Friday, February 20, 2009


Number 475


Vampire of the North Country


I think this story is a really good example of why Jack Davis was not only funny, but one of the greatest horror comics artists ever.

Four men in the frozen North, and a vampire set loose. Who couldn't love a story like that? The best part is Jack Davis' wonderful artwork, which shows how good he was at portraying tension and suspense. The story isn't anything surprising from EC, which had many stories which stuck to this formula, but...

...those eyes in the chink of the logs, watching, waiting. It still creeps me out, just like it did when I was a kid.

According to the Grand Comics Database, the script is by Otto Binder.

I'm alternating pages of this story from Haunt of Fear #26 with the original art, found on Heritage Auctions. Davis' talent at portraying the macabre was matched by few others in the field, and like Bob Powell and some others, I love seeing the originals.

Because of the fragile condition of my copy of Haunt #26, I scanned the printed pages from the reprint produced in 1999 by Gemstone.















at

4 comments:

  1. Kirk Nachman5:51 AM

    Wonderful post! Thanks for rooting out the originals and the juxtaposition with the print.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Mr. Cavin1:11 AM

    Yeah, ditto. I always love these comparisons, they are always so instructive. In this instance there's less to learn about the relative contamination / improvement made by the inking process--and even the coloring here manages to keep from corrupting the original art (mostly). What's most interesting here is to the see the effects of the press, and, I suspect the age of the book itself, on the original fine line work. It's a shame we cannot also compare the original fifties press output with this more technologically modern reprint. But not such a shame that you should endanger your original, certainly.

    In a side note: I hope you are recovering well. Sorry to have missed the boat a post or two ago when you revealed you were safely through your surgery. Hopefully, the worst of all this is behind you, now.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Mr. Karswell8:32 AM

    This is one of my fave Davis EC tales too... and really really appreciate the b/w and color reprint comparisons. I should do more stuff like this at THOIA. I'm learning from the best!

    Get well Pappy!!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Squa Tront2:29 AM

    Great original B+W artwork page scans ...and I'm always fascinated by details like the paste-ups and traces of pencils.

    Pappy, I missed the news of your surgery. Get well soon.

    ReplyDelete

I have gone to comments moderation to try to eliminate spam. Please be patient while I get to your comments for posting.