It's An Entertaining Comic! Part Three: Aug/Sept/Oct 1950

Featuring special guest host, John Scoleri!

The EC Reign Month by Month 1950-1956
3: August/September/October 1950

Johnny Craig

The Crypt of Terror #19
(August-September 1950)

"Ghost Ship!"★★★
Story and Art by Al Feldstein

"The Hungry Grave"★★
Story by Gardner Fox
Art by Graham Ingels

"Cave Man"★★
Story and Art by Johnny Craig

"Zombie!"★★★
Story and Art by Johnny Craig

Daniel King is a guest at the Haiti plantation owned by Mr. Richards, who tells him that tonight is Voodoo Night, when the natives join in a black magic ritual in the jungle. King grabs his camera and heads out, hoping to gather some good material for an article he’s writing about the island. Deep in the dense undergrowth, King watches as the natives dance around a fire and prop the corpse of a woman up against a pole. King watches as the corpse regains its life and transforms into the figure of a beautiful woman. The dancing stops when the camera flash goes off and King makes a run for it.

More Craig brilliance

Making it back safely, King hears from Richards that he must have glimpsed the White “Zombie!” and Richards regales him with the tragic story of the plantation’s former owner while King waits for the film to develop. Jason Morgan was a cruel plantation owner with a kind wife named Marie who liked to sneak off and dance with the natives. Morgan caught and killed his wife but the natives reincarnated her as a zombie; when she was sent to get vengeance on her husband, he fled and was drowned in quicksand. Richards says it’s the anniversary of her death and King insists that the natives brought her back to life, but his photograph shows an empty space where he saw a living zombie.

Johnny Craig tells a whale of a tale here, building suspense beautifully by mixing in wordless panels in the sequence where King observes the voodoo rite. Craig’s other story, “Cave Men,” is less successful but still demonstrates the writer and artist’s special ability to know when words are not needed.

Al Feldstein’s “Ghost Ship!” opens the issue and is a very effective little ghost story, while Fox and Ingels provide “The Hungry Grave,” which meanders along until it reaches a nice final panel after a twist straight out of Rigoletto.-Jack 

"Ghost Ship!"

Peter: All-in-all, a mediocre issue of The Crypt of Terror (the last to sport that title). Oddly, "The Hungry Grave" lacks an intro from any of the horror hosts. "Cave Man" provides the template for a thousand pre-code horror stories (probably half done by Harvey), that of the thawed prehistoric man/beast who then wreaks havoc upon today's world. Johnny Craig can't seem to jazz the theme up either. Though not as boring an artist to me as Jack Kamen, Craig lacks the detail and style found in the work of Ingels, Feldstein, Wood (at least, the Wood of the near future), or Kurtzman and a lot of his characters look alike (complete with the trademark dangling cigarette). Say this though, Johnny could pump out some snazzy covers.

"The Hungry Grave"

Jose: Peter’s certainly correct in pointing out the relative staleness of all the stories in this issue. (With the exception of the evocatively-titled “The Hungry Grave,” they all remind me of the simplistically named entries from Amicus’s first portmanteau chiller Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors—“Werewolf,” “Creeping Vine,” etc. And they’re all just about as polished.) “Ghost Ship” is like a horror-lite episode from an old time radio show, and “Cave Man” is fairly undistinguished minus some of Craig’s subtlety in communicating character without word bubbles or captions, i.e., the nasty curator’s realization that the Neanderthal is alive. And I don’t care what anyone says, but those shots of ol’ Tarzan shivering into his second “death” are tear-jerkers! “Zombie” is probably the most dynamic of the bunch, solely based on Craig’s cinematic artwork. Some of the voodoo scenes are just quietly stunning, enough to grip your attention from across the five and dime and get you to buy the book.

