Chew the Fat: Uncanny Tales- the Horror Anthology Comics!

 


Redartz:  Most likely, if we were to take a peek inside our longboxes, check our bookshelves, or open up our tablets, we would find a wide variety of superhero comics. Tales of adventure and daring, loaded with characterization, drama and fancy costumes. If we delve a bit deeper, we might find some humor comics. Maybe some Archies, or some vintage Charlton/Gold Key tv funnies. And if we keep going, way into the back of that longbox, we just might find some horror books. 





Horror comics have a very long history, going way back to the late Golden Age. In the 50's, they had a veritable Renaissance in the form of EC Comics. "Tales From the Crypt", "Haunt of Fear", "Shock Suspenstories"; these books and others kept countless kids wide-eyed at night. Filled to the grim brim with work by such comics masters as Wally Wood, Harvey Kurtzman, and Graham Ingles, those classic EC's still command a big following even today. 

Ah, but this isn't "Back in the Atomic Age"! And, even though EC Comics never made it out of the 50's ( with the exception of Mad, which is another story), the horror genre (and it's sister the science fiction genre) kept on going. Going, that is, right through the 60's and well into our beloved Bronze Age. 

Although those books tended to get overshadowed by the superhero comics, the horror comics still attracted some big creative names. At Marvel; think of all those Kirby and Ditko  monster tales from the early 60's. Stories that many of us discovered in 70's titles such as "Uncanny Tales", "Vault of Evil" and "Where Creatures Roam". Anthology titles, featuring several short stories by various creators; some all reprint, some with new stories included.  Indeed, as the Bronze age dawned, some great new stories were being produced at the 'House of Ideas'. Steranko had an incredible story in "Tower of Shadows" #1. There was work by Wrightson, Wood, Adams, Buscema, and many others. All 'hidden' away in the dark corners of the horror comics shelf. 

Oh, and DC was even more 'horrific'ally inclined. They had quite a few such titles in the Bronze age: "Unexpected", "Witching Hour", and the twin pillars of "House of Secrets" and "House of Mystery". And DC went way beyond Marvel in continuing new chillers, all through the seventies you could find them. Alex Toth, Alex Nino, Neal Adams, Bernie Wrightson, all the top names of the comics field brought ghastly life to the stories in those books. Adams and Wrightson, in particular, seemed to have a lock on cover art for those DC horror titles. There's more  beautifully eerie artwork on display there than in Rod Serling's Night Gallery!

Meanwhile, the other comics publishers of the era were busily putting out packages of fright-fraught fun. Charlton ("Dr. Graves", "Scary Tales") , Gold Key ("Twilight Zone"), even Archie ("Madhouse", "Chilling Adventures in Sorcery"). At any spinner rack you haunted, you could count on finding sevefral horror books lurking within. 

Some were excellent, some were fairly dreadful. But they were always fun, and ideal for a late night sleepover with flashlights after the parents were asleep. I didn't pick up many of them at the time, though. My loss. I now love to grab them up, often found on the cheap in quarter boxes. We often talk of books which "the cover made us buy"; well, there are many fine examples of spookily spectacular art to be found throughout the Bronze age. Now let's open the vault and have a look at some...

Although I'm late warming up to this genre, I love anthologies, and these are fun reading and often inexpensive as well. Hard to argue with all that. How about you? Any mavens of the macabre among you?

Chew the Fat: A Treasury of "Batman's Strangest Cases"

Limited Collector's Edition C-59, 1978

Batman's Strangest Cases

Redartz:  Ever since I first started collecting comics, I've been a Marvel Zuvembie. And this is reflected, no doubt, in the many Marvel-themed posts you've seen from this aging fanboy. But today it's time to give DC a little love. Specifically, a spectacular issue of the "Limited Collector's Editon" featuring everyone's favorite Darknight Detective. DC's treasury-sized books predated the "Marvel Treasury Editions" , but I had never sampled them. I'd focused entirely on the Marvel giants. Until this one, that is. 

 



"Batman's Strangest Cases"; from the striking Neal  Adams wrap-around cover to the all-star lineup of creators, this treasury offered a wealth of pleasures. And as for the story selection- wonderful; most of the included tales, it turned out, I'd never read. So finding this gem at a flea market for two dollars was an irresistible temptation. Oh, a couple notes regarding that cover: according to the Grand Comic Book Database (and many thanks are due those folks for some of the information in this post), the cover was pencilled by Adams and inked by Bernie Wrightson. That may be the first time I've encountered that creative teaming. Also, Robin is featured prominently on this cover, but never appears inside. Ah well...

The lineup included:

"Red Water Crimson Death" by Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams
This is an eerie tale of ghosts, plots and menace. Originally presented in  Brave and the Bold 93, featuring Batman and the House of Mystery (or more specifically, Cain from the House of Mystery, who narrated the story). This story starts the treasury off beautifully, with some truly fine artwork. That first page is really sharp...






















 Here's the final spread from the story; the colors here are spectacular and quite effective (and are credited, incidentally, to Bob LeRose).
 

 "Night of the Bat" by Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson
This story, from Swamp Thing 7, was the only story I'd previously read in this collection. A classic, made all the better by the larger size of the artwork (a big advantage to the Treasury-size format).  

 

  
"The Batman Nobody Knows" by Frank Robbins and Dick Giordano
This was a novel little short, with Bruce Wayne chaperoning a group of kids at a campout. But rather than ghost stories, the group shared their impressions of Batman. Reprinted from Batman 250.

 
"The Demon of Gothos Mansion" by Denny O'Neil, Irv Novick and Dick Giordano
 Another ghost story, with the added threat of a group of cultists. As with the first story in this book, Denny O'Neil delivers a good one, nicely illustrated by Novick and Giordano. Batman seems well-suited for these somewhat more macabre tales; a nice change of pace from super-villains. This first appeared in Batman 227.

 
"A Vow From the Grave" by Denny O'Neil, Neal Adams and Dick Giordano 
I remembered the cover from this story, showing the 'boy with flippers', but this marks the first time I've actually read it. Batman follows a killer, and the trail leads him to meet some rather unusual folks. First seen in Detective Comics 410, this story concludes the collection with yet another entertaining yarn; and with typically striking art from Adams/Giordano. Again colored by Bob LeRose; he does some nice work. By the way, that opening page seems a bit evocative of Joe Kubert. Not that that's any fault; far from it!

This treasury ends with an informative write-up, by Mike W. Barr,  of some other 'strange tales of Batman' (occupying the inside back cover) . He discusses several other notable stories from several points in Batman's lengthy history, and summarizes each nicely. It makes for compelling finish to a full package of comic entertainment. The 2 dollar price for this edition would have been well worth it in 1978. Much, much more so as a lucky find in this day and age!