Number 1578: Her lover in the death house: “Through the glass I’m kissing you.”

A couple of days ago I posted a Samson story from 1939 with a minimum of dialogue and lots of captions, and now we have a story from 1950 with a maximum of both dialogue and captions. I wonder how the letterer left enough room in the panels for the artist to draw.

In this case the artist is George Evans, who does a superb job with the space left to him for the illustrations.

And despite some overcooked dialogue and twice-baked descriptions (“The howling wind sang a dirge to the shivering pair...”) in “The Terror of Tarn House” I enjoyed this story from Fawcett’s Love Mystery #1 (1950). I thought it could have made a movie from that era, and the excellent art by Evans would make a good storyboard. A man falsely accused fits right into a Hitchcock style.

Number 1072


Captain Video and the Ring of Orgon


Captain Video, the comic, came from Captain Video, the television series. The show was broadcast in the early days of TV by the DuMont Network, which was a hand-to-mouth organization, broadcasting mainly in the Eastern United States. We didn't see their programs in the West, where I was raised. My only connection to Captain Video was the classic "Captain TVideo" parody by Harvey Kurtzman and Jack Davis in Mad #15.

The DuMont Network lasted until the mid-'50s, and most of the archives that remained, kinescopes made of their programs including Captain Video, were destroyed in the 1970s. Captain Video was real low budget. The Mad story spoofs that. In a comic book there is no budget for special effects, just what the artist can design. The assignment went to comic book journeyman George Evans, a very fine illustrator, who later made his mark for EC Comics. The story is from Captain Video #4, 1951.

As well drawn as it is, the printing left a lot to be desired. I cleaned up the scans as best I could, but I have worse than a low-budget operation, I have a no-budget operation.

Number 1044


The Green Hands of Horrorween


It's Halloween today. If the past is any indication, the kids who show up at my door this evening will probably be dressed like princesses or ballerinas and the boys in whatever is popular today. (What is popular today? Transformers?) What fun is that? Where are the witches, the skeletons, the ghouls, besides the U.S. House of Representatives?

Ah well. At least I carry on the tradition of presenting horror stories on Halloween I'm showing a couple of cool tales from the Fawcett vaults of the early 1950s. First up is "The Green Hands of Terror" from This Magazine Is Haunted #2, which readers saw when they got past the cover by Sheldon Moldoff:

"Green Hands" was drawn by George Evans, who as usual did a beautiful job making material that could have looked just silly into creepy. He went on to EC Comics and proved he could draw anything they asked him to.

(Note: you aren't imagining things: the colorist screwed up and colored an extra arm green in the splash panel.)













The second story, "The Resurrected Head," is from World Of Fear #4. The Grand Comics Database doesn't list an artist. The story gives me something of the vibe of Re-Animator, the classic '80s film where a headless scientist gives head!