Halloween By Adams - Those Pesky Kids!

When DC returned to the classic ghostly comic book format in the 60's they employed a veteran of the form, Joe Orlando to spearhead the effort. He wisely brought aboard superstar artist Neal Adams to create some powerful covers for those early House of Mystery and House of Secrets covers. 

You can see clearly how Adams ability to capture realism made for even more potent images to drag the young readers to the long-forbidden format. Silly monsters maybe, giant monster perhaps, but now we were about to be graced by the classic blood-curdlers of ages gone by. 

At about this same time Hanna-Barbera launched what would prove to be their most successful creation of the late 60's and throughout the 70's and beyond. Scooby Doo, Where are You! (Isn't that supposed to be a question? ) was a monster hit as a group of older teens and their precocious Great Dane prowled the countryside looking for mysteries and finding always that it was all a hoax. 

But that was not to be the case in Joe Orlando's comics. Orlando himself produced the first cover of House of Mystery #174 which showcases a boney hand beckoning to a gang of kids to enter. A wonderful cover. And the ideal of kids finding out these mysteries became an iconic element of the covers going forward as rendered by Neal Adams. Below are those covers. Do you dare enjoy them? Of course you do. 

(Tony DeZuniga)

And that's a wrap on Halloween this year amigos. We close with Neal Adams and expect to see more Adams work as the next few months unfold. Be sure to check back. 

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Halloween Eve By Adams - The Monster Rally!

Count Dracula, the Wolfman, and the Frankenstein Monster are the triad of classic terror. These creatures were brought into the modern imagination by Universal Pictures decades ago. The classic images became part of the pop culture of the 30's and 40's when the movie hit the silver screen. Then in the late 50's and early 60's they were rediscovered by a new generation and the legends continued. New and different versions of the classic monster were created by Hammer Studios as well as others. Reimagining these classic monsters became a normal part of the entertainment industry. And it was into this that the late great Neal Adams created his own versions for Power Records in A Story of Dracula, the Wolfman and Frankenstein. 

He felt the monsters needed to share a story. They had done from time to time over the decades in various films, but Adams did so with gusto. His monsters were different, his Dracula a blonde nobleman with a mustache, as it had been in the original novel. His Frankensten's Monster was completely redesigned, with vague echoes of the classic make-up but different enough to keep Universal's lawyers from getting interested. And finally, his Wolfman was in fact not even a man.

You can enjoy this wild yarn at this YouTube link. If perchance that link is not active you can enjoy the story in two parts at this link and then this one after that. 

And then in the dawn of a new century Adams decided to revive his story and expand and refresh it. 

Neal Adams Monsters is a handsome volume from Vanguard Publishing which represents the classic reimagination of the story. A savage tale with twists and turns and constantly shifting situations which command the reader's attention. 

The story begins as it does in the old Power Records effort, with the nephew of Victor Frankenstein and his love Erica fleeing for their lives from angry villagers, all too ready to eliminate any trace of the Frankenstein legacy. 

He found and compelled to continue his Uncle's work. As we follow along in this beautiful slender volume, it's easy to remember just how important the work of Adams had been to comics and pop culture. 

It seems the vintage Power Records have been re-released by Studio Chikara. To check them out go to this link. 

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The Complete Web Of Horror!

I was a bit too young to enjoy thoroughly the horror comic magazines of the early 70's. When Marvel pushed into the zone with Monsters Unleashed and Dracula Lives, I began to notice them. I'd bought a random issue of Eerie, but I never got them as a regular thing. So Web of Horror was totally off my charts in 1969 when it debuted. I've long been fascinated by the short-lived magazine, mostly because of the outstanding talent associated with. I like everyone else am a Berni Wrightson fan and guys of like Mike Kaluta and Frank Brunner always get my attention. I was less plugged into Jeff Jones, but, I liked all the work by him I encountered. He came into focus when The Studio was set up with Jones joining Kaluta, Wrightson and Barry Windsor-Smith in attempts to market portfolios and such. 

When Fantagraphics announced they were going to at long last publish a reprint of the series I was immensely pleased and pre-ordered a copy as soon as I was able to do so. Now I have it my clutches to help celebrate Halloween. 

Terry Bisson, Clark Dimond, and Dana Marie Andra all write essays explaining how Web of Horror came to be. His boss Robert Sproul, the guy behind Cracked magazine, was the guy with the deep pockets and so he was the guy Bisson and Dimond approached about a magazine in the Warren magazine vein. Bisson already worked for Sproul. Bission had connections to the young artists filling the pages of fanzines at the time. So, he corralled Wrightson, Kaluta, Reese, along with Frank Brunner, Wayne Howard, the painfully underrated Bruce Jones, and veterans such as Syd Shore and Otto Binder to fashion just such a magazine. 

