Saturday, October 30, 2021

Favourite spooky Comic Covers from the Bronze Age

 Inspired by a recent post over at McScotty’s blog (https://twthen.blogspot.com/2021/10/favourite-comics-best-mysteryhorror.html), and seeing that Halloween is fast approaching, I thought I’d put together a blog highlighting some of my most memorable spooky comic covers from the Bronze Age….not necessarily from comics dabbling in the supernatural, but simply those that sent a shiver down my spine to the extent that they come to mind almost fifty years later.

© DC Comics

First up is Shadow #2, “Freak Show Murders”. This comic cover was the first time I’d seen The Shadow, whom I'd had seen  previously mentioned in Fantasy Unlimited as a pulp hero template for Batman. This particular comic was in a batch that my Gran brought back to me in Southsea from the States following a family visit in September 1973. I had immediately phoned my pal Nigel to come round to our house, and I spread the comics that Gran had given my on the table-tennis table set up in our front room. The Shadow #2 caught my eye with its arresting green wash with the circus tent on a windy barren landscape with the solitary Shadow overseeing everything. It was my first exposure to the work of Mike Kaluta, and I was immediately a fan.


© DC Comics


Next is up is Phantom Stranger #17  which I bought from one of Mrs King’s newsagents in Albert Road, Southsea around the end of March 1972. Superb cover (I can remember a lot of PS covers) by Neal Adams stuck in my mind all these years. Perhaps the horror of running from a train? The color highlighting and shadows is what sells the image. The story “Like A Ghost from the Ashes” contains some of Jim Aparo’s best work. and the care than Aparo put into the interior artwork was exemplary. (Aparo’s work for DC in that period 1970-1972 was the peak of his powers IMHO). I particularly liked his use of fine dots for shadow in this scene below.


© DC comics



© DC Comics


My third spooky cover choice is Batman #237 "Night of the Reaper" which I got at the end of January 1972, featuring Batman and Robin involved in a story juxtaposing  the horror of the Nazi concentration camps with the jollity of Tom Fagan’s annual Halloween bash in Rutland, Vermont. The cover is so striking with its dominant red background. I loved the idea of Fagan’s annual Halloween parade, and collected many other comics that featured it over the years (The later 3-part Amazing Adventures/JLA/Thor crossover was a particular highlight). The Batman comic itself has superb Adams artwork and a suitably abrupt ending from the inventive pen of Denny O’Neil. Plus we get to see DC writers featured as supporting players. I loved that “breaking the fourth wall” thing.


Next up are a couple of choices from House of Mystery,  a comic which (along with House of Secrets) was a great favourite of mine in the early seventies. So many great Neal Adams covers in that 1969-1972 period, that I found it difficult to choose. Many featured young children in peril, interestingly. In the end I went for two covers, both because each served as the basis for subsequent covers featuring Batman.


© DC Comics


The first is House of Mystery #174, the first of that title after it moved to a horror format. I did not pick this up at the time, only as a back issue from Alan Austin’s Fantasy Unlimited a few years later, when I was disappointed to find that it was a reprint issue. However, I was struck by its similarity to Brave & Bold #93, which had triggered my interest in collecting the House of Mystery title in the first place. B&B #93 "Red Water, Crimson Death" has great interior artwork and features a picture of Neal Adams himself on a page highlighting DC accolades at the Comic Art convention.


Similarly House of Mystery #187 (July/August 1970) is a favorite because it was the template for my all-time favourite Batman cover Detective #405, (December 1970)  which featured the League of Assassins. The interior Detective comic artwork is typical Bob Brown, but the cover is outstanding. The inspiration presumably comes from the horror movie trope of the angry townspeople hunting down the monster/girl/hero.


© DC Comics



Next up is Brave & Bold #92, featuring the Bat Squad. I picked this up at a newsagents in Torrington (remember of the joy of finding excellent quality back issues on spinner racks in out of the way places?) on a family journey back from North Devon in 1971, and read in the darkness of the back seat of the car illuminated by the interior car light. A great cover and story drawn by Nick Cardy, written by Bob Haney. 