John: I think Al Feldstein must have forgotten who he was writing for. As I read "Ghost Ship" I looked forward to discovering the twist, and was impressed when the tanker passed right through the ghost ship of the title. Ah, the protagonists must have died in the plane crash, I thought. Imagine my surprise when it was explained that they not only lived, but they were rescued, with their story dismissed as a hallucination. What a disappointment! But fortunately that set my expectations low going into Fox and Ingels's "The Hungry Grave" which, while not groundbreaking (pun intended), was a solid story in line with what I expect from EC. I would have completely dismissed "Cave Man" if not for the three panels Jose mentioned above. Johnny Craig can draw a rotting corpse with the best of them, and while my tastes in the living dead lean more towards the George Romero camp, the voodoo tale "Zombie!" was better than I had expected. 

Johnny Craig

The Vault of Horror #14
(August-September 1950)

"Voodoo Vengeance!" ★★★
Story and Art by Johnny Craig

"Werewolf" ★
Story by Harry Harrison
Art by Harry Harrison and Wally Wood

"Rats Have Sharp Teeth!" ★★
Story by Gardner Fox
Based on "The Graveyard Rats" by Henry Kuttner
Art by Graham Ingels

"The Strange Couple!" ★★
Story and Art by Al Feldstein

Things heat up for Sally in the climax
of "Voodoo Vengeance!"

Looking for a trinket for his wife, Sally, Caleb Standish happens upon a small curio store and is told by the owner that the specialty of the house is voodoo dolls. Caleb pshaws the idea but the eerie old man tells him that should he ever need to get rid of someone, come back and they'll do business. Caleb races home in time to spy his gorgeous young wife in the arms of a lover. Bitter and heartbroken, Standish heads back to the curio shop the next day and orders a voodoo doll of his wife. The next few weeks are heavenly as Caleb manages to keep Sally bedridden with various ailments but, feeling guilty, he confronts Sally with her adultery and offers to give her a second chance for a happy marriage. Sally laughs in Caleb's face and begins tossing electrical appliances his way. Out of lamps, she grabs the next available object, her own voodoo doll, and tosses it at Caleb's head. The pitch is out of the strike zone and lands in the fireplace . . . with predictable results. "Voodoo Vengeance" is how to transform the done-to-death infidelity hook into something much more entertaining. Craig's art is absolutely perfect for the story, Standish the kindly old gentleman and Sally the coquettish hussy with a great set of headlights. Extra credit for the denouement, which gives us Caleb's reaction to the sight of his wife either melting or spontaneously combusting.

Caretaker Abner Tucker stumbles onto a goldmine when he starts robbing graves. A system of underground tunnels makes it easy for the old ghoul to pilfer jewels, coins, and even gold from the caskets but the deep, dark alleys hold perils: giant, hungry rats! When Abner lays traps and poison and wipes out a good portion of the vermin, the survivors band together and chew through the tunnel supports. The ensuing collapse buries Abner alive. "Rats Have Sharp Teeth!" is a loose adaptation of Henry Kuttner's first published short story, "The Graveyard Rats," (from Weird Tales, March 1936), one of the first of the authorized adaptations to appear in an EC funny book (as opposed to the "homages" and blatant rip-offs of anything from Shelley to Lovecraft that would appear from time to time). The subject matter could only have been assigned to Ghastly (could you imagine Kamen or Craig landing this one?) and he doesn't disappoint. Abner Tucker is the prototype of just about every arthritic bad guy to come.

Ingels!

Surely, there's more Harry Harrison than Wally Wood in "Werewolf," a truly awful story about mountain climbers who encounter lycanthropy at high altitudes. The art borders on amateurish (although there are some interesting stylistic flares as on the intro page which incorporates the title into the background a la Will Eisner) as does the simplistic story; the whole resembles the work found in one of the lesser pre-code titles such as Fantastic Fears or Adventures Into the Unknown. Needless to say, John is still looking for a good werewolf story. "The Strange Couple" is another variation on the unending nightmare hook; a man is stranded in a downpour and must seek refuge at a creepy, dilapidated house belonging to a weird husband and wife. She insists to her guest that her husband is a vampire and the husband lets on that his wife is a ghoul. That night both of them enter his room to drain and eat him. He wakes up back in his stalled car, sees a strange house and approaches. The same couple opens the door . . . This plot device would be used to much better effect by Feldstein the following year in the classic "Reflection of Death" (from Tales from the Crypt #23). Hepsibah, the ghoulish wife, is a dead ringer for The Old Witch.-Peter 