With writers such as Nicola Cuti tapped to join in, these young turks set about making some tasty monster mags. I'm particularly impressed by Ralph Reese, who brings a hard edge to his fantasy yarns. Wrightson of course is tapping into that classic Ghastly and EC vein he is famous for and Kaluta offered up some dreamy fantasy images. Jeff Jones was brought in for some awesome covers. (He did issues one and two and Wrightson did issues three and the unfortunate four.) Wayne Howard is a fave and his story kicks off the first issue, but alas it's his only contribution. (His second was never published.) The Brothers Ussher by Dimond and artist Donald Norman is set up to be a continuing saga, but it has only one installment. 

The title only lasted three issues. And that's largely because some of its critical benefactors abandoned it. Brisson admits to a severe lack of professionalism when he just dropped out and headed west to find a commune. The artists tried to pick up the pieces, but those pieces were scattered here and yon. Frank Brunner rescued some already submitted artwork scheduled for the fourth issue which never came to be, mostly because Sproul himself ducked out to Florida.  Many of those abandoned but finished stories showed up in other black and white magazine, one I remember reading in a Marvel magazine. 

This handsome volume has all the published issues, the unpublished fourth issue and even a story eventually published in For Monsters Only. To be able to behold and enjoy all these lush stories by the likes of Wrightson and Kaluta and others is a grand treat, especially knowing that all too many of these creators have passed on. I do have one small bicker and that's that the bio for Nicola Cuti made no mention of his co-creation E-Man, my favorite superhero, but that's a small oversight. This volume is well and truly time capsule full of treasure from an era when I was a young man and sopping up comics at fantastic rate. This takes me back to when comics were fun and just a little scary as well. 

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Spirts Of The Dead!

There are two recent comic artists who bonded perfectly with the zeitgeist of Edgar Allan Poe, the late Berni Wrightson and the late Rich Corben. I cannot choose between them, and fortunately I don't have to. In the collection Spirits of the Dead, we have Corben's adaptations of Poe which he crafted in the final decade of his life for Dark Horse Comics. These are not the adaptations he did for James Warren's outfit, but fresh takes on tales that have become foundational in the American mind. I will go a step further and suggest the unthinkable, and that is in some few of these adaptations, Corben has improved upon Poe's original. 

All the shorter stories below (and some poems) are vintage Poe-etic reflections on love and death and how the former is not hindered by the latter, but that neither is the latter respectful of the former. They appeared in different issues of Dark Horse Presents though Corben's efforts with Poe only rated one cover mention and that was a corner shot. 

"Spirits of the Dead" (1827) is the poem that kicks off the collection and is presented in text form only.

"Alone" (1829) introduces the reader to Mag the Hag, Corben's EC-style ghost host. She's one-eyed and bends on a staff quite often, though she's still able to insert herself into many if most of these stories. "Alone" tells us of a fellow named Solomon who gets lost between this world and the world of his dreams. 

"The City and the Sea" (1831) gives a tale about slavers who find justice if not mercy when they discover the titular city. 

"The Sleeper" (1831) is classic Poe and shows us an adulterer and murderer who has a hard time enjoying the fruits of his crimes. 

"The Assignation" (1834) is a truly disturbing yarn about a chap who ends up married to a mad woman and seeks a measure of solace. 

"Berenice" (1835) gives us a tale with some gender-bending when the titular character turns up help a chap who is lost in readings and has no time for practical things. 

"Morella" (1835) offers up a dash of incest which turns into something stranger and even uglier. 

"Shadow" (1835) gives us the grim tale of a Roman military unit which seeks shelter from a plague in a catacomb which turns out to be no shelter at all. 

"The Fall of the House of Usher" (1839) is masterfully adapted in two self-titled issues and takes the famous Poe story we all know and twists it into something even creepier. And that's doing something to one of Poe's most vivid yarns. 

"The Man of the Crowd" (1840) is the new story added to my version of the collection and has a man chase another who eludes for reasons which are mysterious and strange. 

"The Murders in the Rue Morgue" (1841) adapts the great Poe detective story and gives it that little jigger of grotesque and pungent horror it's been needing but didn't know it needed. 

"The Masque of the Red Death" (1842) by Corben gives us a party full of revelers who try to escape the plague only to discover weirdly that it's come to visit. 

"The Raven" (1845) is a second adaptation by Corben and this one takes the most famous of Poe's work and well and truly adds some surprises. 

"The Conqueror Worm" (1843) is about as gross as a story can get, but it's still compelling stuff about a chap who murders and then realizes that his prideful retribution was only the beginning of his suffering. 

"The Premature Burial" (1844) is a zany tale of burials and resurrections which keeps the reader guessing even past the final page. I immediately read this story over again. 

"The Cask of Amontillado" (1846) takes the classic tell of revenge and wine and offers up a frame story which allows us to see some cosmic justice take hold. 

This is as good as horror stories get. I found Corben's robust artwork more than up the challenge of offering us insights into Poe's cracked-up universe. Poe's work has always been something I access better through the lens of creators who take the stories and adapt them, either to film, television or as in this case comics. Corben and Poe are a perfect match. This collection is highly recommended. 

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