The incredibly obscure Star Studded Comics from Cambridge House Publishers features Ghost Woman plus work by Carmine Infantino.
pre-code horror Archives
Alex Schomburg transformed this 1944 Wonder Comics #3 cover from Standard/Better/Nedor into a war-era classic.
Kaanga Comics #8 appears to be one of the toughest Fiction House comics in high grade, and features a spectacular cover by Maurice Whitman.
Master Comics was a long-running Golden Age series from Fawcett Pubications that came to feature the character Captain Marvel Jr.
Cow Puncher Comics does not contain any actual cow punching, but features art and covers by Jack Kamen, Joe Kubert, Walter Johnson and more
Cole paired with a supernaturally weird interior story by Jay Disbrow is a match made in Pre-Code Horror heaven (or hell, as the case may be). Cole covers of this era are unfailingly a treat that pokes you right in the eyeballs And since he made a point during this era to be particularly inspired[...]
The newspaper strip saga of the adventures of an entertainer named Claire Voyant was published as a comic book by the founder of The Hill.
While this title is best known for containing work by Steve Ditko, The Thing #11 (which does not include any Ditko material) maintains the high standards for Pre-Code Horror that fans remember the series for today. The November-December 1953 cover-dated release features the story "Beyond the Past," a Lovecraftian tale about using the Necronomicon to summon[...]
Like a few other Golden Age publishers, Fox Feature Syndicate titles sometimes verged into horror well before the late-1940s era which is generally considered to mark the beginning of the Pre-Code Horror era. Such issues, particularly ones with good horror covers, can have crossover appeal among both Pre-Code Horror and superhero collectors. Mystery Men Comics[...]
An iconic Golden Age cover by an underappreciated artist, there's a Dynamic Comics #11 (Chesler, 1944) CGC FN- 5.5 Off-white to white pages and another great Ricca cover with Dynamic Comics #8 (Chesler, 1944) and the legendarily insane Dynamic Comics #18 Propeller Monster cover up for auction in the 2022 October 27 – 28 Halloween[...]
Frank Frazetta is perhaps the most famous and acclaimed fantasy artist of the past century, and the number of iconic and very well-known covers he produced during his lifetime is seemingly endless. Even casual fans are familiar with pieces like Egyptian Queen and the Vampirella #1 cover. If there's such a thing as an obscure[...]
Cole's skill at creating covers that stood out on crowded newsstands, and Ghostly Weird Stories #122 is yet another memorable example of that ability. 68 years after that issue was published, that cover still made me want to read the comic to find out what the hell happened on that tragic death ship. During the[...]
A short but memorable crime comic series that was part of a publishing line known for such titles, the series gets off to a cold-blooded start in the first two issues, particularly with issue #2's The Case of the Giggling Killer. There's a solid copy of Exposed #1 and the high-grade River City copy of[...]
Fawcett Publications was reportedly a reluctant entrant into the Pre-Code Horror era, and never branded issues from its horror titles as "A Fawcett Publication" as it did for the rest of its comic book output. But when they did jump in, the line came to include a number of horror titles such as Beware! Terror[...]
Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency about the title in a fiery exchange about the title. The series ran 24 issues 1951-1955 and several of them are noteworthy from the perspective of Pre-Code Horror collectors, and Dark Mysteries #10 is one of the best. There's a Dark Mysteries #10 and 15 of the 24 issues of[...]
Cole gave a lot of thought to cover design that would stand out on the crowded newsstands, and this one certainly does that. One of the most highly sought-after Pre-Code Horror comics among collectors, there's a Startling Terror Tales #11 (Star Publications, 1952) CGC FN+ 6.5 Off-white to white pages up for auction in the 2022 October[...]
Legendary and prolific painter Norman Saunders (1907 – 1989) is best remembered for his pulp magazine covers for a variety of publishers, but he also painted over 100 comic book covers, primarily for publishers Fawcett and Ziff-Davis. His cover for Fawcett's Worlds of Fear #10 is one of the best-known of his comic book covers,[...]
