Number 1100


One thousand Pappy posts ago


In Pappy's #100, posted on February 27, 2007, I showed one of the printings of this story, "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." I scanned the Strange Suspense Stories version published by Charlton in '54, which was actually the third printing (by the third publisher) of the same strip in five years. Read my original comments at Pappy's #100 to see the unusual publishing history of this story.

The version here comes from Startling Terror Tales #10 in 1952. If you don't want to ruin your eyesight on my crappy 2007 scans, you can see much better scans of the Strange Suspense Stories version at The Horrors Of It All for part 1, and here for part 2.

"Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" is drawn by Wally Wood, and I believe it's inked by Wood collaborator Harry Harrison, who once bragged about how fast he could ink a page. This does have a hurried quality to it, but that could be because it was drawn originally for publisher Victor Fox, who was notorious for being late on payments, if he paid at all. Maybe Wood and Harrison didn't want to give it the full treatment because of that. The first few pages have more detail than the last pages, for instance. But despite that it has come down to us as a really interesting and vintage horror comics version of the classic tale by Robert Louis Stevenson.

The cover is by L. B. Cole.

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Allie's End

Sometimes a person can enter your life and fill that big empty hole with something glowing and forever special... sometimes they enter your life and leave something else. From the Feb-Mar '54 issue of Out of the Night #13.

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Charismagic #4

Charismagic #4
2012 | English | CBR | 28 pages | 24.63 MB
Everything you thought you knew about magic will… Vanish. Journey into a world where the lines between magic and reality are blurred…And where one man will soon find himself as the last remaining hope for all mankind. Hank, Sudana and Sparkles make their way into the treacherous jungles of Costa Rica in search of the wizard Kon for help.
Yet, their journey may end before it even begins when they encounter The Guardians, magical panthers tasked with protecting the temple of Kon-who may or may not be allies to their cause. Inside Kon's temple, the ancient wizard battles the newly returned Samsun, but the tides of magic power have shifted-and not in his favor. In the Void Realm, Hector and Alle's capture by a mystical shaman will provide a glimmer of hope to the pair stuck in the hellish landscape of the Void, but will they be able to survive in order to enjoy it? Created and written by Aspen's own Vince Hernandez, with stunning art by Khary Randolph and Emilio Lopez, make sure to open your eyes to the exciting new world of CHARISMAGIC!Download MIRROR #1

Download MIRROR #2

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Diablo #2 (of 05)

Diablo #2 (of 05)
2012 | English | CBR | 23 pages | 13,58 MB
Download MIRROR #1

Download MIRROR #2

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Number 1099


Irv Spector's Lucky Duck


Irving Spector, like many other funny animal and humor artists of the 1940s and '50s, had a background in animation. His artwork is free and loose, and looks like it was a lot of fun to draw.

Spector did four issues of Lucky Duck for Standard. In the way of that publisher the first issue was issued as number five (to fool retailers into thinking the comic book had a track record). I found this issue at a local antiques mall...lucky me. I love stumbling on comic books as fun as this.

I like the bold, free inking, which to me is reminiscent of Walt Kelly, and there are other elements of comic art history in Lucky Duck, too. There are shades of Krazy Kat, and in the best tradition of animated shorts, the characters, both of them tricksters, are given to bashing each other with wooden mallets in displays of animation mayhem.

Spector's son, Paul, has a blog devoted to his father's work: irvspector.blogspot.com, with examples of original art, like Spector's newspaper comic strip, Coogy. There are reproductions of correspondence and other ephemera Spector left after his death. It's a goldmine of information on a working cartoonist of that incredible era, and if you're like me, you'll find the background information as fascinating as the work he produced.

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From the Bottom of the Well

The month of February spells doom for some, and where else to get your doom on than right here at THOIA? True love be damned, kicking off a month of major heart-removal with this wicked tale of witchy weirdness, from the Feb-March 1954 issue of Out of the Night #13.

(Cover art by Ken Bald)

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Number 1098


The crimes of Matt Baker


After leaving the Iger shop where he had toiled on such features as the leggy Sky Girl, Matt Baker used a more sophisticated illustrative technique. When he went to St. John his artwork was just as recognizable and his girls as pretty, but not in the pin-up style of Fiction House. These two stories from 1950's Authentic Police Cases #10 are examples.

Of the two, the Canadian Mountie story, "The Case Of the Red Bearded Rogue," gives him more room for drawing. "Midwest Cops Smash the Crimson Gang" is written like a radio script with a lot of narration and dialogue, almost crowding his artwork off the page. He pulled it off, though. In the case of that story the real crime in this crime comic is over-writing.

Credit is given by comic book art expert Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr., to Baker alone for "Rogue" and for "Crimson Gang" pencils only, with inks by Ray Osrin.

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