Posted in: Comics, Heritage Sponsored, Vintage Paper | Tagged: Eerie, wally wood

Wally Wood Pre-Code Horror in Avon's Eerie #2, Up for Auction

Avon's Eerie #2 is a fascinating Pre-Code comic book from a historic publisher that features cover and artwork by the legendary Wally Wood.

The Pre-Code Horror period of 1950s comics is full of weird and underappreciated gems. While we've recently discussed how the ACG series Adventures into the Unknown is considered the first ongoing horror title, the first issue of that series is not considered the first horror comic book.  That distinction belongs to Eerie #1 from publisher Avon in 1947.  Like many Avon titles of the period, Eerie (not to be confused with the Eerie of Warren Publishing magazine fame) did not initially make it past issue #1, but Avon resurrected the title in 1952 with the comic book horror market booming.  Eerie #2 has a stand-out cover and content from the legendary Wally Wood, and the River City CGC VF+ 8.5 copy of Eerie #2 (Avon, 1951) is up for auction in the 2024 October 24 – 25 Pre-Code Horror & Crime Comics Showcase Auction #40272 at Heritage Auctions.

Eerie's publisher Avon has a strange history of its own.  The oldest thread of the company began under publisher John Stuart Ogilvie who started his own publishing firm, best known as J.S. Ogilvie Publishing Company or J.S. Ogilvie & Co., in 1868. After John Stuart Ogilvie's 1910 death, the firm passed onto his sons Donald and Frank, who seem to have remained in charge of the company until their own deaths in 1936 and 1937 respectively. At this point, the company came under the control of Joseph Meyers and his sister Edna Meyers Williams. Meyers and Williams had run publishing businesses beginning around 1928 with Illustrated Editions Company and related companies. By some accounts, American News Co. subsequently helped fund Meyers' 1941 transformation of J.S. Ogilvie into the paperback publisher Avon.

Avon published over 100 comic titles (in comic book format) from 1945 to  1956, most extremely short-lived.  Avon Books also sporadically published paperback format collections of newspaper comics and similar material throughout that period and continued to do so through the mid-1990s.  The company was acquired by Hearst in 1959 and is currently a romance imprint of HarperCollins, where it has been active through at least 2019.

The 1952 relaunch of Eerie lasted for 17 issues, and Eerie #2 is one of the best of the bunch.  The lead story The Thing from the Sea! by Wood, Joe Orlando, and Sid Check, has subsequently appeared in a number of Pre-Code Horror comic collections.  As for Wood's cover, the "story behind the cover" text story in this issue explains that the woman shown here is the soul of an executed murderer being ushered down to Hell for eternal damnation. A Pre-Code Horror classic with a cover by the legendary Wally Wood, and the River City CGC VF+ 8.5 copy of Eerie #2 (Avon, 1951) is up for auction in the 2024 October 24 – 25 Pre-Code Horror & Crime Comics Showcase Auction #40272 at Heritage Auctions.

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