© DC comics


I loved the Batman of the Haneyverse, a guy who casually walked around town in his batsuit. This time he’s in that apocryphal hip London of the late sixties with fog and Carnaby Street and British police officers saying “By Jove”.  The Bat Squad (comprised of a group of hippies helping ol’ Bats) never made a return appearance (and the fact that DC couldn’t even be bothered to get Ira Schnapp to create a proper logo for them on the cover signaled uncertainty about the groups' longevity), but the cover stayed in my mind all these years. Great use of colour to make the image work, especially the yellow of the torchlight. Nick Cardy is an unsung hero in the pantheon of cover artists.


© Marvel Comics


Next up is Nick Fury, Agent of Shield #3, which I recently paid over the odds to get a decent copy recently, following a reminder in Kid’s blog over at https://kidr77.blogspot.com/ It is a classic cover of a woman in the shadow of a big house, running away, repurposed for the comic. I love it for featuring Batamn in the lower left, and the excellent Eisner inspired opening pages by Steranko. Some of his best work.




Incidentally House of Secrets seemed intent on producing similar covers with women running away from unseen horrors / see this run of covers from HoS.


© DC Comics. House of Secrets 88-90 on a "woman running from a castle" kick


I’ll close with two covers that appeared on paperbacks with comic connections.


© DC


The first is the cover of House of Mystery paperback tie-in HoM#1 written by Jack Oleck. The cover artwork by Wrightson has great colouring, and interior black & white spot illustrations convey his sensibility at its most ghoulish. I also had the follow up paperback, both bought in 1976 from Dark They Were & Golden-Eyed in London.


© Conde Nast


I’ll close with the cover of Doc Savage Bantam paperback #37, Hex. Not a comic cover, but up there with the best of James Bana’s painted covers. I bought it at a  book store in Passaic NJ in July 1977. The cover was so striking that I’m surprised that Grafitti Designs have not published a poster print as they have done of many other Doc Savage paperback covers.


So, thanks to McScotty and Kid for the inspiration for this post. Sorry there has been a bit of a gap since the last one. Happy Halloween!


15 comments:

  1. Interestingly, the cover of The Demon #2 also resembles those of HOM #187 and Detective #405, making me wonder whether it was coincidental or if Jack Kirby copied the layout because it was a good one. Will we ever know? Happy Hallowe'en to you too. Sadly, I have none of those mags or books, though I believe The Shadow #2 is reprinted in a DC collected edition of Kaluta's Shadow work.

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    1. Thanks Kid. I too have wondered about the resemblance to Demon #2 although I don’t imagine for a second that King Kirby would have consciously copied Adams. Perhaps it is a well-known composition from elsewhere? I started to run a series noting similar covers over on the SuperStuff Twitter feed a while back where I noted the similarity of the Demon cover. https://twitter.com/superstuff73/status/1383856439836377103?s=21

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  2. B, I've probably asked you this before, but can't remember your answer. Is Shearer Road in Fratton or Buckland? And where does the first one end and the other begin? Ta.

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    1. Well, according to the Ward layout in Portsmouth, Shearer Rd sits entirely in Fratton, as it is to the East of Fratton Rd/Kingston Rd. At the North End, Shearer Rd intersects with New Road, and at the Southern End St Mary's Rd. Buckland is the area to the West of Fratton Road. If you google "Fratton Hants" to bring up the google street map of the area, and then click on the grey FRATTON name in the map, it conveniently outlines the area of Fratton with a nice red line. Similarly you can click on the BUCKLAND name, and it will outline that area as well. Someone in Google Maps had a good idea, although it does not work for all of the Portsmouth areas for some reason. Hope this helps.

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    2. Ta much, B. That clears something up for me - I lived in Fratton in 1985, not Buckland. Cheers.

