Journey Into Strange Tales! Atlas/ Marvel Horror Issue 42

The Marvel/Atlas 
Horror Comics

Part 27

September 1952 Part I

Everett

 Adventures Into Weird Worlds #10

"The Ghoul!" (a: Vic Carrabotta) ★
(r: Chamber of Chills #11)
"The Killers!"(a: Bernie Krigstein) ★★★
(r: Monsters Unleashed #4)
"Too Old to Live" ★1/2
"Down in the Cellar" (a: Paul Cooper & Matt Fox) ★★
(r: Dead of Night #6)
"The Pit of Horror!" (a: Bill Everett) ★★★
(r: Giant-Size Chillers #2)

Bosco Channey is hiding in a graveyard, trying to evade capture by the cops on a murder rap, when two officers sneak up and lay the cuffs on him. Incredibly, Bosco has been misidentified as "The Ghoul" who has been digging up graves in the cemetery and (presumably) eating corpses. Realizing that, once they get him back to the police station, the jig is up,   Bosco's brain starts working overtime. When the patrol car has a blow out, the killer takes advantage of some sleepy cops and a handy tire iron and makes his escape deep into the woods. Happening upon an old cabin, Bosco breaks in and terrorizes the old man who lives there. But, in the end, tables are turned when the dopey murderer finds out the owner of the cabin is the real ghoul! A juvenile script, predictable climax, and ugly art all combine to transform "The Ghoul" into an utterly disposable five pages. There's a very good interview with Vic Carrabotta in Alter Ego #58 and, judging by the samples reprinted, I'd have to say that Vic's work got much better in later years. He'll be with us on and off throughout the journey.

There's this dumpy science teacher in a "sleepy college" town who has a theory that everything is put on the Earth to be a killer of something else. The mongoose was put on Earth to keep the snake population down; spiders for flies; you get the idea. Said professor is contacted by local authorities when a vicious strain of giant fanged fish pop up in the nearby breeding pond (seems as though some mad scientists had been experimenting with things they didn't really understand!). His solution is to dump tons of poison into the lake and kill off the creatures but the egghead must have forgotten his own theory of nature when the corpses of the monsters are pushed aside by winged beasts that exit the pond and feast on mankind.

I can remember reading "The Killers" way back in the early 70s in Monsters Unleashed (probably my favorite Marvel b&w) and being very taken with that final panel. Now, seeing it in color, I'm even more impressed. Yep, Bernie Krigstein could do the cartoony thing at times but when he wanted to he could churn out some very impressive figures. Of course, the script relies on coincidences (the professor whose theory is proven in the end) and improbabilities (these two species of monsters seem to have been hatched full-grown overnight) but it's a marvelous monster tale and there weren't very many of those in the pages of Atlas titles in 1952.

"Too Old to Live" is an unremarkable tale of an old man in a rest home who envies the older man in the bed next to him (the oldest man in the "home for the aged" gets more attention) and decides to murder him, only to be disappointed when the dead man's twin brother moves in afterwards. "Down in the Cellar" is tedious and predictable (a bird killer who takes his spoils to a meek taxidermist and ends up being stuffed himself by tale's-end) but it gives us our first look at the work of Matt Fox, a remarkable and truly unique talent who came to comic books after working for the Weird Tales pulp in the 1940s. Fox only lends a hand to Paul Cooper's pencils but his style is bleeding all over the panels and makes the five-pager at least tolerable to look at.


Satan has had enough of his lazy imps. The little devils have taken to playing cards, reading Adventures Into Weird Worlds, and drinking, instead of giving the new recruits the business end of a trident. To help nip this nonsense in the bud, Beelzebub brings in an "efficiency expert" from Earth and, very soon, the imps are back to doing their boss's dirty work for him. As for Mr. Frost, the efficiency expert, he gets his chest of gold but some bad news from Satan as he's set to leave Hell. Seems Frost is about to die and Satan wants to keep him down in "The Pit of Horror!" for the rest of eternity! A very funny and exquisitely-illustrated change of pace.

Roussos

 Amazing Detective #14

"The Weasel Returns!" (a: Joe Sinnott) ★★1/2
"Which is Witch?" (a: EJ Smalle) ★1/2
"Hands Off!" (a: Bill Benulis & Jack Abel) ★1/2
"Drop Dead!" ★
"The Mousetrap" (a: Hy Rosen) ★

Aside from the opener, "The Weasel Returns!," the final issue published of Amazing Detective serves up a rancid meal of leftovers and stale scares. "Weasel" Diamond, a third-rate mobster is down to his final two hundred bucks but he tells his nagging wife that he's feeling lucky, so he takes the small bundle of greenbacks down to "Ticker" Slade's joint and lets it roll. After an incredible run of luck, "Weasel" exits "Ticker"'s place with two hundred large but there's no way "Ticker" is going to let that stand so he sends a couple of his goons after "Weasel" and they put a blackjack to his skull and leave him rotting on the pier. Later that evening, "Ticker" gets a visit from the ghost of "Weasel," who offers his murderer a chance to win back his dough legitimately. That's when we find out that he's got a bad "ticker." As with most of the stories Joe Sinnott illustrates, the script is not exactly fresh but, thanks entirely to Joe's fabulous doodling, we really don't care much. "Weasel" is a rarity for an Atlas character, a mobster we grow to like.

