Number 1119
The werewolf comes from out of the night!
[I'm going to have some fun and show some monster stories; postings through Pappy's #1124 on March 24 will have monster stories of various types.]
Out Of the Night, which is a great name for a horror comic, came from ACG to be an addition to their two best-selling horror titles (they actually called them "supernaturals"), Adventures Into the Unknown and Forbidden Worlds. Apparently the supply of stories featuring vampires, werewolves and zombies was endless, because they felt they needed a third book in the line. Out Of the Night lasted 17 issues, suspending publication after the November 1954 issue. The Comics Code was being implemented and that might have had something to do with it, but it could also be that sales on OOTN were down, and the book would have been killed, Code or not.
The first issue, from 1952, is strong, with a great Ken Bald cover and a sharp lead story by Al Williamson and Harold LeDoux, signed with the pseudonym Harold Williams. LeDoux went from comic books to the Judge Parker comic strip, eventually (after more than a decade) getting sole credit and his byline on the strip. He is retired and apparently still with us at age 85. Al Williamson died in December 2010.
Beautiful art, but it seems much more Williamson then LeDoux. I'd have no idea it was a Fleagle gang or straight Williamson.
ReplyDeleteGoofy story, though. This was one of those publishers that in the wake of EC was still writing their horror stories as if it was a men's adventure serial or AirBoy story.
And no wonder the werewolf starved, he failed to catch his pray twice, both in a small, enclosed room!
I don't know how much work, if any, the Fleagles did with Al on this story; it may be a straightforward two-man job.
ReplyDeleteYears after the fact Williamson critiqued his own early artwork, and specifically his faces. The woman's face in the big panel topping the post is a good example of something that might have made him cringe in later years. Frazetta would have helped that panel considerably.