River of Blood!

Time to finish up the macabre March - April 1953 issue of Dark Mysteries #11 --and what a bonkers collection this turned out to be, eh? It's hard to beat vampires, rats, and haunted hotrods, but I think this fourth and final nail in the comic book coffin is my favorite, and perfectly packed with gory severed heads, and slimy zombie vengeance! Hope everyone enjoyed this COMPLETE issue presentation --see the last 3 posts too if you missed 'em! But don't crawl back into your coffins just yet, there's even more Dark Mysteries coming up next! I'd say "stay tombed" like I usually do, but I just told ya not to crawl back into your coffins, didn't I?

Borrowed Blood

Sunday, bloody, Sundays are back, and it's time to borrow a little bit of the 'ol red stuff ourselves from the same icky issue as our previous post, the November 1953 issue of Beware #6! Classics Illustrated legend, Henry Kiefer overfills your creepy little cursed cups with a terrifying tale of crimson retribution, --where even the blood of the innocent can still face terrible consequences! AAG-GHH!

"The Paper Ghost"

So far May has become a month to BEWARE, and we're rolling out the November 1953 issue of Beware #6 to prove it! Or are we unrolling, --or maybe unraveling it? Whatever, it's a weird story about a vengeful paper ghost (not a toilet paper ghost, anyway!), and it's a tale we liked so much that we included it in Haunted Horror #13 way back in 2014. Also, if the 2-ply terror pair-up of Belfi / Tyler art doesn't wipe you out-- nothing will! Ugh... did I really just say that?

The Vengeance of the Weeping Dead

Jacquelyn G. wrote in a few weeks back looking for a crying ghost story she remembered reading as a kid. It concerns a woman eaten by wolves and returning as a sad spirit, haunting her evil husband who allowed it to happen! The only other thing Jacquelyn could remember was that this tale appeared in a 70's "mystery" comic. Well, I do believe I've materialized this requested spook show, and yes, though it did appear reprinted in the September 1975 issue of Western's Mystery Comics Digest #25, it actually originated in the Sept. 1971 issue of Ripley's Believe it or Not! #28 --believe it or not!

The Thing That Grew! (aka The Easter Basket Grass Monster)

Those of you with a great sense of memory may recall a couple of other THINGS that have already grown in the THOIA Archive HERE and HERE, --but believe it or not, I've found a way to twist today's Jordy Verrill-esque creeper show from the September 1954 issue of Horrific #13 into being the most perfectly stupid Easter post instead! Okay, besides the fact that this thing kills the Easter Bunny on page two, what you'll do is simply replace the final block of narrative above the last panel on Page One with this: "...some terrifying, unknown error in nature took place!! Suddenly a spark of life came to be, and just as the leaves mystically swirled away, they were magically replaced by flying strands of green, plastic Easter basket grass from the nearby neighborhood trashcans! Some even slithered in like snakes, some did the inch worm move! Some bounced like tumbleweed balls, --some twirled like tornados of terror! As if magnetically pulled towards the skeleton by some unseen force, the plastic Easter basket grass formed an eerie emerald shape around the boney, fetid framework." And so on. Please try to enjoy my attempt at whatever this is. (For more about the postcard, click HERE!)

The Great God Pan

As long as we're fishin' it up in this wicked sector of the weird, wooded wild (see our previous post HERE), we may as well get in a little hunting too! And now, not to be confused with the same named horror classic by the awesome great, Arthur Machen, but this time around the Great God Pan has to share his vengeful, shirtless tale via the January 1947 issue of Four Favorites #27 with some oddly intrusive narrative pop-ins from "The Unknown", a cloaked, Death-like horror host figure who would eventually get his own Ace Magazines comic series in 1951, (aka The Hand of Fate.) Paul Parker's artwork doesn't seem as tightly streamlined here as it is on his awesome Kirk of Scotland Yard tales (check the THOIA archives!) but its still pretty fun none the less. And, if you did come here looking for something Machen related, I went ahead and added a one page "Phantom Bowman" quickie from the December 1952 issue of Weird Horrors #5 at the end. If you're not hip to how or why it's related to Mr. Machen, well CLICK HERE for the full scoop-- it's a very interesting WW1 story. And finally, if anyone needs more sinister Satyr action, CLICK HERE as well-- whew!

Strange Case of Henpecked Harry

While ACG is credited in creating the very first horror comic book series with Adventures into the Unknown in 1948, Avon actually beat them by one year with the first full horror comic issue one-shot with Eerie Comics #1 (1947.) Some top-notch artists joined in for the creation of this landmark title, like legendary Joe Kubert, the great George Roussos, as well as Bob Fujitani (who also illustrated that superb cover, see below!) We're actually going to take a look at the frighteningly funny Fred Kida tale today though, where his unique, organic style, and cinematic staging / character posing was really beginning to take sensational shape. And to anyone who doesn't think that you can be titillated by a woman falling on some train tracks, well, I present one seriously gorgeous splash page, as well as a couple of panels on page 6 that will absolutely convince you otherwise! "OH-HHH!"