"The Weasel Returns"

"Which is Witch?" is the deadly dumb tale of Paul, who must choose between Charmaine or Rita but, thankfully, is helped along by the fact that one of them is a witch. The only positive I take from this one is the almost casual way Paul handles that one of his girls wears a big black coned hat and rides a broom. Just as bad is "Hands Off!," about a manners-free tourist who can't keep his hands off the exhibits at a Pompeii museum. In the end, the exhibits get their revenge on the boor when the volcano erupts and traps him in the museum. The usual Benulis magic is muted by the heavy Jack Abel inks (never a good thing).

The professor of "Drop Dead!," espouses a theory that the mind can change matter and learns that anything he says comes true. Why this practice suddenly comes to fruition for the egghead is anyone's guess but, of course, it comes back to haunt him in the end with a slip of his tongue. Dopiest of all this issue has to be "The Mousetrap," about a poor schmuck whose goal in life is to "build a better mousetrap so that the world will beat a path" to his doorstep. We hear that saying so many times that we know it has to play into the big "shock" at tale's end and, sure enough, it does. No explanation is given as to what exactly the inventor hopes to accomplish with his eight-foot mousetrap.

 Astonishing #17

"The Werewolf of Wilmach!" (a: Tony DiPreta) ★★
(r: Giant-Size Werewolf #2)
"I Can't Move" (a: George Roussos) ★★
"Tomb With a View" (a: Bill LaCava) ★
(r: Tomb of Darkness #11)
"Drive of Death" ★1/2
(r: Giant-Size Dracula #2)
"The Hiding Place!" (a: Marty Elkin) ★

Rugged sailor Kessel uses the rumor that a werewolf is haunting a small European village in order to rob the town's banker. When the robbery goes bad and the banker is killed, Kessel attempts to pin the werewolf tag on the town idiot but then gets a big surprise when the simpleton is the werewolf! I like the DiPreta work in "The Werewolf of Wilmach!" more than the story but must admit that the script contains a few more interesting turns than the usual werewolf tale in these parts.

"I Can't Move" is basically a three-page build-up to a one-page punchline. Burt Wallace watches as a man is brutally murdered but doesn't lift a finger. When the police arrive and suspect him of the crime, Burt insists he can't move from the spot he's standing in. As they tear him away from the spot, remarking that Burt must be insane thinking he's holding up the building he's standing next to, Burt allows how he's doing just that. And the building collapses on all of them. No real logic to this one but good for a snicker. In "Tomb with a View," a grave-robber finds competition to be stiff so he takes a freighter to India where, he's heard, the dead are left to root in the open with their valuables. Too late, he discovers the real secret: the "burial grounds" are infested with vultures. Awful script, awful art.

Rod Wilson is putting pedal to the metal, opening his new car up on the road, when he accidentally runs a man down. Knowing he'll be locked away for life, Rod dumps the corpse and his car in a lake and thumbs a ride into town. But the car that stops to pick him up looks remarkably like the one he just dumped. And, too late, he realizes, the guy at the wheel looks more than a little dead. "Drive of Death" is predictable right from the first panel but the final panel is nicely ambiguous. Did Rod escape the car when he initially dumped it in the lake or did he sink to the bottom as well?

In our last tale this issue, "The Hiding Place!," professor Neil Ward has perfected the shrinking potion he's been working on for decades, and now only an antidote stands between him and fame and fortune. Unfortunately, Neil is saddled with a shrewish (but rich) wife, Verna, who suspects something's going on between her husband and his "slip" of a lab aide, Arlene. Verna's right, of course, and so it's really not a surprise when she comes banging on the lab door while Neil and his aide are "experimenting." Neil talks his lover into taking some of the shrinking potion (you know, the one that hasn't got an antidote?) and pops her into a glass on his lab table. Verna enters, sees there's no one but Neil about and apologizes, asking her hubby to drive her home. Crisis averted, Verna medicated in bed at home, Neil rushes back to the lab to find a note from his "fraternity pal," informing him he borrowed the glass on the lab table to take to a beer party.