Jack: Johnny Craig’s second voodoo story of the month is an outstanding tale of vengeance, set not in the jungle but in a more mundane locale. The Harrison/Wood stories are the closest thing we’re seeing to Golden Age art and writing in the EC comics so far, which makes them look hopelessly backward next to the work of Craig and Feldstein. The Ingels entry is well done, though I expected a more gruesome ending. Feldstein’s effort disappoints—though I like stories told in the second person, the “it was only a dream” climax followed by the circular ending was a real letdown.

The Old Witch doing double duty as host and character?

Jose: “Voodoo Vengeance” is one of the strongest tales that we’ve seen yet, especially from the standpoint of Johnny Craig’s script. Caleb Standish is a fully realized character; this isn’t the stereotypical cuckolded husband who turns nasty on a dime at the discovery of his wife’s infidelity but is instead constantly struggling with the morality of his actions. He’s hurt and angered, but he also genuinely loves Sally and even, it is subtly implied, aware of the great disparity in their ages and how it might have contributed in bringing them to this point. “Werewolf” is the latest in the string of ho-hum lycanthropy yarns from the first issues of the horror titles, and “Rats Have Sharp Teeth” benefits from some New England chill that Ingels brings to the proceedings with his ever-reliable artistic decrepitude. I remember enjoying “The Strange Couple” a tad more on the first reading, but this time around Feldstein’s yarn didn’t quite do it for me. And personally, I think the ghoul-wife bears a closer resemblance to a feminized Crypt-Keeper than the depictions of the Old Witch we've seen so far. What say you, dear reader?

John: While I agree that “Voodoo Vengeance” is a great story, with a great ending in particular, I thought the art left a lot to be desired. "Werewolf," on the other hand, had a story to match the lackluster art. I think Harrison must have thought he had a winner with that one based on his use of a splash page for the finale. “Rats Have Sharp Teeth” looked better, but the story was only marginal, and while "The Strange Couple" might have had the best art in the book,  again it had a disappointing story.

Johnny Craig

The Haunt of Fear #17
(September-October 1950)

"Nightmare!" ★★★
Story and Art by Johnny Craig

"Television Terror!" ★★★★
Story and Art by Harvey Kurtzman

"Monster Maker!" ★★
Story by Gardner Fox (?)
Art by Graham Ingels

"Horror Beneath the Streets!" ★★
Story and Art by Al Feldstein

It's 8 o'clock. Time for the Al Hunt Show! Tonight Al will take his viewers on a guided tour deep into a haunted house. Al has a jovial tone to his manner but his traveling companion, Professor Poltergeist (!) from the London Society of Psychic Research warns the celebrity that the paranormal is not something to take lightly. Once inside the dark old mansion, Hunt sees the professor's point as strange noises escalate into violence all while the camera keeps rolling. The last images of the frightened host that his viewers see are of Hunt talking to someone/thing off camera and then climbing a ladder and hanging himself. A colleague of Hunt's quickly cuts the broadcast. Harvey Kurtzman's stark art (using mostly yellows and blues) heightens the tension and the abrupt climax literally jolts the reader. "Television Terror" is almost an ancestor of today's "found footage" horror films and that aforementioned finale is very reminiscent of The Blair Witch Project. Though its brevity doesn't really give the story much time to get chugging (we're barely into the house when the shit hits the fan), this one is a stunner. In a case of all-too-easy casting, Hunt (renamed Horton) was played by sleaze TV-host Morton Downey, Jr. in the HBO version of "Television Terror." It's twenty minutes of sheer awfulness. Much better was the similar Ghostwatch, which aired on the BBC in 1993 and caused quite the stir among viewers.

Harvey strikes again!

