the cake is taken by her inability to fix her hair following the murder ("Darn these braids... sometimes I can fix them, but today... well, I'm a little upset...").

Jose: You are just an average guy out for a stroll one beautiful afternoon and admiring the blustery wind’s effect on the skirts of beautiful women when your reverie is shattered by the approach of a truck hurtling towards you in the road! You jump back just in the nick of time only to stumble and bash your head on a fire hydrant. Thankfully, you’re still alive… it’s just that no one else seems to realize it. Your mind is in perfect working order, but your body shows no signs of life, so it’s off to the morgue for you. You can hardly believe your devastating bad luck as the chatty attendants strip you down, put you on a slab, and slap a D.O.A. tag on your toe as they consider where to go for lunch. There’s a ray of hope when your wife Mary arrives; surely she can clear all this up. But the only thing she’s clearing is her conscience as she admits to the impending divorce she was going to ask for so she could be with your best friend Bill. She gives you a literal kiss-off just before you’re hauled into the examining room for your autopsy. Thankfully, there is no physical pain… just the news that judging by your heart you would have died at any moment had the truck not gotten you first. With all this in mind, you endure the tears of all the friends you had in life at your funeral before it’s off to the cemetery where you repose alone in your grave. And then, right at that last moment of consciousness, your body awakens and allows you one, final scream.


You can be forgiven for being reminded of Louis Pollock’s eternally-adapted short story “Breakdown” upon reading the first few pages of “Cry from the Coffin” (from #8). But upon the arrival of our hapless surrogate’s body at the morgue, “Cry” departs the source material by taking a severely dark turn that leaves us reeling and makes Pollock’s original seem like an ice cream float. Delivered with sophistication and a sense of irony as biting as anything produced by those merry band of ghouls at E. C. The story unravels like an onion, peeling back each layer of the main character’s life to reveal a little more about the person he was before he ended up as John Doe at the morgue. But, in a brilliant bit of inspiration, this “revealing” of the character’s past simultaneously flips all of his preconceived notions of who he was: the wife he thought loved him was going to leave and the spiritual euphoria he felt masked a fatal physical condition. Even the sight of all the funeral attendants—more people than he thought he had in his life—is a hard blow, the character’s realization that he was so cherished in life making his eventual destination all the grimmer. And that ending! Joseph Cotten got to silently weep his way to salvation. But that’s one of those preconceived notions you’re best not to believe. After all, you haven’t been very lucky today.

Peter: Lieutenant Peter Carson is called to the city morgue when a woman's body is found floating in the East River. Carson gets there to find a bloated, mutilated corpse, its teeth pulled to prevent identification. The coroner tells the cop that there's pressure on this case since the body may be the daughter of a wealthy friend of the police commissioner. The lieutenant insists that it couldn't be that girl and, upon exiting the room, he pulls a gun and shoots himself in the head. We then flash back to Peter Carson's tour of duty in France in 1946. There, Carson is in charge of identifying dead soldiers by their body parts. One night out, Peter meets a beautiful local girl named Giselle and begins a lusty affair. Giselle wants Carson to bring her to America but he's more interested in the money that belongs to an old sweetheart named Dolores, who writes to Peter to let him know her husband has died and left her millions. Carson dumps Giselle and heads back to the States, where he marries Dolores and settles in to his new lifestyle until Giselle shows up to reclaim him. They meet late at night at a deserted bridge where Carson murders the girl and dumps her body in the river. After Carson commits suicide, the coroner remarks, as he surveys Peter's body lying next to Giselle's, that they'll probably never know the real reason Peter Carson took his own life.


Reeking of noir in both title and plot, "In a Lonely Place" (from #11) is one of the grimmest seven pages ever presented in an Ajax-Farrell funny book. Indeed, though the events are horrific, this is the kind of story that Lev Gleason would have packed into his legendary Crime Does Not Pay comic title -- gory, no-holds-barred accounts of robbery and murder that helped sell millions of copies every month. The non-linear narrative (which, though overworked these days, must have been bold for its time) is jarring; we're barely introduced to Peter Carson, whom we take to be a respectable, hard-working guy based on the few conversations he has before pulling the trigger and blowing those conceptions out the back of our heads. Carson, we later discover, is actually a gold digger who does not hesitate breaking Giselle's heart (and later cracking her skull) all in the name of money. The perfect noir protagonist. And it's a nice rarity to be able to commend the artist by name. Robert Webb's primitive but nonetheless effective visuals are just what a bleak story like this needs. Webb, like many of the pre-code artists, worked for the Iger Shop and was responsible for several Comics Illustrated novel adaptations (including Frankenstein and The Mysterious Island).

