Comical Books: "The Horror! The Horror!"

I read a lot of comics. Or graphic novels. Or picture books. Whatever you want to call them.

I don't review many of them because I mostly just like to enjoy them and move along.

Every now and then I hit one that merits a share.

This is the lengthily-titled The Horror! The Horror! Comic Books the Government Didn't Want You To Read.

It's the story of early 50's and 60's crime, horror, and sf comics and how overprotective parents tried to get them banned.

I don't have a lot of critical things to say about this one, I just wanted to say "Look at this! And this!" This thing has a lot of great images and covers that will surprise, shock, and/or delight you.

Here we go!

Covers first. Here are some of the best covers on display.

This one has a very Return of the Living Dead feel. (Also that title: Weird Tales of the Future? What's futuristic about this picture??)

This one's some nice gourmet cheese. (Wonder if it was the inspiration for Lucio Fulci's The Beyond...)

Pretty colors!

Nice angle. (Also I didn't know that the Grim Reaper brewed shrunken skulls.)

These two covers are interesting because they're both Mysterious Adventures issues, they look similar, and both give away the entire story and ending right there on the cover. (Also the story and ending appear to be the same!)

And sometimes you get some really fierce gore on the covers. Check the green shading on that clapper!

And this one's hardcore even by modern standards.

Sometimes they went too far and had to be censored, like this EC cover that showed a dripping severed neck and had to be cropped to comply with the newly-instituted comics code.

Now some choice panels.

This is one from the Tales from the Crypt offshoot, The Haunt of Fear, that pushed parents too far and made them institute the code, I was stoked to find it because I first read a description of this in Stephen King's Danse Macabre as a kid!

And here's a few gruesome goodies from the 50's and 60's to help you see the overprotective parents' POV on this issue!

And this is just delightful.

So check this book out for the story behind all these images.

It has a few short comic stories and covers, but it's mostly text. There are plenty of omnibus collections of old-school horror/sf comics out there if you want to read the actual comics.

EC dominated the market and they're what most people think of when they think of comics from this era. And they're all great: Tales from the Crypt, Haunt of Fear, Vault of Horror, Shock SuspenStories, Crime SuspenStories, Weird Science, Weird Fantasy, and Two-Fisted Tales.

But Warren Publishers' Creepy and Eerie have much better artwork and writing, though they're in black & white.

If you want to read a nice collection of non-EC, non-Warren horror comics from this era, I cannot recommend Four Color Fear high enough.

Enjoy, boys and ghouls!

-Phony McFakename

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