With perhaps the stupidest (or, depending on how many beers you've been drinking, hilarious) "shock" ending in Atlas history, "The Hiding Place!" is an exercise in "Even I could write a comic book script!" Professor Ward's motives for his shrinking potion are not even discussed (making things big in the funny books usually meant "more food" or "bigger soldiers" but smaller?) and Arlene has to be the most dim-witted girlfriend in the world to readily agree to be reduced to the size of an atom without even a "Hang on, Neil, how are you going to unshrink me?" But the best moment of all is the note informing the dopey Prof that his buddy couldn't find a glass in the whole university so he came to the lab to borrow a glass that might have had some kind of toxin in it. If this wasn't "decorated" by Marty Elkin, "The Hiding Place!" might even have fit into that "So bad it's good" class but, as it is, it's just bad.

Mystery Tales #4

"The Drink of Death!" (a: George Roussos) ★★
"Come to My Funeral!" (a: George Roussos) ★
"The Black Book" (a: Vic Carrabotta) ★★1/2
"Two New Eyes" (a: Allen Bellman) ★1/2
"The Hot Seat" (a: Bob Fujitani) ★★

Anthony Garboldi was once the most revered wine expert in all of Monte Sant Angelo but, unbeknownst to his fans, Anthony has lost his taste buds with old age. When the scurrilous (and very wealthy) Benito Fagioli moves to the little Italian village, he takes an immediate shine to Garboldi's beautiful daughter, Maria, and asks for her hand in marriage. Anthony refuses but, when Fagioli discovers the truth about Garboldi's dead taste buds, the evil millionaire uses blackmail in an attempt to win the favors of lovely Maria. Threats don't work so Fagioli invites the entire town to the ceremony of "The Drink of Death" to prove Garboldi can't tell wine from water; seven glasses are set before our beleaguered hero and only one contains wine, with the remaining six holding a deadly poison. Choose the wrong glass and Anthony will lose more than just his patrons. Luckily, Garboldi had worked up a friendship with the cockroaches, rats, and spiders that lived in the corners of his house and, with his help, he dashes the plans of Benito Fagioli.

Say this for Hank Chapman... he could sure write a nutty tale when he wanted. "The Drink of Death" contains two sub-plots, but the one that will catch and hold the Atlas reader's interest is definitely not the one about a pro man protecting his lovely little Maria. The weird thing is that Hank doesn't dwell much on Garboldi's strange powers, with just a few remarks from Maria about her "disturbed" pop and his love for all wildlife, but delivers a hilarious final panel wherein the sacrificed roaches and spiders circle the tainted goblets. Roussos isn't given much heavy lifting but his scratchy style befits the atmosphere. Roussos also delivers the graphics for the inane follow-up, "Come to My Funeral!," about a hardened criminal on the run from the cops who hides out in a casket in a funeral parlor. The final panel where the dope is being cremated has been done to death. Hilariously, the thug shoots the funeral director but the ceremony goes on as scheduled the next day with nary a word about the murder!

Book binder Jacques Garde is sick and tired of that sleazy leather salesman, Burt, sniffing around Jacques' gorgeous wife, Ilsa. Sure, Jacques is a tad on the homely side (actually, he's a sharp-toothed hunchback!) but Ilsa is his woman and he'll kill anyone who tries to take her away from him. Burt comes 'round and drops off his latest sample books and then parades the new snake tattoo he's had etched into his own chest, goading Jacques and enticing Ilsa. The whole affair escalates when Garde catches the Mrs. in the arms of Burt and exacts a fitting punishment: he decorates Burt's sample book with... Burt's new tattoo! "The Black Book" (surely one of the most over-used titles in the Atlas catalog) is deliciously sleazy and mean-spirited, with a finale worthy of EC (point of fact, it's very reminiscent of the finale of the justifiably-infamous "Poetic Justice") and Vic Carrabotta design swimming in sweat and bad manners. Oddly enough, Ilsa is hardly a "catch"; she's a bit on the portly side and, depending on which panel you gaze at, possibly a decade or two older than her macho beau.

Blind since birth, Paul Marlow participates in a new experiment and receives "Two New Eyes!" Unfortunately, he receives the organs from a dead insane zookeeper (never a good combination) and wakes up to discover everyone around him (including his wife) has the head of an animal. Not really sure what the (uncredited) writer is getting at here since it's left up in the air -- does Marlow live in a world where everyone has a beastly noggin or is it the result of the loan from the dead nut? If nothing else, Allen Bellman has a steady pencil and (unlike Mssrs. Roussos and Carrabotta) doesn't overdo the inks.

The final tale, "The Hot Seat," stars Bill White as a greedy husband who wants to kill his crippled wife, Elaine, so he rigs her electric wheelchair to give her a fatal zap while he's on a business trip. When Bill's best friend, Hal, sends the telegram he was hoping for, he races home but is run over by a truck while crossing the street. In the final panels, we learn that Bill is paralyzed from the knockdown but the bright side is that Hal saved Elaine's wheelchair and now Bill can use it. Does Bill sit in "The Hot Seat" or does he own up and fry in an altogether different type of hot seat?

Next Issue!
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Strangest Tales You've Ever Read!