False advertising, but we'll take it anyway!

Jose: A tall dark stranger slinks into the city one night on a shadowy mission that involves him tracking another man. The stranger rents a room bordering his target’s so that he might keep tabs on all his movements. Seeing his quarry—an ugly little man—leave the house into the rain-lashed night, the stranger tails him through the wet alleys before the little man seems to actually detect the scent of his pursuer and disappears into the darkness. The stranger is not deterred; he has the patience of many lifetimes behind him. A few nights later the stranger follows the little man to the dockside and it is here that his suspicions are irrefutably confirmed, for within a grotty alcove he sees the little man conferring with a gathering of a hundred huge rats! But once again the quarry sniffs the stranger out and hightails it out with his friends. The stranger returns to his room quite satisfied by the evening’s events and instantly realizes he is not alone. Sure enough, the little man is there to receive him and they engage in a little verbal sparring before the little fellow warns the stranger to get out while he has the chance. When the stranger refuses, the little man shows he means business by assuming his true form: a giant rat! The stranger accepts the invitation by turning into an equally large cat. Fangs and claws slash before the cat comes out the victor. With his quarry finally slain, the stranger reverts to human shape and talks of his next imminent appointment in London.


Stagnation is something that a lover of any form of entertainment will run into at one time or another, whether it be within a single series or across a genre as a whole, and it is certainly no stranger to the realm of comic books. All too often in our experience we’ve seen the sour spouse plotting murder and the maggoty corpse clawing its way through earth and flesh alike and the mad scientist creating an abomination for “the good of mankind”, so when something along the lines of “Fangs of Fear” (from #12) comes along we can’t help but cheer the effort that went into it. While the story unfortunately never delivers on that gloriously promising splash page, it makes it up to the reader by treading fresher ground and going for a moodier, character-driven approach. If the story feels overlong in spots it’s probably because certain lines cut the shock of the reveal off at the knees; at one point the stranger is said to slip “through the turgid night like a great cat.” Still, it’s rewarding to watch the tale unfold like a kind of detective/mystery yarn that alludes to darker terrain, the stranger a stone-faced Holmes matching animal wits with a vermin Moriarty. The unconventional twists marks “Fangs of Fear” as a definite curiosity from the cabinet of pre-code horror, and for that we are certainly thankful.


Peter: Pulah, jungle goddess, and her traveling companion, the leopard known as Saber, are on their way to the Commissioner's office when they happen upon a human sacrifice already underway.  Pulah tells Saber to fetch the Commish but, when events escalate, the wild jungle vixen must intercede. Unfortunately for Pulah, the sacrifice is being handled by intelligent apes and Pulah is conked on the head and taken captive. The gorillas take the girl to their leader, a masked woman named Flora, who has taken a vow to sacrifice all the "useless, ugly females" of the jungle. Meanwhile, Saber finally gets to the Commissioner's office and relays Pulah's message to the Panther-fluent cop. Back at the Flora's torture garden, Pulah has been tied to the stake and about to be set fire to but, as every jungle goddess is aware, apes are notoriously lousy with their slip knots and our heroine frees herself and unmasks Flora. The disfigured Queen confesses all just as the Commissioner pulls up to save the already saved day.


Stuffed to the gills with bad dialogue and silly events, "Death Dance" (from #3) is the latest in a line of "Jungle Princess" stories that found their way into the Ajax-Farrell horror comics (followed shortly after by Kolah, Queen of the Jungle in "Desperate Peril!" in #13). Why the writers bothered coming up with new names for these characters is beyond me; the plots usually followed a standard outline: pretty girl dressed in next to nothing (in this case, some kind of midriff fish net contraption), aided by her jungle cat, must fight some big baddy, all the while pining for the local cop. The scene where Saber convinces the Commissioner he's needed in the jungle is brilliant; the cat needs no dialogue to get across his message (a lesser writer would have scripted a monologue for the leopard). This one was so innocuous, it was reprinted (in Eerie's WeirdV2N4, October 1967) with nary an added bloodbath.  I don't know about you but I could live another twenty years without reading a jungle princess story.