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    3. Back in the mid-seventies, my pals Nigel Brown and Geoff Cousins (fellow contributors to SuperStuff in those days) used to cycle up Shearer Rd from St Mary's to New Road in search of corner newsagents and and comics on a Saturday afternoon. Once we got the New Rd, we would head to "Ma Gibbs", a second hand shop full of cats old paperbacks and American comics. Heady days.

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    4. The Frying Scotsman chip shop was somewhere in that direction, I think. Was it there in your day? Dunno if it it still is.

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    5. I’m not familiar with that chip shop Kid, but I will ask my pal Geoff who used to live in that area in the early 70s.

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  3. Great selection of covers there baggsey and a few I should have added to my list. My first Shadow comics was issue 3 so I missed this one but it looks excellent, well it was drawn by Kaluta so it would have been a joy to read. Good to see mention of Fantasy Unlimited a great fanzine back in the day.

    Phantom Stranger 17 - now that is a great cover, then again did Adams ever draw a poor on at this time. I don’t have this one but I have read it and Aparo’s art is fantastic and like yourself I also liked those fine dots he used to use in the 1970’s .

    I can believe I forgot to add Batman comics issue 237it’s simply a classic isn’t it and the Adams and Giordano art on the story itself shows two artists hitting the peak of their abilities (I seem to recall Bernie Wrightson had some input into this strip).

    I didn’t notice the similarity is House of Mystery 174 and Brave and the Bold 93 until you mention it – HoM174 is one that’s on my wants list.

    House of Mystery #187 is one of my favourites as it has a long Alex Toth drawn strip and of course a great Adams cover. This was also on my short list to add to my own selection of favourite Halloween covers.

    Detective 405 is a cracker of a cover. I haven’t read this one so will need to check to see if I can pick up a cheap reading copy although I don’t think Adams was drawing the strip itself at this time (perhaps Bob Brown).

    Brave and the Bold 92 – I used to have this one and loved the cover and also Nick Cardy’s art on the strip itself. Another one I wish I had added to my list. I used to pick I up anything that had a Cardy cover back in the day the guy was exceptional at drawing covers..

    Nick Fury, Agent of Shield issue 3 – A brilliant entry and I really can’t believe I didn’t add this one either . I only ever read this comic when it was reprinted in the UK weeklies (I think it was Captain Britain)

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    1. The cover to Shadow #3 is superb, McScotty. Going back to look at it now, I appreciate it even more. It’s a pretty unsettling cover, with Margo Lane being dragged to the electric chair, and the Shadow overseeing the scene with a very strange expression indeed. Those early Mike Kaluta/Denny O’Neil Shadows were outstanding interpretations, which later DC iterations (eg Howard Chaykin’s modern version, or “The Shadow Strikes!” by Gerard Jones and Eduardo Barreto) have failed to re-capture. However, I am a fan of the Shadow stories that Mike Kaluta and Gary Gianni did at Dark Horse (“In the Coils of Leviathon”, “Hell’s Heat Wave”) which have fantastic covers and interior artwork.

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  4. B, might be an idea to go into your blog's settings, scroll down to the 'feed' section, and set your feed. That way, your latest post and the time it was posted should show in my blog list. I've deleted your blog and re-added it several times now to try and fix the problem, but when I'm re-adding it, I get a message saying 'cannot detect blog feed'.

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    1. Happy to so, Kid. Am sat in passenger seat of car driven by Mrs B at the moment returning home from family Thanksgiving in New Jersey. I’ll break out the laptop when I get home and update the settings tonight. If you give it another try tomorrow it should have been updated. Let me know how you get on. Cheers

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  5. Kid - have just confirmed blog feed for all options. Can you verify that you can now pick it up?

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  6. Nope, it's still not showing in my list for some reason. Curious.

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  7. Ah, that's it now, B. I deleted it and re-added it, problem solved.

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