Number 209

Hanging around with Dick Ayers

Here's a gruesome little tale, taken from Ghost Rider #10, 1952. Dick Ayers was at the peak of his powers in this story. His storytelling and drawing ability were at their best during the early '50s, in my opinion. It's obvious that Ayers loved the subject material he drew, whether it was western, or horror, or both, like this story.

Ayers drew a guy hitting the end of a rope really well. If you don't like gruesome pictures, then don't look. Showing a hanging was one, amongst many, of the things that got comics in trouble. Twenty years later, in a freelance job for the non-code Eerie Publications, he drew another gruesome hanging scene, this time with popping eyeball.
ME Comics didn't publish horror comics, so Ghost Rider was the closest they got to the horror comics genre. However, "The Hangman," not part of the official Ghost Rider canon, is a good example of a horror comic story. Take away the western setting and it would fit right into an Atlas horror title.

Number 204

The rope-a-dopes

"Noose For A Magician" is from a coverless issue of Beyond. I don't know the issue number.

I also don't know the artist. Except for the fact that the main character follows Pappy's First Law of Horror Comics: "The main character shall be as unpleasant and unredeemable as possible," there's not a whole lot I know about this story! If you want to send me corrections or information that will enable me to go back in and include it for later readers to this blog entry, please contact me. This is why blogging is more handy that printing. Unlike a mistake in print, a blog is fixable.

Our little horror story from Beyond uses the legendary Indian rope trick as its hook. Here's a two-page text story from the Story of Magic issue of Classics Illustrated The World Around Us to tell you about the Indian rope trick. Click on the pictures for full-size images. For those of you not wanting to wade through the text, here's the short course: the Indian rope trick, as it's known in legend, doesn't exist.Something I like about Ace, publisher of Beyond: the coloring. They had an interesting way of laying whole colors over panels. It's very attractive.

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Number 184

Historic Horror


It's uncommon for a horror comic story to have a background in historical events, but this story, "All The King's Men," from Amazing Ghost Stories #15, has just that.

From what I've been able to research on Henri Christophe, king of Haiti, I wouldn't recommend using this story as the basis of a high school term paper, but it gives the story something exotic. Setting a story in Haiti without it being expressly about voodoo seems almost sacrilegious. Voodoo is practically the exclusive reason for stories set in Haiti. However, the comic is called Amazing Ghost Stories, and this story does have some voodoo, but the historical background using Haiti's only king is what drives the plot.

The Citadelle, shown in the story, actually exists, and is shaped like a ship, just like the character claims and the artwork shows. Unlike the story, in the encyclopedia entries I read, Christophe committed suicide using a silver bullet, not a gold bullet. Maybe he thought he was a werewolf.

The artwork is by the excellent Bob Powell, whose artwork is up to its usual high standards. St. John was the publisher of this comic, which was the continuation of the title Nightmare, and ran for three issues on its own, just before the Comics Code was implemented in 1955.



The cover is by Matt Baker, and has a voodoo theme, although it appears unrelated to this story.

Some publishers, St. John included, appear to have been spooked by the witch hunt against comics, and anticipated the Code by toning down their comics. This story probably would not have appeared in a post-Code title without some changes, but it isn't as gory as it could have been for the time it was published. The main character is a typical horror comics character, though: an irredeemable killer who gets what's coming to him.

Number 178

Sex and Skeletons Part 4

Haunted Thrills, published by Farrell, a publisher which hung around the periphery of comics even after the Comics Code was instituted, had a nice selection of skeletons and skulls on its horror comics covers. Some symbolic, some representational.

I especially like the taxi driver cover on issue #15. I'll bet jouncing over bumpy roads with this guy gave new meaning to bone-rattling. When he jawboned with the passengers, he really jawed.

I've also included a copy of Canadian publisher Superior's Strange Mysteries #15. Not only does it have a big symbolic skull, it's got bony hands reaching for a girl with a Bettie Page hairdo, a red dress, and some of the worst looking and un-sexiest sandals I've ever seen.