Posted in: Comics, Heritage Sponsored, Vintage Paper | Tagged: Matt Baker, St. John Publications

Killer Mermaids, Lagoon Creatures, the Horror of Nightmare, at Auction

The St. John titles Nightmare and Amazing Ghost Stories feature rare examples of Matt Baker comic book horror covers.

Nightmare had been a short-lived horror title that St. John acquired from Ziff-Davis when that company decided to exit the comic book business after a brief but spectacular attempt to make it work for them.   At St. John, the title started off as Weird Horrors, was changed to Nightmare for four issues, and then changed again to the more conservative Amazing Ghost Stories.  It's pretty clear that Archer St. John was never all-in on the comic book horror trend, in contrast to the company's obvious commitment to the romance genre.  His various moves on this series demonstrate a publisher more averse to bad publicity than many in the field.  This was the peak of the moral panic era that soon led to the Comics Code, and judging by what happened next, St. John realized they needed a different tactic.

With the final issue of Nightmare, they went in a more classic horror-suspense direction with the series covers: Matt Baker to the rescue.  Loosely based on the interior story The Devil from the Deep and with sea monsters clearly inspired by Creature from the Black Lagoon, the final issue of Nightmare looks more like a 1950s horror movie still than it does a comic book cover of the same era.  This style continued when the title was renamed once again as Amazing Ghost Stories.  Unique and stand-out examples of Matt Baker art, there's a CGC 7.5 copy of Nightmare #13, and a CGC 4.0 copy of Amazing Ghost Stories #14 up for auction in the 2024 July 18 The Matt Baker Comics Showcase Auction #40267 at Heritage Auctions.

Amazing Ghost Stories #14, which hit newsstands in late August 1954, is a particularly striking example of the film-style approach that makes these covers stand out, as it is obviously inspired by Creature from the Black Lagoon, which had rolled out in theaters nationwide early that year.  Universal was extremely proud of their Gill-Man design, and the creature was cover-featured in magazines ranging from Mechanix Illustrated to The Skin Diver throughout the year.  It would have been absolutely unavoidable, and natural inspiration for a horror cover by Baker.  The previous cover from Nightmare #13 is an interesting companion to Amazing Ghost Stories #14, as it turns that cover concept on its head. The hero dives into the deep on the counterattack against swampy (and somehow still sexy) sea creature women.

Baker's cover of Nightmare #13 is clearly based on the interior story Princess of the Sea, but the legendary Amazing Ghost Stories #14 cover is a little harder to explain.  Every element of the cover except for the creatures themselves suggest that this piece is based on the interior story The Devil from the Deep.  However, like Princess of the Sea, The Devil from the Deep is a mermaid story.  Perhaps St. John or Baker thought the two covers would be too similar if they went with female sea-creatures again, or perhaps the influence of Creature from the Black Lagoon was just too strong to resist.  Regardless, as can be seen with numerous examples from 1954-1955, Baker seems to have had much more latitude with how he interpreted interior stories that were drawn by other artists.

Despite this change in tone on the covers, Amazing Ghost Stories didn't last.  Amazing Ghost Stories #14 was attacked not for its cover, but for that The Devil from the Deep interior story.  The Memphis, Tennessee "Committee of 13 on Comic Books" complained that this evil mermaid of the tale "starts to devour Bob, which last act of cannibalism proves her undoing. The poison Bob has ingested gets her, too, and as the curtain rings down she is found floating tummy up in the pool."  Perhaps unsurprisingly, all of the violence described in that scene undertaken by the "carnivorous Cleopatra," as the Committee of 13 calls her, is implied in the comic rather than shown.  But even so, The Devil from the Deep is a shocking and incredibly effective piece of comic book horror.

Nevertheless, the series continued on briefly, providing us with these rare examples of a very different kind of comic book horror by Baker, there's a CGC 7.5 copy of Nightmare #13, and a CGC 4.0 copy of Amazing Ghost Stories #14 up for auction in the 2024 July 18 The Matt Baker Comics Showcase Auction #40267 at Heritage Auctions.

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