Number 1880: The secret of the old tower

“The Old Tower’s Secret.” from Adventures Into the Unknown #2 (1949) gives the appearance of a triangle love story. Older husband, younger wife and younger man. And the husband lets the two go off together for the day. When he thinks the worst has transpired with the young people, events are set in motion that will haunt them (literally) a hundred years later. Things are not as we were led to believe.

Frank Belknap Long, who had a long career as a writer and was a contemporary and friend of H.P. Lovecraft, wrote the story, as well as the other contents of the first two issues of Adventures Into the Unknown. Edmond Good, a Canadian artist who came to the United States after World War II, contributed several stories to ACG and editor Richard E. Hughes over the years. Good, a member of the art colony in Woodstock, New York, was also the first artist for DC’s Tomahawk.

In this posting from 2011, after a mystical tale by Ogden Whitney, a space story by Edmond Good. Just click on the thumbnail.

Number 819

The Living Ghost!

Following up a Smokey Stover posting is a daunting task. What could be as crazy as Smokey? Well, this comes close.

"The Living Ghost" is from Adventures Into the Unknown #1, 1948. It was written in an apparent fit of delirium by Frank Belknap Long, Weird Tales writer, and one-time pal of H. P. Lovecraft. Long wrote all the stories in this issue, as well as #2. After that, and for the next few years there are a lot of screwball stories that read something like "The Living Ghost" in the ACG supernatural comics, but I don't know if they were by Long. As we've mentioned in this blog a time or two, many writers worked in the comic book field for extra $$$. It would seem a natural--or in Long's case, a supernatural, yuk-yuk--way to supplement his income.

It's drawn by Fred Guardineer, who lent his exacting drafting style to a most unlikely subject. His artwork, which seems so wrong for horror, produced one of the greatest horror comics pages ever, page 8. I'm not sure if Guardineer ever drew another horror story; this is the first of two Living Ghost stories (the second is found in issue #2), but the only one he drew. His precise drawing style worked better in crime comics, and even the Westerns he drew in the 1950s.

Guardineer quit comics in the mid-'50s and went to work for the Post Office. Long went on to a long and productive writing career.

Number 697


The Castle of Nonsenso


In preparation for this post I read the short novel, The Castle of Otranto, by Horace Walpole, first published in 1768. The things I do for you readers! The suffering I do...egad. I fall to my knees and weep for my personal sacrifices.

OK, OK...so I exaggerate. It wasn't all that bad.

Anyway, this 7-page adaptation of the famous "first" Gothic novel is from Adventures Into the Unknown #1, from 1948. The script was written by Frank Belknap Long, known amongst us cognoscenti for his contributions to Weird Tales and his friendship with H. P. Lovecraft. Long wrote the first two issues of AITU, but I don't know what else he wrote for the comics. If he was like some other writers, he wrote for the comics in a sub-rosa fashion, without announcing it as such.

According to the Grand Comics Database it's drawn by Al Ulmer.