Jose: Life isn’t all gumdrops and pickled pig’s feet for ace fighter pilot Bob Davis. His efforts to blow the Commies’ railway system to smithereens becomes a losing battle with the enemy using forced labor to reassemble the tracks in record time. But the army has a new method planned to stymie the Chinese Reds: guided missiles remotely manned by pilots for the destruction of the difficult-to-repair tunnels that connect the railway system. Davis is a little leery of the notion, and with good reason. Once in the air, the American is tailed by enemy aircraft headed straight for his plane. Davis makes short work of the “gooks” and successfully delivers his winged package straight into the gullet of a Commie tunnel. He isn’t out of the fire yet: a low gas tank forces the pilot to make an impromptu landing at a U. S. base without an actual landing strip. But Davis makes it out without a scratch and smiling over his date with the colonel.

Though I haven’t read extensively into the war comics of the day, “Guided Death” (from #8) appears to be a fairly standard idea of what one could expect upon glimpsing the pages of Ajax-Farrell titles like Battle Report and The Fighting Man. What one would not immediately expect would be to find it in the pages of a rag named Strange Fantasy. We’ve voiced our dissension over these kinds of editorial decisions in the past—the seemingly random and haphazard inclusion of straight war, detective and jungle girl stories in the midst of the comic’s other horrific contents—and although our dubbing of them as “the worst” may be unfair and totally predicated on their obvious displacement in the magazine, one could also argue it unfair that the stories were put there in the first place. And while “Guided Death” isn’t mid-numbing, it certainly won’t be taking home any awards for complex storytelling or cultural sensitivity as it merrily goes about its tale of a handsome, grinnin’ white bread American boy blowing up heavily-caricatured Asians while hurling racial slurs as their bodies drop from the sky. I can’t help but wonder if us horror freaks look at low-pitched morale-boosters like this with the same cynical eye that the war buffs cast towards our beloved tales of cheaters and thieves meeting their shuffling zombie makers.




NOTABLE QUOTABLES

Go long, Satan!

- "Death Claws"

"Good grief, dad! Did you hear that? From Sally's room!"
"They heard that back in New York. Probably a savage mouse! And I was just about to undress..."
- "Death Claws"

“Yipe! If Emmett has pulled a boner, we’ll be in headlines!”
- “Death Claws”

"An aviary! Good grief, Emmet - I thought that was where they kept apes!"
- "Death Claws"

“When Zero packed his luggage, it was on second thought that he took along his ghost-melting disintegrator, hardly a piece of vacation equipment—but without it his postcards home might have read, “Having a haunted time, be glad you’re not here!”
- “The Captain Who Wouldn’t Die”

"More than routine murder to this, all right! A three-pointed spear and a three-pointed fork! Most people would have used the spear, but our killer used the fork! And then steals the spear... or someone did."
- "Chant of the Dead"

"Get dressed and get down here, Jerry! I need you. Frances Talbott, the prominent society woman has been murdered! I've been working like a beaver for the past couple hours clue hunting... and my score is still zero!"
- "Chant of the Dead"

“I’ve heard a lot of loony reports, but this one is tops! Some man calls and says his friend just turned to stone!”
“Never a dull moment! Well, we’ll look into it!”
- “Fatal Horror”

“…And as always there was a clean getaway, no witnesses, no evidence but the cold bodies of the dead men who marked the passage of the Shadow Mob!”
- “Death is No Stranger”

“Mrs. Hunt?”
“Y-yes! Is-is there something wrong, officer?”
“I’m afraid there is, Mrs. Hunt! Your husband—he, well, I’ve got bad news! He’s dead!”
- “Visiting Corpse”

Suspended in a shadowland of lost space and decayed time, Trudy, the student has become Ozarb the Queen... but won't death return to again claim that which it rightfully owned?
- "Dead or Alive?"

