The Rise and Fall and Rise and Fall and... of Pre-Code Horror

by Peter Enfantino

Though they’ve never really gone away, the pre-code horror comics of the 1950s seem to be having another spike in their visibility, if not their popularity. Way back in 1999 John and I co-edited a special “Selective Guide to Horror Comics” Issue of The Scream Factory (#19). That issue featured a ground-breaking article on the pre-code horror companies other than EC. Author Lawrence Watt-Evans opined that several of these companies were producing product equal to, and sometimes superior to, the EC titles. That article has just been reprinted in Roy Thomas’ Alter Ego Magazine #97 (the Halloween Horror issue) and based on what I’ve seen at the publisher’s site (where a piece of the article is available as a free download), Roy has done his usual A-1 job of illustrating the piece with several rare items.

Several new books spotlight the gory, gooey, sadistic world of pre-code. Marvel’s doing a great job of reprinting some of their titles (now how about bringing the price down, guys?), IDW’s first volume in the reprinting of Dick Briefer’s Frankenstein should be out some time soon, and before me lie two very different studies of the genre.

Four Color Fear (Fantagraphics, $29.99) is 320 nicely reprinted pages, comprised of 39 horror stories from such 1950s horror comics as This Magazine is Haunted, Witches Tales, Web of Evil, Black Cat Mystery, Strange Terrors, and Chamber of Chills. The overwhelming impression I get after reading these dusty old relics is that EC might not have been the first, they might not have been the only one, but they certainly were the best. It's not even a close race. EC excelled at not just its art but also its stories. The other companies could ape EC's stable of artists (and do a decent job as in the case of Howard Nostrand's "homage" to Jack Davis, "Dust to Dust," which looks just like Davis) and rip off their ultra-violent storylines (Tales from the Crypt's sadistic butcher story "T'aint the Meat...It's the Humanity" becomes Mysterious Adventures' sadistic butcher story "Chef's Delight"). But if you're buying Four Color Fear for anything besides offbeat nonsense, you're obviously going to be disappointed. If, like me, you relish this stuff, you'll need this book.

Inside you'll find: "Wall of Flesh" about a crazed scientist who creates, well, a wall of flesh that absorbs anyone who touches it; Reed Crandall's ludicrously entertaining "The Corpse That Came to Dinner" about a young couple who discover the undead corpse of their recently deceased friend eating out of their refrigerator; "The Flapping Head," with typically nice art by Al Williamson but atypical story about a flying vampire head seeking to rebuild its body; and what must be not just the goofiest comic in this book but possibly in all of pre-code, "Green Horror" about a lusty, jealous and murderous cactus!

As a bonus to the stories, there are 32 full-page reproductions of classic covers (with comments on each) and editor Greg Sadowski provides exhaustive notes for each story as an afterword and drops a hint that we’ll be seeing a separate volume devoted to Atlas. Based on the job done here, I’ll be looking forward to that book.

Our second study is The Horror! The Horror! (Abrams ComicArts, $29.95), which presents a somewhat different angle. Author Jim Trombetta dissects various facets of the horror comics (the werewolf, war, crime, etc.) using quite a bit of psychology. Usually that throws up a red flag for me. While there are several instances where I questioned the logic of the author, there are an equal number when a lightbulb went on over my dim cranium and I actually looked at a story differently. Trombetta’s prose is scholarly but not academic (read: not boring). I would question whether such in-depth analysis is due a story about a young couple who buy a new house, quickly discover bottles of blood in the basement and then decide against moving out. When the “bloodman” (rather then the milkman) comes calling for “empties” and takes the couple along with him, I thought “what a couple of dopes” rather than look for any Freudian overtones.

According to Trombetta, “Skeletons perform any number of lonely personal revenges, but they most often appear less as the mirror of human self-hatred than as a quorum.” Huh? Just tell me how they can speak without vocal chords! A little far fetched is this description of the cover of Mysterious Adventures #18: “Here a superb Hy Fleischman skeleton grabs his ex-wife and demands that she join him in the grave. What ups the ante is that the ex-wife’s boyfriend is also on the scene – molested, prison-style, from behind by another skeleton.” Does anybody really see in this cover, even squinting, a skeletal version of Deliverance?

There are 16 strips here, several of which are dopey fun. ( I’d love to own a set of Dark Mysteries, with titles like “The Terror of the Hungry Cats,” “Terror of the Unwilling Witch,” “Vampire Fangs of Doom,” “Terror of the Vampire’s Teeth”). My favorite of the batch for sheer goofiness would have to be “The Eyes of Death.” Ralph Moore has always been jealous of fellow astronomer Don Reynolds’ success. Don seems to have all the fame and fortune that astronomers deserve: stars named after him, awards bestowed, lots of dough, and a sweet chick named Elaine. Ralph’s biggest problem is that his eyes are going bad and, sorta like a junk man with no arms, he’s having a tough time getting the job done. Despite the fact that this has nothing to do with Don, Ralph has a “moment” and tosses his partner down the observatory stairs. Now, here’s where it gets interesting. Instead of calling the cops and confessing, Ralph calls his cousin, the surgeon, to ask if the doctor can perform a super-secret operation to give him Don’s eyes. The doctor scratches his chin, pondering, and says “I can do it, Ralph…it’s unethical…but…all right, I’ll do it! No one will know – he’ll be buried with his eyes closed!” (At this point I pause and ask why author Trombetta didn’t research the medical field of the 1950s to get to the bottom of how something like this could occur? No autopsy?) Needless to say, Don’s corpse rises from his grave to reclaim his eyes at the climax. I have to believe that Trombetta is pulling our leg with his analysis of the story: “’The Eyes of Death’ (Dark Mysteries No. 7, July 1952) succeeds in becoming a true nightmare out of a kids’ campfire story, in which eyes can literally be ripped off. The story also presents an original idea of cosmic casuality that will no doubt have astronomers revising their theories.”

If all this comes off as too negative, don’t get me wrong. The Horror, The Horror is a delight from start to finish and features not only those 16 stories but hundreds of rare comic covers. Trombetta drops his professorial cap several times and made me laugh out loud. Regarding the cover of Dark Mysteries #13 (directly to my left). The author questions: “The guard expresses amazement: ‘It’s Tom’s leg…. But he was executed last night!’ What is striking, of course, is how many more questions this explanation raises than it answers: How does the guard know it’s Tom’s leg? If this is Tom’s leg, where’s the rest of him? Did his execution involve his dismemberment? Are the other prisoners afraid that the leg itself will, say, give them the boot? Or has something eaten the post-resurrection Tom in one large gulp, leaving only a drumstick, and are the other characters afraid they’ll be next?”

This is how I think Jim should have tackled this project. Forget phallic symbols and emasculating mother-figures. Sometimes a zombie is just a zombie.

(Page reproduction from "Green Horror" taken from the Bloody Pulp blog, an informative and entertaining examination of Myron Fass' eerie Publications. Highly recommended)