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

Matt Baker's Film-Style Horror on Amazing Ghost Stories, at Auction

Published Wed, 10 Aug 2022 12:57:11 -0500

Last updated Fri, 12 Aug 2022 04:45:35 -0500

One suspects that St. John kept changing the title of its Weird Horrors series in an attempt to keep a step ahead of local self-appointed censors, who often made lists of titles they considered objectionable and attempted to pressure local authorities to push them off the newsstands. While Weird Horrors wasn't particularly extreme by horror comic standards, it showed up on objectionable lists from Oklahoma City to El Paso and beyond, likely based on little more than the title alone. Weird Horrors was renamed to Nightmare after nine issues, but this title too was short-lived. St. John had seemingly decided to lean into the more graphic elements not uncommon in mid-1950s comic book horror, and it's likely that the Joe Kubert skinned face cover (which is of course wonderfully drawn, and likely exactly what they asked him to do) did them in with local censors from the outset there. This was the peak of the moral panic era that soon lead to the Comics Code, and judging by what happened next, it appears that 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 title and its covers: Matt Baker to the rescue. The final issue of Nightmare looks more like a 1950s horror movie still than it does a comic book cover of the same era, and this continued when the title was renamed once again as Amazing Ghost Stories. Stand-out examples of Baker horror-suspense, there are copies of Nightmare #13 (St. John, 1954) Condition: VG/FN and Amazing Ghost Stories #14-16 up for auction in the 2022 August 11 The Matt Baker Showcase Auction #40190 at Heritage Auctions.

Nightmare #13, Amazing Ghost Stories #14 (St. John 1954)

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.

Despite this change in tone, Amazing Ghost Stories didn't last. Amazing Ghost Stories #14 was attacked not for its cover, but for an interior story. The Memphis, Tennessee "Committee of 13 on Comic Books" complained of the interior story that issue called The Devil of the Deep, that the 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 by the Committee of 13 is implied in the comic, rather than shown.

Nevertheless, the series continued on briefly, providing us with these rare examples of a very different kind of comic book horror by Baker, and there are copies of Nightmare #13 (St. John, 1954) Condition: VG/FN and Amazing Ghost Stories #14-16 up for auction in the 2022 August 11 The Matt Baker Showcase Auction #40190 at Heritage Auctions. New to collecting Matt Baker or want to learn more? Bleeding Cool is doing an ongoing deep dive into the history behind Matt Baker's comic book artwork in the run-up to this auction. If you've never bid at Heritage Auctions before, you can get further information, you can check out their FAQ on the bidding process and related matters.

: Nightmare #13 (St. John, 1954)

: Amazing Ghost Stories #14 (St. John, 1954)

Amazing Ghost Stories #14 (St. John, 1954) CGC FN+ 6.5 Off-white to white pages. There's no doubt that the classic monster film, The Creature from the Black Lagoon (released the same year as this comic), had an influence on the cover image by the great Matt Baker. The issue contains an Edgar Allen Poe "Pit and the Pendulum" adaptation by Everett Raymond Kinstler. Overstreet 2022 FN 6.0 value = $900; VF 8.0 value = $2,010. CGC census 8/22: 2 in 6.5, 3 higher.