An Army of Walking Dead, aka The Zombie

My buddy Jason was wanting to see a Phantom Lady adventure where she takes on monsters or some kind of supernatural evil, and this tale of legs vs. the undead is probably the best choice in my collection. My scans are from the Great Action Comics #8 (1958) reprint-- a sexy 'n wild Matt Baker illustrated story that was originally featured over 10 years prior in the December 1947 issue of Phantom Lady #15... annnnd the story goes, that when I.W. Publishing got the print plates, they were missing the original splash page #1 which had been printed on the inside front cover of Phantom Lady #15 (see jpeg at the very end of this post.) So someone clever decided, "why not make the cover of Great Action Comics #8 the new page 1 of the reprint!" Off hand, I can't think of many other comics that ever did this with a cover, and with Carl Burgos doing the new cover art, who's gonna complain? Hope everyone enjoyed this month of posts!

(original page 1 splash)

Number 1611: Bradbury and Sutton, “The Exiles”

Ray Bradbury’s imaginative tale, “The Exiles” was interpreted by artist Tom Sutton in Eclipse Comics’ Alien Encounters in 1986.

“The Exiles” in its original prose form has been oft-reprinted. Using authors like Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe and Charles Dickens as writers whose works have been banned in some future society seems improbable, but Bradbury liked to use startling ideas. Having long-dead authors holing up on Mars as their works are discarded on Earth is a concept I don’t think could come from any but Bradbury.

Tom Sutton did an excellent job in visualizing the Bradbury style. Both of these talented men are now sadly deceased.

The Witch's Victim (PART TWO)

For those of you perplexed about how the supernatural Ellery Queen mystery of our last post (HERE) was going to pan out-- well, here's the big finish! Plus, a brief re-cap, and a witchy one-page bonus from the inside back cover of Dell's Four Color #1243. One more request to fill to finish out July 2014 here at THOIA, with lots more coming up-- and a special salute to all my friends who had a blast at SDCC over the last few days-- sorry I couldn't attend this time around, but hope to see ya all there next year!

Number 1610: Flying gorillas from outer space!

Last week I showed some gorilla horror stories, and now a gorilla science fiction tale from DC. Flying monkeys have been around since the Wizard of Oz, but flying King Kong-sized gorillas, well, that's new.

Not only are they flying giant gorillas, they come from a planetoid which has parked itself in Earth’s sky so the flying giant gorillas can steal our atmosphere. Atom bombs can’t stop them, so our scientists use fear gas* on them. What a crazy plot.

Script is by Gardner Fox. Fox wrote it for editor Julius Schwartz, who used high concepts when planning out stories for his magazines. It’s drawn by Carmine Infantino and Murphy Anderson, and it appeared originally in Strange Adventures #125 (1961). The striking cover is by Sid Greene.

I bought this issue of Strange Adventures when it came out. As goofy as the story is, and despite my love for gorilla-fiction, what I remember most about the comic were the full page ads that heralded Joe Kubert’s Hawkman and the first full-length Aquaman comic.

*There really is such a thing as fear gas, although that name implies that is the gas’s sole effect. It does a lot more damage than that. You can read about it here.

UPDATE: I found this incredible Chinese fireworks package  on the Design/Destroy website a few days after posting the story. I love a coincidence.

The Witch's Victim (PART ONE)

Another request, this time from "Mad Margaret" who is haunted by memories of an eerie Ellery Queen comic book mystery she read as a kid but she can't remember the name or anything else about it except "it had a spooky black cat in it!" Hopefully this is the one... and like our last post, it's a bit lengthy so I split it up into two posts. Sekowsky art fans take note! From the Nov. '61 - Jan. '62 issue of Dell's Four Color #1243, --part two coming up shortly (containing a few more spooky cat panels!) And man oh man, is that a gorgeous George Wilson cover painting, or what?

...to be continued!