"Oh-Oh! Now what? The place is vibrating with the bellows of a thousand wild voices!"
- "Death Dance"

"Here goes nothing! You can give your attentions to Pulah, uglies, and we'll use your own arena for the scene of our battle royal!
- "Death Dance"

"Take her along with you... she can see for herself how Flora operates to keep the Congo free of useless, ugly females!"
- "Death Dance"

"Aaaa... I die! No... no..."
- "Death Dance

"It's Saber, Pulah's pet! And he's trying to tell me something... looks like he wants me to follow him. I guess Pulah must be in danger!"
- "Death Dance"

“Over the wolf howl of the wind came another and more sinister sound—the shrill and horrible cry of death!”
- “Death on Ice”

“It seems incredible… insane… but there’s only one possible explanation, Anne! Brace yourself! Here it comes!”
- “Nightmare Merchant”

“If they’re trying to make a fool of B. S. Fitts, they’ll be very sorry. B. S. Fitts is not to be trifled with!”
- “Grave Rehearsal”

Uh oh!

“So long, buck tooth! See you in prison camp!”
- “Guided Death”

“Mr. Kane, sir, I am afraid he is after your head!”
“M-my head! But the ghost I saw…”
“Had a head! I know! As a ghost, he would, of course!”
- “Dream of Horror”

Night after night the attacks continued. The only audibility to the prying ears of the night was an occasional, incoherent babble from a shapeless monster.
"Uh..Glug!"
- "Hair Yee-Eeee"

“I wonder what on Earth it was?”
“Let’s find out!”
“Wait! Poke at it from a distance first!”
- “Hair Yee-Eeee”

No, Bobby... nooooooo!

"That's right, my dear! Hold them! Don't be afraid! They can't hurt you!
"They feel so funny! Warm and - slimy!"
- "The Terror of Akbar"

A few minutes later, in the dark mummy room of the museum...
"I - Akbar - want my eyes! I know they are somewhere close!"
- "The Terror of Akbar"

“Huh—Yiiiiiii—Akbar falls! Ooowwwwww—Akbar dies!”
- “The Terror of Akbar”

"Well, I've had enough of science for one day! How about buying a girl a dinner, professor?"
"It's a date! Let's try that new little French place down in the old market district! I hear they've got a garlic sauce that's out of this world!"
- "Terror Town"

"Huh! S-something tearing that b-building apart! But what is it? Sort of a gooey, red mass, all blue and red! Hey, it looks like a brain!"
- "Terror Town"

"Wilkens! I'm sorry! I did it! It's all my fault! I sent you the wrong brain! I got mixed up and sent you the brain of an octopus that died, instead of the ape's brain as I'd intended!"
"Johnson! You what -- an octopus!"
- "Terror Town"

Before anyone can stop him Johnson drinks the poison and falls dead...
"He was just getting over a nervous breakdown, I think! Sort of a hysterical little type anyway! Well, at least the brain won't get him!"
- "Terror Town"

Paging Dr. Wertham!

“Five people that might want to kill me! And they all live right here in town!”
- “Doom Deferred

"Several more days pass, and then one day George forgets his keys! And Linda, after all, is a woman! The temptation, which has been gnawing at her, is too much...
- ""Terror in the Attic"

"You cheated me, remember! Not the other way around! It's just like you to try and twist it to suit you! So I'll just have my swim and say goodbye!"
- "The Murder Pool"

“If having two wives makes a man a bigamist—then Harry Green was a bigamist!”
- “The Corpse Came to Dinner”


STORY OF THE MONTH

Peter: Sometimes we (or maybe just I) lose sight of the fact that these little yarns were designed to entertain rather than tax your gray matter and "The Terror of Akbar" (from #10) is the perfect reminder of that. Here is the story of an ancient mummy so horrifying that he keeps our supporting cast at their wit's end... and yet, can't seem to keep his eyeballs in their proper place.