Cole paired with a supernaturally weird interior story by Jay Disbrow is a match made in Pre-Code Horror heaven (or hell, as the case may be). Cole covers of this era are unfailingly a treat that pokes you right in the eyeballs, and since he made a point during this era to be particularly inspired[...]
Many such characters have become famous over the decades, such as DC Comics' Cain and Abel, EC's Crypt Keeper, Warren Magazines' Uncle Creepy, and countless others. Such characters have often become more famous than the titles where they played host, but one instance where that certainly did not happen is with Charton's The Thing. The[...]
In recent years, we've talked a lot in these auction posts about the low-key role that radiation-transformed characters played in comic books long before the Silver Age Marvel Universe. From the cosmic ray-powered The Ray and Bill Everett's The Conqueror; to a second, post-Atomic Bomb wave of characters like Atoman and Atomic Man; and a[...]
The Marvel/Atlas title Astonishing started life with the name Marvel Boy in 1950, with the series being renamed Astonishing with the third issue. While the series still featured the Marvel Boy character until issue #6 (although his last cover on the title was with Astonishing #5), the rebooted series took a clear and harder turn towards[...]
Fawcett Publications is hardly the first name that one thinks of when it comes to crime comic books of the 1950s, but the publisher best known for Captain Marvel still produced one of the most notorious crime comic issues of that era. Underworld Crime #7 has a distinctively menacing cover composition (identified as the work[...]
All in all, it is perhaps not the easiest book in the world to get — the Liberty Comics #12 CGC 9.6 Edgar Church / Mile High copy sold for $13,800 in 2021. But you have a shot at getting a high-grade copy of Liberty Comics #12 (Green Publishing Co., 1946) CGC VF 8.0 White[...]
Witches Tales #25 (Harvey, 1954) is a classic among two different groups of people for two different reasons that involve the same story. Pre-Code Horror collectors love that classic terrifying yet fascinating cover by Warren Kremer, which purports to represent the interior feature named "What's Happening at… 8:30 PM," while there's been a lot of[...]
The incredibly obscure Mysteries Pre-Code Horror series is very tough to get, even by PCH standards. Its publisher Superior Publications was a Candian company that reprinted a wide range of material from U.S publishers, but also created original material — sometimes for distribution in the U.S., but sometimes for distribution in Canada only. Like all[...]
Lovecraft's Shadow Over Innsmouth. Although the Amazing Mysteries series would be short-lived, the series that did pick up where Marvel Mystery leaves off, Marvel Tales, would continue Marvel's fledgling horror line.
While Eerie Comics #1 is widely considered the first horror comic book, and ACG's Adventures into the Unknown is considered the first comic book horror series,[...]
One principle of the company, William Friedman, had acted as Donenfeld's lawyer on numerous occasions, while another, Adrian Lopez, had previously co-founded a magazine publisher with Donenfeld. Comic book titles sometimes shifted between various parts of this constellation, and the Pre-Code Horror title Beware was one of these. With 18 issues published between Youthful Publications[...]
Along with Gus Ricca, distinctive stylist Paul Gattuso is one of the key artists who gave Harry Chesler's comic books their distinctive look. Gattuso worked for Chesler beginning around 1944, on titles such as Dynamic Comics, Punch Comics and Scoop Comics among others. The character Black Dwarf who appeared in Spotlight Comics and Red Seal Comics is perhaps his best-remembered[...]
EC Comics titles like Haunt of Fear, Shock SuspenStories, and Tales from the Crypt; Fawcett title This Magazine is Haunted; and even enduring Marvel Comics titles like Strange Tales have all transcended the politically-motivated witch hunt stigma of the 1950s to be considered well-crafted classics in the modern day. But a few of those 65[...]
Frankenstein", a very large, very strong dude with a nice sweater and a better haircut. This version eventually fell under Nazi control, but then snapped out of that control and worked undercover as a Nazi to fight against them. All the while, Briefer was taking the continuity of the character very seriously, and periodically reminded[...]