Journey Into Strange Tales! Atlas/ Marvel Horror Issue 41

The Marvel/Atlas 
Horror Comics

Part 26

August 1952 Part II

Maneely

 Uncanny Tales #2

"The Monster Maker" (a: Bill Everett) ★★★
"Skin-Deep" (a: Fred Kida) ★★★1/2
"The Man Who Believed in Ghosts" 
(a: Paul Reinman) ★★
"Skeleton in the Closet" (a: Manny Stallman) ★★★
"The Man Who Melted" (a: Ed Smalle) ★★★

Zorrel is one of the most famous artists in the history of mankind, a genius of sculpting. But, after the parting words of the daughter of an art critic, Zorrel begins to question why he's only sculpted works of horror. Tired of being known only as "The Monster Maker," he immediately immerses himself in the construction of a goddess, a work of such beauty it makes him sob. Problem is, Zorrel quickly realizes he's fallen in love with the stone babe and he needs to bring it to life somehow. Haunting libraries, museums, and private book dealers, Zorrel finally stoops to murder to get an ancient tome of spells and incantations. The crazed artist draws a circle on the floor and says the necessary words needed to make his beauty forever his but the transformation isn't quite what he'd expected. Well, thanks to Venus, we know that Bill Everett could sketch a hot dame in his sleep and the gorgeous woman of stone is certainly no exception but, happily, Bill is given something worthwhile to dress this time around. The script is witty and the twist is a good one.

Oliver only wants to work on his skin grafting experiments in the cellar but darn if his old lady, Agnes, won't let him alone. Keeps up with that "two heads are better than one" nonsense, insisting she can be a great Ygor to Oliver's Dr. Frankenstein. Why, Agnes even interrupts Oliver while he's grave-robbing! But the final straw comes when Agnes tosses out that foul, stinky stuff that was hanging on the clothes line, a deed that breaks the camel's back. That awful-smelling stuff was the skin Oliver had lifted from a corpse, beautiful flesh that the would-be scientist intended to graft onto his own face in order to beautify himself. Oliver snaps, puts Agnes under and does a little experimenting on his wife.

"Skin-Deep" is another perfect example of why we wade through the muck of bad illustrations and countless variations on the embezzling adulterer who gets his in the end; there's gold in them that pages. There's something very skeazy about "Skin-Deep" right from the get-go, where Agnes chides Oliver for sneaking off to the cemetery without her:

Agnes: So this is what you're up to, Oliver!
Oliver: Agnes! What're you doing here?
Agnes: I followed you, Oliver! I want to help you with your experiment! Why don't you let me? You know that two heads are better than one, and...
Oliver: Not when one of the heads belongs to you! I've told you a thousand times to quit pestering me! I don't want your help!

The two protagonists defy all the usual cliches, delivering hilarious dialogue ("Why in blazes can't women learn to keep their noses out of a man's business? Let Agnes find her own hobby... skin grafting is mine and I want to work on it alone!") courtesy of writer Hank Chapman. The climax, in which the gleeful Agnes rises from the operating table with that actual "second head" grafted to her neck, drew a chuckle from me while the panel of the hanging skin pushed Atlas a bit further into the waters that other publishers such as Harvey and Avon were already swimming.

Eddie Briggs has boatloads of money but he's always been known to the townsfolk as a "ragpicker." When Eddie decides he's sick of the label and wants to enter high society, he dumps all his lowly friends and takes up with snoots like the Van Desses, a family who own a huge mansion on the hill. One day, Briggs is summoned up to the Van Dess estate and wooed by the lovely Barbara Van Dess, who makes no bones about wanting to make Briggs her man. Eddie figures what the hell and pops the question and is shocked when Barbara agrees. After a quickie ceremony, the couple head back to the mansion where Barbara's brother, Nevil, greets the newlyweds and tells Eddie all about their ancestor,  Sir Roger Van Dess ("We'd call him a bio-physicist these days, I guess!") and then takes the confused Briggs into the cellar to meet the "rest of the family." Downstairs, Eddie finds his joy turn to sickness when the rest of the clan turn out to be some of "Sir Roger's premature experiments!," a horde of two-headed, four-armed, and/or tentacled beasties. Eddie flees upstairs, only to find his blushing bride is one of the freaks! Like "Skin-Deep," "Skeleton in the Closet" is an outlandish and thoroughly enjoyable farce, capped by a fabulous climax that takes full advantage of Manny Stallman's skills as an artist. Barbara's invitation to naughtiness ("Come in, darling... take off your flesh... and make yourself comfortable... I already have!") could only have been delivered in the pre-Wertham days of funny books!

"The Man Who Believed in Ghosts" is a nicely-illustrated quickie about a man who lives near a cemetery and constantly sees spirits rising from the graves. "The Man Who Melted" is a very funny four-pager about an absent-minded professor who concocts a formula (that enables the body to melt) to commit the perfect crime (murdering his wife) but, after the deed is done and he's a puddle on the floor, he remembers he never invented an antidote! I'm not all that familiar with Ed Smalle's work (his one contribution to the EC Universe, "Diminishing Returns," in Haunt of Fear #8 was hardly memorable) but I'm hoping we'll see more of it on this journey, as his Golden Age style fits in perfectly with the better Atlas artists. This could be the single best Atlas horror comic we've run across of the 128 I've dissected so far.