Jose: It seems my co-hort and I were riding the same wavelength this time around because my selection for the featured reprint is another story so deliriously confused with itself that it reaches a level of deranged art that only train-wreck connoisseurs can fully savor. “Dream of Horror” (from #9) starts out conventionally enough with a poor sap suffering nightmares of beheaded stiffs out for his skin but then proceeds to stuff magical wishes, the fires of Hades, teleportation, and headless ghosts that can smell their prey into this loaded turkey and then sews the whole bird up with a jittery hand. We’ve seen stories that have demonstrated blatant disregard for narrative structure and common logic before, but what separates “Dream of Horror” from the rest of the drooling lot is its utter lack of deluded pretension that any of this is going to make a lick of sense. It’s as if the writer had a V-8 moment and said “Well, it isn’t Tess of the d’Urbervilles, so I’m just gonna go ahead and lose my bleeding mind.” And—God bless ‘em—that’s exactly what they did.











The Comics
Strange Fantasy #1-14


#1 (August 1952)
Cover Uncredited

“The Ghoul and the Guest”
Art Uncredited

“Death Claws”
Art Uncredited

“The Captain Who Wouldn’t Die”
Art Uncredited

“Primitive Peril”
Art Uncredited






#2 (October 1952)
Cover Uncredited

“Death Holds an Auction”
Art Uncredited

“Fate Has a Thousand Faces”
Art Uncredited

“Chant of the Dead”
Art Uncredited

“The Frozen Bride”
Art Uncredited







#3 (No Cover Date)
Cover Uncredited

“Fatal Horror”
Art Uncredited

“The Dancing Ghost”
Art Uncredited

“Death Dance”
Art by Matt Baker











#4 (February 1953)
Cover Uncredited

“Debt of Fear”
Art Uncredited

“Death Is No Stranger”
Art Uncredited

“Solar Disaster” **MISSING**
Art Uncredited

“Demon in the Dungeon”
Art Uncredited








#5 (April 1953)
Cover Uncredited

“Witch’s Brand”
Art Uncredited

“Visiting Corpse”
Art Uncredited

“Cadaver’s Revenge”
Art Uncredited

“Dead or Alive?”
Art Uncredited








#6 (June 1953)
Cover Uncredited

“Skull Scavenger”
Art Uncredited

“Rest in Peril”
Art Uncredited

“Death on Ice”
Art Uncredited

“Love Trap”
Art Uncredited








#7 (August 1953)
Cover Uncredited

“Nightmare Merchant”
Art Uncredited

“Tideswept Terror” **MISSING**
Art Uncredited

“A Skeleton in the Closet”
Art Uncredited

“Grave Rehearsal”
Art Uncredited






#8 (October 1953)
Cover Uncredited

“Death Strikes Four”
Art Uncredited

“The Riddle of Manitou Rock”
Art Uncredited

“Guided Death”
Art Uncredited

“Cry from the Coffin”
Art Uncredited








#9 (December 1953)
Cover Uncredited

“Dream of Horror”
Art by Robert Webb

“Hair Yee-eeee”
Art by Steve Ditko and Sy Moskowitz

“Portrait of Doom”
Art Uncredited

“Mirror of Death”
Art by Sol Brodsky








#10 (February/March 1954)
Cover Uncredited

“The Terror of Akbar”
Art Uncredited

“Bloody Mary”
Art Uncredited

“Tee Off a Tomb”
Art Uncredited

“One Very Wide Coffin”
Art Uncredited







#11 (April/May 1954)
Cover Uncredited

“In a Lonely Place”
Art by Robert Webb

“Death Packs a Suitcase”
Art Uncredited

“Frozen in Stone” (Reprint from Voodoo #2)
Art Uncredited

“Doom Deferred”
Art Uncredited








#12 (June/July 1954)
Cover Uncredited

“The Undying Fiend”
Art Uncredited

“The Scales of Death”
Art Uncredited

“Fangs of Fear”
Art Uncredited

“Terror Town”
Art Uncredited








#13 (August/September 1954)
Cover Uncredited

“Terror in the Attic”
Art Uncredited

“Desperate Peril”
Art Uncredited

“The Corpse Came to Dinner”
Art Uncredited

“The Murder Pool”
Art Uncredited








#14 (October/November 1954)
Cover Uncredited

“Meet Me in the Tomb”
Art Uncredited

“Ghostly Guns”
Art Uncredited

“Demon’s Doom”
Art Uncredited

“Monster in the Building”
Art Uncredited

Luis Dominguez

House of Mystery 238 (January 1976)

