Kick ass Comic Cover of the week

i love old pre-code horror comics. They had the best stories and art. This is Adventures into the Unknown - Sept 1951.

Kick ass comic cover of the day

They Just don't make em' like this anymore...
This is from Ace Comics, 1946.

This comic is on auction right now at Heritage Auctions - current bid - $1000. Who'd have thought this "trash" would ever be worth so much? Bet there are tons of adults out there right now who are wishing they still had those books mom tossed out...

 

Monkey Stew

Thought I'd share a little about my hobbies before horror hosting. Seems I have always had one creative endeavor or another going as long as I can remember. I just think it's the way I'm wired - I'm happiest when I have creative projects going. Before trying my hand at horror hosting I was working in the world of comics.

Comic books were one of my first true loves, and of course I was drawn to horror comics. I used to read as many of them as I could lay my hands on growing up - so when I finally decided to try my hand at self-publishing, the first thing I did was a horror anthology. The company I stared was called Out of the Cellar Comics. I co-founded it with my long time friend Chuck Angell, the same guy I would later start this horror hosting show with.

Chuck is a horror nut too, so it was a no-brainer that the first thing we'd do would be a horror comic. I named it after a line from a Webb Wilder song - Monkey Stew. It was an EC style comic, with several short stories framed by a wrap around tale of an old man who answers the door to a couple whose car broke down in the rain. He tells them stories to entertain them, and things eventually take a turn for the worse.

We only published one issue of Monkey Stew. Don't know why we never got around to doing more - I think we just had lots of ideas we wanted to get to. The story below is one that was published in Monkey Stew #1 - it is called Natural Causes. It was written by my friend Frank Oreto, penciled by myself, and inked by Chuck Angell.

Little quick back story on this one - at the time I had just gone through a bitter divorce. It was a short lived marriage and we were really better off apart than together. But that didn't make it any less painful. When Frank suggested the story idea I just had one stipulation... he name the lead female in the story after my ex-wife, Elizabeth. I think I was taking out a little aggression here, symbolically anyway. The doctor in the story, Doc Barnett, is also named after a mutual friend of Frank and mine who always disliked my ex.

So here is Natural Causes. This story has gotten a  lot of mileage. It's been re-printed more times than any other story I've done. I am pretty happy with the way it turned out.

Click the pics  to enlarge and read them, and leave me a comment and let me know whatcha think...

 

  

  

  

 

The 13 Days of Christmas - Day 6

On the 6th Day of Christmas, we have an explosive little cover - Tomb of Terror Number 15, from 1954, which seems to have been a really popular year for gruesome comic books. Awesome!