"The Man Who Believed in Ghosts!"

Everett

 Suspense #21

"The Ghost of Grimm Towers!" (a: Tony DiPreta) ★
"No Escape!" (a: Dan Soprano) ★★
"The Horrible Hog" (a: Carl Hubbell) ★
"The Graveyard Ghoul!" (a: Ed Winiarski) ★★
"The Secret" ★★
"Terror at Midnight" (a: Manny Stallman) ★★
"Up From the Grave!" 
(a: Edwin Goldfarb & Bob Baer) ★★★

There's only one thing that frightens Barnaby Grimm and that's a ghost. Problem is, Grimm Towers is stinkin' with them and the old coot is losing his marbles. He calls his nephew, Carter, and threatens to take him out of his will if Carter doesn't come live with him. Once Carter gets to the Towers though, a great idea comes to his wicked noggin and, before tooling, he begins cutting eye-holes in sheets and haunting his Uncle's bed chambers. Barnaby howls like a madman and takes a header through his bedroom window to the rocks below. Servant Meadows stumbles into the scene at the wrong time and he's soon keeping Barnaby company in the surf. Carter heads off to bed but is awakened in the morning by the clammy hands of the ghosts of Barnaby and Meadows. Nothing surprising, suspenseful, shocking, nor frightening to be seen in the six pages that make up "The Ghost of Grimm Towers!," a melting pot of several different genre cliches.

An Old West villain gets thrown in the pokey and sits waiting for the hangman. He's told by everyone around him that there's "No Escape," but he's not listening. He makes his getaway but doesn't realize until too late that the jail is in the middle of the desert. Rough, but effective, art by newcomer Dan Soprano and a neat twist. Paul Baldwin works the family that lives on his pig farm like slaves but, as we Atlas fans know, the bad guys always get it in the end. "The Horrible Hog" is an exaggerated and predictable mess, with sub-par art by Carl Hubbell. When every other panel accentuates phrases like "the only way I like to see a pig is tied and roasted on the table with an apple in its mouth," you can pretty much figure where we're going to land in the end.

"The Graveyard Ghoul" has been terrorizing the local cemeteries, digging up remains and pilfering valuables including those treasured gold teeth. Detective Corby has made it his life's work to hunt down and kill all ghouls and this particular grave-robber has managed to crawl right under Corby's skin and do the tango. At last a break in the case leads Corby and his ghoul-squad to Sunnyside Cemetery, where they encounter the shovel-packing ghoul about to unearth another treasure trove. Corby unloads his service revolver into the fiend, ventilating him until he's near-unrecognizable. But when Corby turns the corpse over, he does recognize him... as his pop! "The Graveyard Ghoul" is a story so monumental in its stupidity that it's hard not to like. Detective Corby and his men discuss ghouls in a blasé manner, as if they were just an annoying part of 1950s life, with Corby's dialogue about the breeding habits of men who rob graves being a particularly hilarious bit of fun:

Cop 1: Hey, Corby, why do you get so excited about ghouls all the time?
Cop 2: Yeah, it's just an old grave messed up!
Corby: You fools! They've got to be wiped out, all of them, because they breed children that are ghouls!

The reveal is telegraphed all the way, thanks to said emphasis on Corby's hatred of ghouls who sire other ghouls, but his tears and the shocked exclamation, "DAD!" are worth turning those pages for.

Helen Roy joins the local Lonely Hearts Club to find her a rich man she can marry and then murder. She eyes a good-looking bearded gentleman named George and weaves her web around him, roping him in very quickly. Once the couple is married and moved into George's mansion, Helen lets all pretenses fall and explains she's only after her new hubby's dough. George lets on he has a secret as well: he weds and murders women just like his idol, Bluebeard! "The Secret" manages to take one of those hoary old warhorses and ties it up with a nice twist we didn't see coming (well, we sorta kinda knew George was more than he let on but the reveal is still a pleasant one).

Peter Morgan brings his new Hungarian bride, Eva, up to his mountain cabin for a little hunting vacation but the girl is not pleased with the surroundings. Peter heads off into the woods anyway and meets up with the mysterious Myra, who loves the outdoors and seduces Morgan wth her exotic beauty and charm. Meanwhile, Morgan's "prize sheep" are being slaughtered by a wolf, an animal Myra convinces Peter is not human. The love-struck dope adds Hungarian and werewolf together and comes up with Eva. He shoots his new bride but then gets the shock of his life when he discovers the monster is actually (suh-prize!!!) Myra!  The star of "Terror at Midnight" is certainly not the cliched plot nor the expected "twist" in its tail. Nope, the real star here is Manny Stallman, who manages to make a werewolf story readable without actually showing the monster.

