pre-code horror Archives

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[...]

Farrell Publications published some 321 issues of 62 titles from 1951-1958, which is to say that most Farrell series were short lived.  The company put out a wide range of genres from romance to war comics, but might be best remembered for their Pre-Code Horror line and their underappreciated mid-1950s superhero line which included former[...]

Heritage's auction blurb for Dark Mysteries #19 almost reads like a checklist of elements that soon brought Pre-Code Horror comic books to the attention of critics like Fredric Wertham and to the United States Senate:  "classic bondage, skull, water wheel torture cover surrounds an injury-to-eye panel and art."  It almost seems like the publisher or[...]

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[...]

Perhaps best known for titles such as Exciting Comics and Startling Comics, publisher Ned Pines put out 1211 comic book issues across 117 titles from 1939 to 1959, using imprints including Better, Nedor, and Standard.  As those numbers imply, many of those titles were short-lived, and like many comic book publishers, Pines was quick to[...]

L.B. Cole's science fiction and horror covers on Star Publication's Blue Bolt run are a spectacular example of his cover work.

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[...]

An obscure series that combined crime with horror, Ribage Publishing's Crime Mysteries had contributors ranging from Frazetta to Myron Fass.

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[...]

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[...]

And most of the debut issue and some other early issue stories were written by horror and science fiction legend Frank Belknap Long.  There's a nice group of the Pre-Code Horror era of Adventures of the Unknown, including an Adventures Into The Unknown #1 (ACG, 1948) up for auction in the 2022 March 31 The Black[...]

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[...]

Cole once said, one of the premiere cover artists of the Golden Age and beyond. "If it's a horror cover and you have a big black background, just put in some squibbly line and the reader will see it as a fang, or a claw, or a staring eye, and will read the most horrible aberrations[...]

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[...]

Farrell Publication's Voodoo Annual #1 is a comic book that Pre-Code Horror collectors rarely want to part with, and it's easy to see why.  It's a scarce 100-page giant square-bound edition comic book that includes Matt Baker art from the height of the notoriously-difficult Pre-Code era.  The annual is part of publisher Farrell Publications 1952-1955[...]

The most famous comic book horror line of all time, EC Comics horror did not start with a jump scare.  Like the Pre-Code Horror genre itself, the line practically snuck up on its readership in late 1949 and early 1950.  The now-infamous Crypt Keeper and Crypt of Terror first appeared in Crime Patrol #15, cover-dated[...]

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,[...]

Marvel is not the first publisher to come to mind when we think of the Pre-Code Horror era of the late 1940s through the early 1950s, but perhaps it should be.  Not only did the publisher enter the horror genre in earnest before EC Comics, it was also the driving force of the market —[...]

Farrell Publication's Voodoo Annual #1 is a comic book that Pre-Code Horror collectors rarely want to part with, and it's easy to see why.  It's a scarce 100-page giant squarebound edition comic book that includes Matt Baker art from the height of the notoriously-difficult Pre-Code era.  Although the title is part of publisher Farrell Publications[...]

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[...]

"Prototype" probably isn't quite the right name for the concept.  It's often just a name, a visual look, or a super-power that was recycled for later use — perhaps sometimes knowingly, perhaps not.  Still, prototypes do have their appeal.  It's another little hook into understanding comics history.  While Marvel Tales #116 isn't widely considered a[...]