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| Earl Norem |
The devil and his minions had been part of the cinema landscape for decades but suddenly the expressions of that evil on screen had become more toxic and viscerally terrifying. Lots of folks noticed, especially the success part.
That included Marvel Comics who lauched as part of their horror cascade in the early 70's a title called The Haunt of Horror.
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| Gray Morrow |
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| Frank Kelly Freas |
The new Haunt of Horror starred Gabriel the Devil Hunter. He was a cross between Nick Fury (rough and tumble adventurer with an eye patch) and Father Damien Karras (a troubled and flawed demon fighter). He had a beautiful assistant named Desadia who is at once his helper and possessed a supernatural link to Gabriel's dead wife Andrea. To read the debut story follow this groovy link .
The pair battle demons who have taken possession of human beings. Gabriel works at great cost to himself to extract those demons, demons who know him and his tormented past.
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| Bob Larkin |
Gabriel shares space in the magazine right through the fifth and final issue. Then he moved over to the final issue of Monsters Unleashed for a final outing. The cover by Frank Brunner for that issue is especially powerful.
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| Frank Brunner |
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I’ve always been curious about the first 2 Haunt of Horror prose/digest issues. Weird Tales-like pulps, really then aren’t they? I’ve never seen them - though I notice Amazon currently has some used issues available for decent prices…
ReplyDeleteI'd love to own copies. I'll have to check that out. Here's a link which shows off the artwork in those issues, great stuff.
Deletehttp://diversionsofthegroovykind.blogspot.com/2012/10/black-and-white-wednesday-art-of-haunt.html
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Along these same lines were a couple of pulpish paperback series I remember from earlier in the 70s. There were the Dr Orient books by Frank Lauria . Interestingly, Dr O appeared as a back up in the Scorpio Rose comic, illustrated by Marshall Rogers and scripted by Lauria himself. I also picked up the Guardians series by Peter Saxon, initially because of the Jeffrey Jones covers. Both of these series involved teams of talented misfits combating occult menaces and demon possession. They seemed to be inspired by Dennis Wheatley as much as Blatty and, while I don't recall much in the way of details. were very much of the psychedelic era.
ReplyDeleteAll that lurid stuff from the day sounds very tasty. I don't think I knew that Doctor Orient preceded his appearances in Scorpio Rose but that's good info.
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