Best for last! Little Eddie Nolan likes to play in graveyards and this particular peccadillo proves to be Eddie's undoing one night when he's startled by the spirit of some supernatural being and falls into the open grave dug for the local witch who will be buried there the following day. Eddie's legs are pulverized and he's confined to his bed but his artistic skills take an upswing. Using clay from the witch's grave, Eddie sculpts objects and then destroys them. Magically, the same fate befalls the real-life object Eddie has sculpted! After the Eiffel Tower falls, Eddie becomes enraged over radio reports of an upcoming World War III and sculpts the globe. "Up From the Grave!" is a wacky, wild little ride, made all the more fun by its writer's evasion of the more typical funny book story paths. No explanation is given as to why the dead witch has picked Eddie to be her vessel for Armageddon nor why the kid goes from sweet to surly (other than, possibly, losing the use of both legs); it's just a given. The final image, of Eddie tossing his new masterpiece against the wall, is a humdinger. I love these dark endings.

Out of the blue, Stan Lee decides Suspense needs a letters page, dubbed "Suspense Sanctuary." Odd in that this was the only title in the eleven Atlas horror books to run a LOC page but I assume it's down to two reasons: 1/ EC was having quite a bit of success with their letters pages and fan club; and 2/ Suspense had the largest page count per issue ("52 Suspense-Packed Pages!") and could spare the extra space for mail. See the bottom of the page for a reprinting of this landmark occasion.

 Strange Tales #9

"Blind Date" (a: Mike Sekowsky) ★1/2
(r: Beware #2)
"The Strange Game" (a: Marty Elkin) ★
(r: Crypt of Shadows #3)
"The Man From Mars" (a: Bob Fujitani) ★
(r: Beware #2)
"Drink Deep, Vampire" (a: Joe Sinnott) ★★★
(r: Dracula Lives #2)
"The Voice of Doom!" (a: Bill Benulis) ★★
(r: Beware #2)

Obnoxious twit Mac Farrand muscles into the front seat of a car belonging to a gorgeous redhead and then regrets it when he finds out she's... death! Hokey plot coupled with horrid graphics sinks "Blind Date," but the first story is a gem compared to "The Strange Game." "Crooked card-sharp" Lou Beltram stumbles into a poker game where the antes are large letters rather than greenbacks. Lou is amused, but can't pass up an opportunity to play, so he sits in on a few hands and loses several letters but then leaves when he grows frightened. Leaving the table with only the letter "H," Lou tells his poker comrades they'll never collect from him but, that evening at midnight, Lou ends up losing more than dough. A really, really silly plot line and generic, almost lifeless graphics (Elkin's work looks like crude Ditko).

"The Man From Mars" is a silly three-pager about a good-for-nothing who absolutely has to see the new Martian movie and steps into what he thinks is a publicity stunt (a rocket ship parked outside the theater) and ends up seeing the real Mars. Absolutely no thought went into this filler (written and signed by Stan). In "Drink Deep, Vampire," Hungarian cemetery watchman Karl has hit upon a fabulous money-making scheme. The police are starting to crack down on the nightly attacks by vampires, so Karl goes to vampire leader Gorlac with a proposition: he'll provide the creatures with bottles of blood every night if they pay him handsomely. The nightly transaction goes well until the vampires grow weak and pallid. They know something's up so, one night, Gorlac rises from his coffin an hour early and spies Karl draining one of Gorlac's comrades of blood. Karl's been recycling! Very funny little bit of nonsense (almost like a MAD story) with great matter-of-fact dialogue by the monsters and fabulous art by Joe Sinnott.

Mr. Hendrix, publisher of Horror Publications, Inc. has had enough of the complaints of his lazy staff and installed listening devices into each room in the building. He then begins to fire of each worker who badmouths him. Then one day he hears a voice speaking to him from the system, telling him he's going to die. "The Voice of Doom" hasn't much story to recommend, with a typical anti-climax, but the pop art-esque graphics are dazzling and garish, quite unlike anything Atlas had published before (and Bill Benulis will top himself next issue). According to Wikipedia, Benulis retired from comics in the mid-1950s and became a Postal Letter Carrier for nearly forty years! Most of his work appeared in the Atlas horror and war titles, so we'll have quite a bit of the man's talent to enjoy ahead of us. Hendrix is a dead ringer (sans mustache) for another famous publisher,  J. Jonah Jameson

Brodsky

 Spellbound #6

"The Man Who Couldn't Be Killed!" 
(a: Bernie Krigstein)  ★★★
"The Dirty Dog" (a: Tony DiPreta) ★★1/2
"The Things in the Dark" (a: Mike Sekowsky) ★
"Close Your Eyes" (a: Manny Stallman) ★1/2

Ever since he was a kid, "Lucky" Larno has escaped death. He played with matches as a kid and torched his entire apartment complex but emerged without a single burn. In his teen years, "Lucky" gained an appreciation for robbery and other anti-social activities and was amazed when a policeman's bullets couldn't find their target despite being fired at point blank range! A guardian angel, perhaps? When "Lucky" ascends to mob boss, Nutsy, one of his simple-minded thugs offers to buy the boss's guardian angel for a cool grand. Laughing it off, "Lucky" agrees and brags to his other boys how he ripped the poor bugger off. But what "Lucky" doesn't know is that the guardian angel acknowledges the business deal and, very quickly, "Lucky" discovers he's not bullet-proof anymore!

