The Vampire Soul!

Aka: "The Wisdom of Many, the Wit of One." Written and illustrated by Frank Robbins (plot by Doug Moench), this is an odd, fast paced, and sexy vampire tale from the Dec - Jan '74-'75 issue of House of Mystery #228. Man, I would love to see more of "Martha" in her low cut vinyl top and thigh high go-go boots-- hey, maybe someone out there can resurrect her in her own DC horror mini-series someday! See another incredible (and rare) Frank Robbins vampire fox epic in the THOIA Archive by clicking HERE!

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Number 1504: Jack Frost in the Land of the Lost

Brrrr. Much of North America and the United States is gripped right now is what is called a polar vortex, with record-breaking cold temperatures. Jack Frost is definitely nipping at our noses and any other exposed parts.

Speaking of Jack Frost, I’ll bet you wouldn’t place Jack Frost under the ocean (nor would I), but here he is in The Land of the Lost #3 (1946). The story is written by Isabel Manning Hewson, the creator and writer of the then-popular radio series, and illustrated by Olive Bailey.

I have shown other episodes of this charming series, published by EC Comics when EC stood for “Educational Comics,” under the ownership of Maxwell Charles Gaines, father of William Gaines, who went on to a wholly different style of comics when he took over the company after the elder Gaines’s accidental death in 1947.

Stay warm!

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More Land of the Lost. Just click on the thumbnails.

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Cabinet of the Living Death / Curse of the Witch

Here are the other two traumatizing tales from the June 1951 issue of Mysterious Adventures #2, no artist credits listed at GCD for either story-- though just as we saw in our last post, another entry from this issue gets the 70's Eerie Pub art make-over, this time by Oscar Stepancich and appears in Horror Tales, Weird, and Terror Tales --and thus "The Cabinet of the Living Death" gets mundanely retitled "Body Snatcher." Some of you may have also noticed the issue cover blurb from our last post that mentioned "terror of the ghoul's corpse"...there is no story in this issue with such title.

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Number 1503: Hiking the Danger Trail

The King Faraday lead story from DC’s Danger Trail #1 (1950) begins with a reference to a popular 1948 movie, Sorry, Wrong Number. Here’s an ad for the movie, taken from Life magazine:

The story that follows is as unlikely as the plot of the movie that King complains about, but is entertaining in its pulpish way. When you get through the overcooked first person narrative and snappy dialogue there is even a bit of space left for the artist to work in! The type of smartass, two-fisted character represented here by King Faraday was familiar to pulp magazine and paperback book readers, as well as radio listeners of the forties. In contrast to that other media, a comic book should let the pictures, not hefty captions, tell most of the story.

Story by Robert Kanigher, edited by Julius Schwartz, art by Carmine Infantino and Joe Giella.

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Here’s another King Faraday story. Just click on the thumbnail:

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