Scorpion from the Stars

YAAAGHH! You asked for it-- "Scorpion from the Stars" from the April-May 1952 issue of Out of the Night #2. GCD says this was later reprinted in Charons of Hell (1983, Gredown), an Australian magazine sized 'one-shot' printed in black and white and featuring Gold and Silver Age reprints from Ajax; Farrell, Harvey, ACG, and Charlton, among others...

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Number 1102


Crom the Barbarian


As promised Monday, here's another story by John Giunta, this time signing himself "Jay Gee."

Giunta did "Crom the Barbarian and the Spider God of Akka" for Avon's Out Of This World #2, in 1950. It appeared in a 32-page comic book insert for an issue of Avon's pulp magazine of the same name, where I got the scans for this story.

From what I understand, Gardner Fox wrote "Crom," and based him on Conan the Barbarian. Crom was Conan's god, to whom he swore mighty oaths. I'm not sure why Fox named his character after Conan's god, but appears to have been giving a nod to readers in the know, referring to the stories of Robert E. Howard.

Giunta, who worked in comic books during the 1940s through at least the mid-'60s, died in 1970 at the young age of 50.

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Drum of Doom

Show of hands, how many of you knew that zombies could fly? Sounds silly, but even by the usual obnoxious ACG standards it works amazingly (and eerily) well in this super top-notch entry from the April-May '52 issue of Out of the Night #2, pencils by the great Al Williamson and inks by the underrated king of atmosphere, King Ward.

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Alliterative and Amusing Attributions

For most of the Silver Age, DC did not include credits for their stories (although it was not uncommon for artists to sign their work). Indeed, probably the most common credit given was fictitious; the one that identified most Batman stories as being drawn by Bob Kane.

Marvel was different. From the very beginning, they included some credits for their stories. From Fantastic Four #1:

At first, as you can see, the credits were rudimentary. Here's something of interest, though, from Amazing Spiderman #1:

Even when DC did go to more commonly including credits later in the Silver Age, back then they never (to my knowledge) gave attribution for lettering. Still, the credits were more or less haphazard at that point at Marvel. For example, ASM #4 does not including lettering credit, and up to and including #9 the credits were pretty simple. In ASM #10, things changed:

This was the beginning of Stan's alliterative phase, which would continue for the rest of the Silver Age (and be continued by later editors at Marvel).  That same month, Fantastic Four #24's credits included another look at the future:

The following issue, Stan put both alliteration and braggadocio together:

But there was still one more element to be added: Humor.  That started to be added with #29:

Stan apparently (I assume he came up with the idea for these credits) delighted in tweaking his letterers; for the next few years this became the template.  Greatness was always implied for the script, pencils and inking; mere competence (or worse) was ascribed to putting the words on the paper.

 Although these amusing credits became a significant part of the difference between Marvel and DC, they did not last anywhere near as long as I remembered.  Indeed, by late 1966, Stan pretty much reverted to a more basic style:

After that the humorous and alliterative credits became more infrequent.  Indeed, Stan often saved that for the Bullpen Bulletin or the letters page.  I suspect that his workload by that point was getting too big; it was around this time that he turned the scriptwriting chores for the Avengers over to Rascally Roy Thomas.

The appeal of these credits was strong.  It gave readers the feeling that they were in for a fun time.  True, the self-promotion could get overbearing at times, but this was also the era where Mohamed Ali amused us all by proclaiming his greatness at the top of his lungs, rather than engage in the more common false modesty of most athletes before and after.

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Number 1101


What ho, it's Tally-Ho!


Tally-Ho Comics might be one of the oddest comic books ever published. The cover makes it look like a kiddie comic, and parents might have been fooled into buying it for their kid. The unsuspecting kid would be turning the pages past "Snowman" and find himself reading a gory horror story featuring a–YIKES!–bloody dismembered hand.

The comic is dated December 1944, and is one of a series of oddball releases during the latter part of World War II. Paper was rationed, but comic books were selling well–entire print runs, whatever they could get to newsstands or to military bases–so my guess with Tally-Ho is that a package was created with material at hand (credited by Overstreet to "[Bernard] Baily Publishing Company"). They found someone with a paper ration (in this case, the Swappers Quarterly from Chicago) and either made them part of the package deal or paid them for their paper ration. That's an educated guess on my part based on what little evidence I have.

The comic is known as Frank Frazetta's first published comic book work, inking John Giunta. An artist I don't recognize did "Man In Black,"*, the aforementioned horror story. I'm showing both stories today. "Snowman" is another recycled story I've shown before, but these are new scans.

Wednesday: Another John Giunta story.















*Not to be confused with Bob Powell's Man In Black.

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