More fabulous Krigstein art (Bernie's getting closer and closer to the dynamic style he'd put to good use a few years later over at EC) and a wry sense of humor make "The Man Who Couldn't Be Killed" extremely enjoyable. Particularly well done is the dialogue between "Lucky" and Nutsy when the boss takes the doofus for his hard-earned wages

"Lucky": Look! Can't you see her? She's a big beautiful dame, dressed in white -- an' she's carryin' a magic wand! She's always protecting me from harm and death! See her, behind me?

Nutsy: Gee! I think I see her! Gosh, she's a looker all right! I wish I had a dame like that looking after me.

You have to chuckle when the angel appears in the final frames and she looks just the way "Lucky" described her!

Washed-up ventriloquist Charlie Frost takes to rolling bums in cemeteries and is on the verge of suicide when a newspaper headline catches his eye. Eccentric millionaire Wilbur Stark vows to leave his entire fortune to his army of dogs. This gets Charlie to thinking he could sell a "talking" dog to Frost for some large coin. Charlie nabs a mutt from the cemetery, rehearses his ventriloquist act on the dog and then heads to Wilbur Stark's mansion. Stark, at first, balks at the idea of paying for a "flea-bitten hound," until he hears the dog talk and he happily gives Charlie five hundred bucks. As Charlie is leaving the Frost mansion, "The Dirty Dog" sighs and tells the dope he could have gotten "fifty thousand dollars for a dog like me!" Other than a quick act of violence to open the story (when Charlie murders a bum in the cemetery), this is a good-natured rib-tickler, punctuated by an A+ final panel. I'm still trying to figure out why I like Tony DiPreta's art so much when it's crude and (almost) as generic as a dozen other Atlas artists of the time. There's just something about it I haven't been able to put my finger on yet, but I'm sure the epiphany will come. Please be patient in the meantime.

Yes, that is the Man From Planet X!

One of those artists most responsible for generic graphics was Mike Sekowsky, whose work is fully on display in "The Things in the Dark." Prescott is an aerodynamic genius but he's been wasting his time designing airplanes for American Aero, instead of building his dream vehicle, a rocketship that will take him to Venus! His daydreaming gets him fired but the world's richest man, Hubert Fielding, is interested in funding Prescott's crazy dream. Just as the project is coming to fruition, Fielding is murdered and some strange creatures show up at Prescott's job site, informing the big brain that Earth is a violent world and its people are not welcome in space. The aliens vaporize the rocket and, when Prescott threatens to go to the police, its maker as well. The story is by-the-numbers 1950s UFO paranoia with little to no charm and then there's that awful art to contend with. I swear Sekowsky could have made a straight line ugly.

Last up is "Close Your Eyes," a groaner with a cliched script and sub-par Manny Stallman art. Fred is planning on killing his brother, Hector, so that he'll inherit the family business (specializing in "glass eyes and fake teeth") and keep buxom wife, Ann, in minks and chocolates. Hector gets wind of the plan and threatens to change his will so Fred opens his brother's skull with a poker. But Hector's adage of "eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" comes true before the story's final curtain. The climax is a bit murky (we see the poker heading for Fred's eye but we don't see who hurled it) but then so is Manny's design (the colorist does Stallman no favors either by overdosing on the reds and greens); the only entertainment value here is watching Ann get porkier by the panel!

 Mystic #11

"Death and Tommy Norton" (a: John Romita) ★★1/2
(r: Crypt of Shadows #7)
"Horror in the City" (a: Werner Roth) ★1/2
(r: Vault of Evil #7)
"Not Flesh and Blood!" (a: Myron Fass) ★
(r: Vault of Evil #7)
"The Black Gloves" (a: Ben Brown & David Gantz) ★★1/2
(r: Vault of Evil #7)

Little Tommy Norton inherits a boatload of money when his parents die but the boy is in grave danger when his guardians decide a little boy shouldn't be so rich. Luckily, Tommy has an army of toy soldiers looking out for him. "Death and Tommy Norton" has great art by Johnny Romita and a (deliciously) sadistic edge to it. The storyline is similar to one used by Davis Grubb in his short story, "The Siege of 318."

