I've blathered on here a little about how I'm not really into horror comics. But George Romero's Creepshow and Tales From the Crypt, my flirtation with the early 70's Fleischer/Aparo Spectre series has kind of brought me around a little. So I've come across a couple titles for a few pence, and it being Halloween, I thought I'd make it fit into The Project.
1974: Secrets of Sinister House:
I'd not even heard of this title until I stumbled across it at an Allen Mercantile. Great fonts and cover art drew me to it. Secrets definitely fits the "morality tale" aspect of the medium. The story from this issue I chose was the grim The House That Death Built. Much like the ghost story in John Carpenter's The Fog, you have a disgusting soul who sets beach fires to draw 1800's ships to the rocks and their dooms. At that point, he and his crew go to looting the remains of the sunken vessels. This guy, whose cheapness only barely outreaches his greed, decides to build a manse from the timbers of the murdered ships. You can see where it goes from there. Great ghoulish fun, with your standard comic writing, I was not disappointed.
1979: Unexpected dollar comic:
I hinted at this book here, in Full Circle. The story that belongs to the cover images is a short one entitled Ozzie & Mary. Obviously poking fun at Donnie & Marie, you have a television pair of siblings who appear to be America's darlings on camera, but behind it, not even close. Once again, greed exceeds familial love, and "Ozzie" decides to plan an awful on-camera prank on "Mary", and from there it pinwheels out of control, like all morality tales do. As disturbing as it looked to me as an 8 year old, when I was so shaken by the cover? Nah. On a side note, that ad that I mentioned in Full Circle, is also within the comic itself! How Meta!
1969 Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery (Gold Key)
I didn't get many Gold Key titles as a kid. One I still have is the comic version of Disney's Aristocats. What a wonderful piece of Amazing from the late 60's! Anyhoo, the tale The Medium may be the most satisfying of all the entries in today's piece of work. You can literally hear Mr. Karloff narrating the intro and outro to the tale as you read his words next to his four-color visage. You have a medium, a self centered fake, a money-grubbing con artist, who decides to visit the competition. And when he finds out his competitor may be the real deal, rather than learning a thing or two, he engages his own personality to wonderfully grim morality tale outcomes!
All 3 of these were a ton of fun, and as I reach my mid 50's, I realize the Bronze age of comics, in terms of writing and art, are looking more and more like they will blend into the Silver. This makes me sad as I read modern titles here and there. The difference is incredible in both the physical and literary productions. Everything moves forward as time does, and that's a lesson I'm having a hard time accepting.
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