"A Touch of Evil"
Story by Jack Oleck
Art by Jess Jodloman

"Headlines of Doom"
Story by David Michelinie
Art by E.R. Cruz

Peter: 1976 begins pretty much the way '75 ended as far as the DC Mystery Line goes: lousy scripts partially redeemed by decent, sometimes outstanding art. "A Touch of Evil" is built upon another cliched gigolo plot, this one taking place in a amusement park. The entire story can best be summed up by Luis Dominguez's cover. A bit better (if not any less cliched) is "Headlines of Doom," in which newspaper editor Luke Blesset learns he can affect the future based on his headlines. When his publisher pressures Blesset to up the circulation, the editor shows his boss by killing him in a fiery car crash. Unfortunately for Blesset, his typesetter seems to have a problem with proofreading and, after a well-intentioned office party for Blesset goes wrong, the evil genius gets a dose of his own medicine. A funny finale makes it worth getting through the first seven pages but this is just another take on EC's "Drawn and Quartered" (from Tales from the Crypt #26, Nov. 1951).

Jack: Jess Jodloman's art can be hard to take. He draws Cain like our host is having a really bad hair day. The first story reminded me of "What You Need" from The Twilight Zone in that an object gives people what they need, even if they don't realize it. Of course, the TZ script was much better than Oleck's story. The second story was good but the climax with the "20 happy ears" instead of "years" made me go "ewww." One notable thing about this issue is the violence, which is more graphic than we're used to. There are crane accidents in both stories and, when a woman in the first story is run over by a roller coaster car, there is a big, red splotch. I guess it's good to get used to gruesome violence as we head toward our new series on EC.

Peter: I had forgotten about the red splotch, Jack. You're right, very uncharacteristic for these mild DC mystery titles. The highlight of that bad story.

Bernie Wrightson

The House of Secrets 139 (January 1976)

"The Devil's Daughter"
Story by Jack Oleck
Art by Steve Ditko and Mike Royer

"A Real Crazy Kid"
Story by Steve Skeates
Art by Nestor Redondo

"Instant Rebirth!"
Story by George Kashdan
Art by Bill Draut

Peter: Each one of the three stories in this issue is a flaming pile. I expect that from George Kashdan but Oleck and Skeates contribute such awful stories, it makes you wonder if they'd forgotten how to spin a good horror yarn. Of the three, the least offensive is probably "The Devil's Daughter," wherein lovely little brat, Marianne, convinces her stepfather that she can talk to the show animals... and that they can talk back to her. He's convinced his stepdaughter is a witch but no one will believe him. The madman goes after her with a knife but Marianne is saved by the circus's gorilla. When the police question the girl, she confesses that she's been studying ventriloquism in order to win her daddy's favor. When the cops tell the girl they'll have to put the gorilla down, she says her goodbyes and the ape begs her to save him. She refuses, citing the need to keep from the world her real identity as a witch. It's no coincidence that "The Devil's Daughter" looks like something Charlton would run since Charlton's most famous artist, Steve Ditko, handles the penciling chores here. Jack will disagree but "Devil's..." just adds fuel to my assessment that Ditko was slipping quality-wise by this rung of his career. Marianne alternately looks like she's a pre-teen and a young woman from panel to panel (in the image reprinted below, the girl could be two feet tall) but, I must admit, Ditko's intelligent gorilla makes me nostalgic for the artist's run on Konga. Bernie Wrightson got a lot of mileage out of pumpkins this month.

Jack: I'm sure there's some long study of this topic somewhere, but doesn't it seem like Mike Royer brings out the Ditko in Ditko and the Kirby in Kirby? I don't see any real Royer influence when he inks these artists who have such individual styles. The twist where we learn the girl is a ventriloquist was pretty good, but then Oleck takes it away by having it turn out she's really a witch. Ditko's art reminds me of the early days at Marvel more than anything else. By the way, this issue's letter column says that Abel and the House of Secrets will no longer be around as of next issue. I'm not sure if that just means that they won't be arguing about who hosts the letters column or if it is a ban on appearances in the whole comic. I'm intrigued by the idea of a new, continuing series.

The Skeates story is terrible and it's a shame to waste Nestor Redondo on it. It's mostly characters talking to each other, which doesn't give the artist much to do.