Just as he’s wishing for the perfect girl, Perry Dedd has one rush right into his waiting arms, claiming she’s being chased by a race of underground monsters. Perry doesn’t believe the girl until the creatures show up and his life becomes a screaming nightmare. "Horror in the City" contains such laugh-out-loud dialogue as:

Gorgeous Girl: They’re after me! The things! Please… You must help me! They’ll kill!
Perry: Hey! You’re beautiful!

"The Black Gloves"

While a series of robot-monster murders is shocking the city, Lester Caval informs his partner, Howard Walton, that he knows Walton has been cooking the books and is going to the cops unless the dough is returned. Howard concocts a plan involving the robot-monster, but the scheme backfires in the end. No rhythm or rhyme to any of "Not Flesh and Blood!"; just a series of incidents that barely relate to one another. Myron Fass' unattractive art adds nothing to the proceedings.

In the finale, "The Black Gloves," a landlord is convinced that the gentleman renting one of his rooms is the mad killer terrorizing the city. Why won’t the stranger ever doff his black gloves? Why doesn’t he eat? Why does he keep strange hours? Imaginative (if more than a tad wacky) final expository attempts to answer all those questions.

Brodsky

Journey Into Unknown Worlds #12

"The Last Voice You Hear" (a: George Roussos) ★1/2
"The Terrible Truth!" (a:Edwin Goldfarb & Bob Baer) ★
"Tick Tock" ★★
"The Perfect Mate" (a: Marty Elkin) ★
"Water, Water Everywhere!" (a: Bernie Krigstein) ★★

Karl is the premier radio sound effects man in the nation and his effects strike terror in the listener. What's his secret? Karl goes to extremes for his art, not letting something silly as murder get in his way. When his boss sends him to a graveyard to get the sounds of a "coffin that's been sealed a long time," Karl decides to revisit an old friend, Charley Fullmar, the man he strangled years before. But our protagonist discovers that the dead don't lie down for sound recorders. More scratchy art from George Roussos and a head-scratcher of a climax (Charley murders Karl then gleefully listens to the playback, looking none the worse despite being dead for years) doom "The Last Voice You Hear."

"The Terrible Truth"

Edward Burton has a terrible curse: he can't help but tell the truth! It gets him fired from his job, his friends ostracize him, and his wife leaves him. A dream shows him what a mess the world would be if everyone told the truth, punctuated by a nuclear war. Rummaging through the wreckage of a dead world for something to eat, Burton attacks a man for his food and as the man's knife slides into Edward's stomach, he realizes he's not dreaming. "The Terrible Truth" is terrible and I'm telling you the truth. Its stumbling narrative crawls towards a climax that makes no sense at all (but it features some swell 1950s commie bad guys).

Carlo spends all his time perfecting the perfect timepiece, one that will never have to be wound, while ignoring his family, friends, and his true love. At last he creates the perfect clock but, for Carlo, it's too late. He dies of old age. "Tick Tock" is an interesting story in that it has no real villain; Carlo is selfish but his drive is not fueled by greed or desire for power. He simply wants to build the perfect clock. A new husband is smitten over his bride but when they get back to their love nest and she takes off her make-up, he realizes she might not be "The Perfect Mate." That's okay, he explains, as he removes his head, no one's perfect. A dopey short-short with some pretty bad writing (It may be true that beauty is only skin-deep, but take away the skin and what have you got?) and weak graphics.

Last up is "Water, Water Everywhere!," featuring the unique talents of Bernie Krigstein. Logan, a protection boss, puts muscle on an antique dealer who has no money to pay. The timid dealer hands over a new treasure just secured from the Orient: pills that transform anything into water. Just drop one in and the object turns to liquid. Seeing this as a perfect way to get rid of his partner, Logan heads to the man's house and the two have a drink. Logan pulls a switcheroo, dropping poison in his partner's drink and an Oriental pill in his own, but then has the surprise his life when he discovers the pill does its job too well. A fairly predictable climax (the dealer did say the concoction would turn everything into water, after all), but it's a treat seeing Krigstein (still in pre-EC days) work his magic.

Krigstein strikes again!

Self-promotion department: Listen up! There's lots of us out there doing this stuff for the fun of it rather than for the almighty buck. One of us is Justin Marriott. Justin adds to the multitude of interesting magazines he publishes with the first issue of Monster Maniacs (available here), a potpourri of pieces about monster magazines and comics of days passed. Included in the premiere issue is an interview with Peter Normanton (editor of the late, lamented From the Tomb), a fond look back at For Monsters Only (which I have very fond memories of), a review of the recent Jim Warren biography, and a long piece on the 25 best horror stories published by Atlas in their first three years written by yours truly. Justin has really done the material (Atlas's material, not mine) justice and this is a venture we should fully support. While you're at it, check out the other zines in JM's stable: Pulp Horror, Hot Lead, Men of Violence, Paperback Fanatic, and Sleazy Reader.

Sample Page from MM #1

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