Pappy's Favorites Number 7: A Ghastly tale!

“Pappy's Favorites” was something I did while on hiatus in 2018. It was a way of showing some of my favorite postings from the past, introducing new readers to my archives, and hopefully having some of my long-time readers go back for a second look.

I am reviving the idea, although it won't be a once-a-week feature as it was in 2018; sometimes I just need a break, friends!

Today's post shows the original art for an EC horror story by Graham “Ghastly” Ingels. And if you have a thing about spiders, you have been warned.

Just click on the thumbnail.

Number 2224: Gentleman Ghastly

A couple of days ago I linked you to a circus story by Ghastly Graham Ingels. Here is a story by Ingels, before he became Ghastly.

Ingels joined the EC Comics crew early on, working for Bill Gaines and Al Feldstein on the comics they produced before they set off a bomb under the industry with their horror comics line.

“The Gentleman Gunman” is an expert safecracker who earns a lot of money with his nefarious endeavors. He also shoots anyone who stands between him and escape. He chooses to spend the stolen money on the good life and with the good life come women. Uh-oh. Distraction caused by sex is a good way to get a thief caught or killed. Not that I would know, heh-heh. I never stole anything in my life (too afraid of punishment). I was distracted by girls, but I got my money for a social life the old-fashioned way: My dad, Big Pappy, put me to work in his warehouse!

No writer is listed for this story. It appeared in Crime Patrol #12 (1949):

Number 2222: Bill Everett brings murder under the big top

“The Great Felix,” drawn by Bill Everett, is a superb example of how Everett could tell a story. It also shows how good his drawing was. Some other artists might have tried to cheat to save time and need for reference by not showing as much of the circus or its atmosphere, but Everett didn’t cut corners or fake it.

Felix is described as “ugly and short” and his beautiful wife is tall, blonde and beautiful. And when an ugly guy has a beautiful wife you know which way the story is going to go. Jealousy has one solution in a horror comic: murder.

Rival publisher EC Comics used this type of story more than once. Their resident circus and carnival artist was Graham “Ghastly” Ingels. Go down the page to the link with scans of the original art for such a tale.

“The Great Felix” appeared in Atlas’ Suspense #6 (1951).

A noirish circus story of sex and adultery by Ghastly Ingels. Just click on the thumbnail.

Number 2134: “More'n one way ta skin a catamount!”

For those of you wondering, a catamount is a medium-sized wild cat, especially a cougar. But Texas Ranger Dallas Boone is also making a pun, substituting “catamount” for “cat” as in more than one way to...ah, forget it.

All I need to say about this tale of a Texas Ranger riding to the rescue of a pretty girl ranch owner is that it is drawn by Graham Ingels, before his “Ghastly” horror comics days. Before specializing in said horror comics during his time at EC Comics, he had a background illustrating various genres of comic book stories: science fiction, crime, love, and Western, such as this story from Outlaws #2 (1948).

Number 1982: Bat Masterson, a Ghastly fellow

A Google search for Bat Masterson shows photos of him as a dandy wearing a derby hat. The “Bat Masterson” shown in this biographical story from ME’s GUNS of Fact and Fiction (1948) ( #13 in ME’s A-1 series, but actually the only issue) is more the standard Westerner, big cowboy hat and all. Photos of Bat Masterson show him as a natty dresser, and that was the image in the 1950s television series starring Gene Barry.

In The Old West: The Gunfighters from Time-Life Books (1974), I read the following about the flamboyant Bat Masterson: “When he first came to [Dodge City], he sported a Southwestern sombrero with a rattlesnake-skin band, a scarlet silk neckerchief and Mexican sash, gleaming silver-plated six-shooters in silver-studded holsters and a pair of gold-mounted spurs: an observer on Front Street suggested that all this finery might give Bat an edge in a gunfight by blinding his opponent.”

He liked attention. The claim of 40 men killed by Masterson is an exaggeration by dime novel writers of the era. Bat did get involved in some gunfights. He was a sheriff of Dodge City, and his brother Ed was killed in a gunfight. He was one of those lawmen who didn’t always observe the law. He never landed in prison, though, and worked his way through the West, including Texas and Colorado, before settling in New York in 1902. After a time as a boxing promoter and writer, and an appointment by President Theodore Roosevelt, Masterson wrote a column for the New York Telegraph. He died in 1921, not in a gunfight, but of a heart attack at his desk.

Graham “Ghastly” Ingels drew “Flame of the Frontier” which is another of those stories told by an inanimate object, in this case a pair of six-guns. Ghastly later became famous for his gothic horror tales for EC Comics, but before that he spent years in the comic book badlands, doing jobs like this.

Number 1977: Ghastly: Two heads are better than none

When it came to the seedy, seamy side of life, Graham “Ghastly” Ingels could be called on by Al Feldstein, his editor at EC Comics, to provide the seediest and the seamiest. In those days traveling carnivals had that reputation. Maybe they still do. I haven’t been to one in years. Regardless, in “Heads-Up,” from Crime Suspenstories #4 (1951) the carnival is a backdrop for a tale of adultery and murder and jars full of human oddities. And why wouldn’t a wife and her lover want to kill a husband for his jars, especially when they can bring in $23.00 on a good day?

Heritage Auctions, from whence these scans of the original art came, sold the complete story in 2009 for $13,145.00...a bit better than 23 bucks.

Number 1935: Ghastly's real-life horror

Graham “Ghastly” Ingels’ gothic and moody artwork for EC Comics can still send a shiver to anyone encountering his work for the first time. But Ingels struggled with alcoholism, and it was (according to some) at EC that his drinking got worse. In an article in Filmfax Outré #5 (1996), author/interviewer Don Vaughn tells of Ingels’ drinking: “Ingels quickly became one of EC’s premiere [sic] talents, drawing the lead story in . . . Haunt of Fear, secondary stories for the two other horror title and the occasional crime tale. It was a grueling schedule, but Ingels was fast with a brush and had little trouble keeping up, says fellow EC alumni [sic] George Evans.

“It was during this period, associates recall, that Ingels’ drinking started to get out of hand. His work never suffered, but he occasionally missed deadlines, forcing EC editor Al Feldstein to give him advanced deadlines so that publishing schedules wouldn’t be affected. Sometimes, say friends, Ingels would disappear for days at a time — often with the completed artwork under his arm. Amazingly, he never once misplaced it.”

In the article Evans describes a ride home with Ingels after Ingels had imbibed several beers. “We would be tearing along at 65 miles per hour on the parkway and I would see lights a mile ahead and he would suddenly hit the brakes. Then we would be approaching traffic and he would put his foot on the gas pedal. At a given point, I would say, “Hey, Graham, you’re coming up on that pretty damned fast!” And he would say, “Not to worry, George, I’ve got everything under control.”

So Ingels drove drunk. He is lucky he and his passengers — or innocents in another car — didn’t end up looking like the cadaverous creatures he sometimes drew. As the article goes on, in later life Ingels backed off drinking so much, but by then it had ruined his marriage and his relationship with his children. Before he died in 1991 he reconciled with his daughter, but not his son. Alcoholism was the horror story Ingels lived. But there is some sort of happy ending: Ingels became a respected art teacher in Florida, and author Vaughn quoted some comments from Ingels’ students praising his teaching and artistic ability.

In a more traditional sense, Ingels’ paper nightmares, those he drew for EC Comics, are readily available in various forms, deluxe hardcover compilations to the original pre-Code comics to reprints of those comics. In the case of “Nobody There!” from Haunt of Fear #16 (1952), these are scans of the original art I am posting with grateful approbation to Heritage Auctions, who sold these eight pages for $28,680.