"The Monster Maker" is a low-grade "homage" to Frankenstein (complete with cries of "It's Alive!") that begs the question: why would a scientist want to transplant the brain of an ape into another animal? Tons of these goofy scientists (at least the kooks in the 1950s horror films) wanted to put monkey brains into another receptacle. At least Dr. Ravenscar brightens up and decides humans would be much more interesting. Never mind the dopey script; it's got art by Ghastly, who's still feeling his way through the horror jungle and getting better all the time.

John Severin, a construction worker plagued by nightmares of being buried alive, visits psychiatrist Dr. Froyd, who tells him the dreams are his subconcious (sic) alerting him that he's overworking. He goes back to his job, feeling relieved, and enters a foundation to inspect the work. When the concrete starts filling the foundation all around him, Severin is convinced he's in one of his dreams and laughs jovially even as the cement buries him alive. "Nightmare" has that laid-back Johnny Craig style (complete with handsome lead character, ciggie dangling from his lips) and a nicely done twist ending. It would be a few months before John Severin would make his EC debut (in Two-Fisted Tales) but surely Johnny Craig must have copped the artist's name for his character; it's too much of a coincidence. As for Dr. Froyd... I have no idea where the inspiration came from. The caboose story, "Horror Beneath the Streets," tells the story of his Bill Gaines and Al Feldstein came to create the EC horror line. No, they're not hanging around the comic newsstand thumbing through the newest Adventures Into the Unknown, but harassed by an unseen presence who forces them down an open manhole and into the sewer. There they meet The Vault-Keeper and The Crypt-Keeper, who convince them to publish their stories. And so a legend is born. Not nearly as good as the previous fable enlisting Gaines and Feldstein, "Cosmic Ray Bomb Explosion," but whimsical nonetheless.-Peter

Jack: “Nightmare!” has a great splash page with a point of view looking up from an open grave. As for John Severin, the GCD credits Marie Severin with colors on this story, so maybe John was hanging around the office, too. Craig’s stories are very literate and I find that I enjoy reading them. His are my favorites so far, both in writing and in art and in how the two work together. Kurtzman’s “Television Terror!” is a 1950 version of today’s MythBusters in which each panel is a little TV screen. I realized, however, that the main character isn’t filming himself and he’s alone in the house with a camera, so why do we see him onscreen? The ending, where he hangs himself, was surprisingly downbeat and points us in a direction EC comics will soon go. The Ingels story shows his art continuing to make strides toward a more gruesome tone, and the panel where the helper drops the brain made me think of Marty Feldman. This issue features a hilarious letters column with two letters from “readers” that have to be fake! Finally, I enjoyed another visit with Bill and Al in “Horror Beneath the Streets!” It shows you that Stan Lee was far from the first to include himself and his cohorts in comic book stories.

Jose: Like Jack, I’m incredibly enamored with Johnny Craig’s narrative stylings. His prose was, more times than not, even better than head-scripter Feldstein’s, and the marriage of art and story a more harmonious union to boot. “Nightmare” is bolstered by some quietly unnerving sequences that have the true ring of genuine night-terrors, and the climax showing our Hollywood-handsome lead merrily laughing to his death reaches a level of grimness that couldn’t be topped by even the moldiest walking corpse. A similar ending works wonders for “Television Terror,” whose you-are-there perspective gives the story a dreadful sort of immediacy that leaves the reader feeling as helpless as the stunned audience members of the Al Hunt show. Ingels is stuck with another sub-par tale that carbon copies tropes from the Big Book of Horror Classics, and though his art is still a highlight it isn’t as deliciously gruesome in “Monster Maker” as it has been before. “Horror Beneath the Streets,” with its behind the scenes peek at how Bill 'n' Al met the GhouLunatics, could’ve been much funnier than it was. It suffers from a little too much serious build-up that deflates the cameo appearances we get from the horror hosts at the end. Think of all the wiseacre patter we could’ve gotten had they been introduced earlier in the story!

