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Weird Menace: The 1930s rise of the Shudder Pulps followed by the rise of the forces that ended them and transformed horror on the newsstand.
Posted in: Comics, Heritage Sponsored, Vintage Paper | Tagged: Jay Disbrow, l.b. cole
L.B. Cole and Jay Disbrow's Creeping Death in Spook #28, at Auction
1954 Star Publications Pre-Code Horror release Spook #28 features a lurid cover by L.B. Cole for Jay Disbrow's interior tale "Creeping Death".
Article Summary
- L.B. Cole's striking cover art pairs with Jay Disbrow's "Creeping Death".
- "Creeping Death" echoes Lovecraft and foreshadows '58's "The Blob".
- Star Publications' horror run accentuated by Cole-Disbrow synergy.
- Spook #28 showcases the peril of a lab-grown, sentient organism.
Out of all of L.B. Cole's incredible Star Publications comic book run, this era and the formula that makes it special might just be my favorite. A wonderfully lurid cover by L.B. Cole paired with a supernaturally weird interior story by Jay Disbrow is a match made in Pre-Code Horror heaven. Disbrow understood the assignment on these horror issues, and since Cole made a point during this era to be particularly inspired by the interior story he was cover featuring, and Disbrow's strange horror tales brought out the best in him. Disbow's Lovecraftian themes from this era have become legendary, and this one prefigures the 1958 science fiction classic The Blob. Pre-Code L.B. Cole covers are always in demand, and this Spook #28 (Star Publications, 1954) Condition: GD/VG is up for auction in the 2024 June 2-4 Sunday, Monday & Tuesday Comic Books Select Auction #122423 at Heritage Auctions.
With the heat turning up on the comic book industry in 1948, Curtis Publishing, who published comics via their Novelty Press imprint, had found themselves getting caught up in the controversy over the industry during that period. Best known as the publisher of the Saturday Evening Post and Ladies Home Journal, Curtis decided to throw in the towel on comic books by 1949, selling their titles and inventory to Star Publications, a company formed by Cole and lawyer Gerhard Kramer. The company leveraged this inventory, along with other reprint material from Fox Feature Syndicate titles, to create a noteworthy line of comics, adding Cole's legendarily eye-catching covers and new material from the likes of Jay Disbrow.
Jay Disbrow contributed to around 45 comic books for Star Publications 1950-1954, across the company's titles, focused on horror and romance. In Creeping Death, a scientist discovers a unique microscopic organism that seems to have an eye at the center of a protoplasmic mass. A lab accident causes this mass to grow, until it is able to attack and absorb people, and eventually project its own thoughts, telling the scientists that it is part of a race that intends to take over the earth. A stand-out example of Pre-Code Horror from masters of the genre, this Spook #28 (Star Publications, 1954) Condition: GD/VG is up for auction in the 2024 June 2-4 Sunday, Monday & Tuesday Comic Books Select Auction #122423 at Heritage Auctions.
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