Number 2083: Three uncanny artists

We're sliding into August with a couple of stories from Uncanny Tales #21 (1954). I don’t think there is anything new about the stories, but I like the artwork.

“When Walks the Zombie” is drawn by Bill Benulis and Jack Abel. Abel was a long-time comic book journeyman. Interesting to me from his Wikipedia entry is that he had a stroke in 1981, and rehabilitated his right hand so he could draw and ink again. That is dedication! Benulis quit drawing, according to his bio, after he left comic books in the '50s. Like artist Fred Guardineer, Benulis found the Post Office a good place for a post-comics career. That pension plan probably looked real good after years of freelancing.

“Tomb for Two” is credited to John Tartaglione, another long-time journeyman, who was an all-around guy at Marvel Comics for years. He could draw, he could ink, he could do production. As my dad, Big Pappy, once told me: “Make yourself valuable to your employer.” Tartaglione did that.

All three gentlemen are now deceased.

Number 1353: War Gods of the Deep

In the sixties I made a point to see movies with Vincent Price, especially movies based on stories by Poe. So why did I miss War Gods of the Deep, based on Poe's “City In the Sea”? I don't know. I wasn’t aware of it, or was busy doing something else, I guess. I’ve still never seen the movie, and can't comment on it. But the comic book adaptation, which came out in 1965, is well done. The artwork is credited by the Grand Comics Database to John Tartaglione, inked by Dick Giordano. There's a lot of photo reference in the panels, but at least the characters look like the actors in the movie.

Dell had a weird numbering system for comics in the Movie Classics line, and this one is considered to be #900.