John: While I enjoyed both the art and story in "Nightmare," I can't help but think stories like this would be even more effective shorn of a few pages. I'd sure like to know if the "Television Terror" I read is really the same one Pete gave four stars to. The last few panels are nice, but the rest of the tale was nothing to write home about. Once again, Graham Ingels's "Monster Maker" art elevates this tale to the top of the list for this issue. Finally, I couldn't get past Roger Ebert starring in "Horror Beneath the Streets!" Go back and see for yourself. I'll wait.

Al Feldstein

Weird Science #14
(September-October 1950)

"Destruction of the Earth!"★★
Story and Art by Al Feldstein

"The Sounds From Another World!"★★
Story Adaptation by Al Feldstein
Based on the Story "The Sound Machine"
by Roald Dahl
Art by Harvey Kurtzman

"Machine From Nowhere"★
Story by Al Feldstein
Art by Harry Harrison

"The Eternal Man"★
Story by Al Feldstein
Art by Jack Kamen

Henpecked Henry Sonotown lives for his inventions. One day, he creates a machine that allows him to hear all the sounds no one else can hear, but he is shocked to hear not “The Sounds From Another World” but rather the shrieks of plants as they are being pruned. He shanghais a passing doctor to listen in and nearly is killed by a falling tree branch when he drives an ax into the trunk. Years later, we see that he is now a resident of Batgate Sanitarium, driven mad by his discovery and an avowed meatetarian who will not eat any plants.

Deleted scene from The Wizard of Oz.

Harvey Kurtzman does a passable job on this, the closest thing to an entertaining story in a yawn-inducing issue of Weird Science. Among the dull tales are Feldstein’s “Destruction of the Earth,” where we learn that if the H-bomb is detonated it will start a chain reaction that will send our planet into the sun; Harrison’s “Machine From Nowhere,” about a machine that turns out to be a time machine from a doomed future; and Kamen’s “The Eternal Man,” about a scientist who dies and is replaced by his own robot duplicate.-Jack 

Peter: "The Eternal Man" forgoes the typical O. Henry-style climax by giving us the twist only a few panels in. Unfortunately, the story drowns under its wordy captions and weak art. Kamen's work is almost gallery-worthy compared to Harry Harrison's "Machine From Nowhere," a silly and confusing time travel tale with some scratch-your-head oddities (can you actually pick up a canister of Uranium with your bare hands?) and the gawdawful sketches from the exiting Harrison. "Machine . . ." was, in fact, Harry's only solo art in the EC pages. Thank goodness for that; Harrison's amateurish scribbles and blah layouts stand out like a sore thumb from the rest of the EC bullpen (yes, even Jack Kamen). Don't cry for Harry though; a decade later, he'd make his mark on science fiction with his Deathworld and Stainless Steel Rat series of novels, not to mention Make Room, Make Room, famously filmed as Soylent Green.

She doesn't look too worried . . .

Jose: Weird Science continues its streak of middling stories with this latest issue. Seeing as how I reread Dahl’s “The Sound Machine” not so long ago, the EC “adaptation” can’t help but pale in comparison to the British master’s genteel sense of cruelty, but the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari-styled ending was admittedly a cute touch. The other three stories only induced a lot of head-shaking and eye-rolling. “The Eternal Man” is a sentimental bore that engages and surprises the reader precisely zero times, while the “Machine from Nowhere” is a bit of a howler where you can practically feel the heat radiating from Feldstein’s typewriter as he smashes the keys with twenty minutes to the issue’s deadline. “Destruction of the Earth” might be the only story to give away its “twist” ending on the front cover, but one wonders how the alien schoolmaster got his lesson plan if all those involved with the planet’s doom never lived to tell the tale. Feldstein should have taken his own lead and written a story concerning the robot travelers’ investigation of the shattered Earth instead.

John: “Destruction of the Earth” was the only story I enjoyed in this issue of WS, and that's only because I was expecting to get to the end and have the twist be revealed that the Earth wasn't destroyed. Of course, as Jose points out, the scene depicted in the cover was more interesting than what was in the story itself.

Harrison demonstrating his aptitude for depicting weather.

