Number 485


Katz Outta the Bag


Uncanny Tales #20 was about the second pre-Code horror comic I ever saw. I was 12 in 1959 and in that youthful way I was very impressed by the panel of "Who Shall Judge" with its graphic suicide. Wow. When I saw it I felt I knew why comic books had at one time been in trouble.

The story is drawn by Jack Katz, an artist who, later in his career, spent several years drawing his magnum opus, The First Kingdom. Katz was a good artist, with a careful approach to anatomy. His panels are obsessively busy, loaded with detail.

Uncanny Tales #20 is dated May 1954. I scanned "My Other Body" from Vault of Evil #17, a Marvel Comics reprint. The story was originally published in Menace #11, the last issue of that title with, coincidentally, the same date as Uncanny Tales #20.

I've also scanned a vignette 1954 from Johnson Smith in Uncanny Tales. Something else that got comics in trouble: advertising. An 8-foot plaited leather bullwhip for only $2.69! You definitely want to arm kids with something like that.

Number 322


How deep is death? How much salve do I have to sell to win a pony?

From Mystic #31, 1954, comes this tale of getting in over your head; getting wet without going near the water. Jack Katz drew it. He went on to do The First Kingdom for Bud Plant.

By coincidence, the back cover of this issue is an ad for White Cloverine Brand Salve*, which uses the underwater motif.

I hope the kids did better than the murdering husband in the Jack Katz story.











*Ads like these were all over the comics for many, many years. Tony Kornheiser tells a funny story about this salve and its marketing techniques. I was surprised to find out it's still being made, although not by the original company, and it's not being marketed the same way, either. It was a product just made for comic books and young entrepreneurs.