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Monday, June 30, 2014

Number 1598: Ted’s head!

We are slipping out of June with a couple of stories from one of the first horror comics I ever owned. I got it in a trade circa 1959, and it has been in my collection since.

I have shown the Dick Briefer-drawn “Somewhere Lurks a Thing!” before, in the early days of this blog. These are new scans. “Ted’s Head” has art credited by the GCD to Larry Woromay ? by way of the Atlas Tales site. I think Larry did a pretty good job showing headless people without the gore. But it wouldn't have satisfied the Senate committee and their hearing on comics. They didn’t buy Bill Gaines’ decapitated head cover of Crime Suspenstories #22 as “being in good taste for a horror comic.” For the record, I think “Ted’s Head” is in good taste for a horror comic.












4 comments:

Brian Barnes said...

The art on the second one is interesting. I'm really bad at picking out certain artists, but if it's Woromay, it's a lot closer to his actual style than the usual Davis lift. There's still a good bit of Davis in there. I like the art (on both stories.)

Speaking of art, the Sale cover is incredible. There's some goofiness in it, but the floating head is a great image, and who knows why the floating hands are wearing gloves (???) but it's a fun image where everything is framed really well.

The first story isn't bad, the second story is a pretty cheap "as it turns out" story. The first pre-announced with both men being and/or going bald, but the second just pulled that doozy out of nowhere. Sometimes par for the course with Atlas, but it was always a charming, breezy read.

Pappy said...

Brian, speaking of the art in Atlas Comics, an artist like Briefer had a fairly different and not so detailed style for his latter, horror comics version of his Frankenstein character, but threw in the shading and details for this story. There was a style, whether demanded of the artists I don't know, to put more of that in their panels for these comics. I like it.

I like Bob Q. Sale, a very underrated artist.

As for Woromay, like you I'm not familiar enough with him to know if it's his work or not. I'm trusting the GCD on this for lack of any other information.

Alicia American said...

OMG Pour Ted!!!!!

Ger Apeldoorn said...

I don't know if it was demanded of Dick Briefer to use more fine lines, but John Romita did in one interview complain that he did have to (and that it took him twice as long to draw a story).