Al Feldstein

Weird Fantasy #15
(September-October 1950)

"Martian Infiltration!" ★1/2
Story and Art by Al Feldstein

"Henry and His . . . Goon-Child" ★★
Story and Art by Harvey Kurtzman

"I Died Tomorrow!" ★
Story by Al Feldstein
Art by Jack Kamen

"Dark Side of the Moon" ★★★
Story and Art by Wally Wood

Edgar Walden is one of six men sent to explore the “Dark Side of the Moon,” but the group’s sense of adventure is effectively shattered when indigenous aliens lay waste to the team and leave Edgar as the sole survivor. The little gremlins tell Edgar that they’ve been watching our planet for some time now, and it will only take the detonation of a massive bomb to send pieces of the moon crashing into Earth to make way for their eventual invasion. Edgar calls their bluff and tells the aliens that his team was the first of a defensive fleet on their way to wage war, buying him just enough time to escape back to Earth and tell any willing passer-by in Washington D.C. of the imminent threat. Taken for a coot fresh from the asylum, Edgar is promptly ignored. Two fellows wonder aloud of Edgar’s sanity just as the moon explodes in an interstellar inferno.

Wood!

While the script is no great shakes, “Dark Side of the Moon” ushers in the reign of the one and only “Wallace Wood,” as he is credited on the epic splash page. Given room to flex his own artistic abilities without the hindrance of a partner who shall remain nameless (at least until Peter and Jack take the floor), Wood proves that he is certainly up to the task, giving us a glimpse of the brawny style and pulpy space heroics that will typify his later work.

Unfortunately for us, the only thing with holes here is the plot.

The three other tales pale mightily in comparison, and they’re not so hot taken on their own account either. We’re only three issues into each of EC’s sci-fi titles, but I feel like we’ve seen a version of “Martian Infiltration” at least six times already. Conquerors from the red planet are insinuating themselves into positions of power in the good ol’ U. S. of A., but thankfully civilization is saved with the help of the Secretary of State and his assistant, who also happen to be from the overruled Venus. Story and art are about as thrilling as a gallon of milk. Harvey Kurtzman barely keeps things running with “Henry and His . . . Goon-Child.” (Those ellipses make it seem as if Kurtzman was mindful of the fact that “goon-child” might not have been the most PC of terms to use, but the lead character proceeds to roll the insult off his tongue at every opportunity for the length of the story anyway.) It’s hard to act surprised when Henry’s oppressed robot-slave gains sentience and starts ordering the jerk around, and I can’t imagine it was received any better on its original publication. Surprise doesn’t even come into the equation with “I Died Tomorrow,” a mindless tale of time travel that dispenses with any passing semblance to coherency or logic and gives a big ol’ shrug to the idea of the paradox. It’s a story that you don’t really read; it just kind of happens to you.-Jose

Peter: Two landmarks arrive in the third issue of Weird Fantasy: the first utterance of the alien expletive, "Squa Tront!" and the arrival of the master, Wally Wood. "Squa Tront!" would become more than just a nonsense phrase for EC GhouLunatics--it was adopted as the title for the long-running and respected EC fanzine (with 13 issues published now and then from 1967 through 2012) and a general rallying cry for EC fans the world over. Released from the shackles known as Harry Harrison, Wally Wood begins to shine in "Dark Side of the Moon." The story itself is not all that memorable (except for the explosive final panel, maybe) but Wood's art is instantly recognizable (at last!); especially the classic Wood aliens. That last panel, by the way, had to have been influenced in part by Méliès A Trip to the Moon. "I Died Tomorrow" provides proof that, every once in a while, even EC slipped in a time travel dog. So many logic problems here that the story elicits headaches rather than entertainment. Odd that the cover banner runs right through Feldstein's illustration.

Jack: It took a little while, but now that Wood has broken from Harrison we see a great example of what he can really do! “Dark Side of the Moon” is a pretty good story but the art is prime Wally Wood. The other three stories are kind of boring, though Kurtzman turns in another good portfolio of pages in “Goon Child” and the finish to “Martian Infiltration!” is clever and surprising.

Next Week in Star Spangled DC War Stories!