Number 1418: Myron Fass and the dead woman’s swamp

Myron Fass, the king of sleaze, whose magazines included the line of Eerie Publications* and various other exploitation rags like Violent World, was once a comic book artist.

An issue of Violent World.

I like to imagine Charles Manson framing this 1969 killer-hippie Eerie Publications cover and keeping it in his cell to remind him of happier days.

Well, I qualify Fass’s comic artist label...I don’t know how much Fass actually drew, and how much he might have subcontracted out to other artists. The quality of Fass art can vary widely. In this particular story, the quality has swung toward the amateurish, or as I like to call it, “serviceable.” It serves the purpose of the story and that’s about it. But I decided to show it for a couple of reasons. One is Myron’s inscrutable signature in the splash panel. If I’m reading it correctly it says “Nuts” Myron Fass, with the second “s” placed sideways. I’m bewildered by that. The other thing about the story is it is another swamp creature story. There have been enough swamp monsters in comics, all of them descended from Theodore Sturgeon’s 1940 prose story,“It!” to make up a separate genre for swamp-creature lit.

From Crime Mysteries #12 (1954):

**********

*The Bloody Pulp!, a blog devoted to Eerie Publications, hasn't been updated in a long time, but is still an incredible resource for anyone wanting to check into the “miasma of Eerie Publications,” as the blog promises.

Click on the picture to go to the site.

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Number 725


Shelf of Skulls


The title sounds like it's describing Karswell's office, doesn't it? This story, reprinted from Ajax-Farrell's Voodoo #1, is by Matt Baker. I scanned it from the black and white incarnation in the 1969 Terror Tales Volume 1 #8 (actually #2 in that weird way Eerie Publications numbered their magazines).

It's got Baker artwork, with some added ink shading and spurting blood (by editor Carl Burgos, maybe?) It's also got horror elements: the shrunken heads, a cheating wife, vengeful husband and a cigarette smoking skull. That's good enough for me!

Go back to Pappy's last Wednesday to see more Baker artwork on his great Canteen Kate feature from Fightin' Marines.

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Number 665


Twice told tale


Yesterday's posting was of a Sheldon Mayer science fiction story told both through Mayer's original art and the printed story. Today we also have something with two versions.

It looks like plagiarism. Someone at Eerie Publications, producers of some of the schlockiest black and white horror comics of the late '60s though the '70s, came up with the idea of just re-drawing old horror comics stories. After all, it'd save them from having to pay someone* to write a story, and who'd know, really? Well, the Eerie Publications folks probably didn't figure on the obsessive-compulsive comic book types who love this sort of trivia. Obsessive-compulsive types like Pappy, for instance.

The black and white version, "It Cried For Blood" is done by a Spanish artist whose signature looks like Torre Radiso. Let me know if I'm wrong (as I'm sure someone will). It comes from the April 1979 issue of Weird Vampire Tales Volume 3 Number 1,** and is a near word-for-word knockoff of "Name From the Nether World" from the early 1950s Ace comic, Web of Mystery #17.

You can read "Name From the Nether World" at Karswell's The Horrors Of It All blog.

*I'm assuming here. They could have paid. I just don't know. They re-drew several old stories, many from Harvey's horror comics line.

**It could also have showed up in other publications from this company. They continually recycled stories amongst their magazines.

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Number 575


Dr. Judas and the Wannaketa spell for zombie making


I hadn't read this story since I bought Eerie Publications' Tales From the Crypt one-shot* in 1968, and at the time I didn't understand or appreciate its perverse sense of humor. Dr. Judas, for a fee, will resurrect a loved one after death, but there is a problem with the resurrectee...it's a zombie.

In the New Testament Judas was the betrayer, and the one he betrayed was the one who could resurrect the dead. I love Dr. Judas' line at the grave, "Yes, I think the spell of Wannaketa should be used! Wannaketa, the first zombie master!" Who? Wannaketa? That sounds like a story in itself.

"Forever Dead" is truly strange, with a bizarre and funny ending. It was originally done by the Jerry Iger shop, probably for the Ajax/Farrell line, but I don't know what specific title.

*Speaking of resurrections, since titles usually can't be copyrighted, Eerie Publications probably thought they were OK titling a magazine Tales From the Crypt after the presumably defunct EC comic book title of the 1950s. However, someone using an active title could be considered unfair competition. Eerie Publications might have gotten a letter from EC publisher Bill Gaines' lawyers telling them to cease and desist. The title, Tales From the Crypt, licensed from Gaines, was used by Ballantine just four years earlier for one of their EC reprint paperbacks, and it may have been licensed by the time of this title usurpation for the British film that came out a couple of years later. Whatever happened, Eerie Publications' Tales From the Crypt Volume 1, Number 10 (Eerie Publications never numbered their first issues #1) was a one-shot.

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Number 498


The April Fools


To honor this day, April 1: Now this is a horror comic! In the space of six pages everyone in this story dies a horrible, gruesome death. It's also a cautionary tale. Never scoff at old legends so what happened to these fools won't happen to you.

From Terror Tales #7 (actually #1), March 1969.

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Number 456


Horrors of war


The scariest part of this horror story isn't the ending, it's the beginning. For me, that is. Cowardly Ronald Hamly gets drafted. Getting drafted scared me 42 years ago when the same thing happened to me. Denial is not just a river in Egypt, as the old saying goes, it was the way of life of a college student who didn't think getting kicked out of college would earn him a uniform. It wasn't the first, nor the last time, I would be very, very wrong.

Obviously I lived through my Army experience, but poor Ronald didn't. You'll see how he met his fate in this tale from Eerie Publications' Terror Tales #7 (actually #1) from 1969.

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