Number 2289: In the Madhouse

Madhouse was publisher Robert Farrell’s attempt to get on the Mad bandwagon. He turned over the creative end to the Iger Studio, which produced the comic book. There were no artists like those found in Mad, nor a writer/editor like Harvey Kurtzman, but in its own way Madhouse has an amiable goofiness about it.

A pair of ghostly failures, needing help in haunting a house, go to expert haunter Emily Ghost. It is a takeoff of Emily Post, the famous author of books of etiquette. The image of Emily in the story is inspired by Chas Addams’s slinky Morticia,* who was an inspiration to Vampira and others.

 I found this scan of Addams’s original art online.

From Madhouse #3 (1954):

*The characters of the macabre family, created by Addams, were unnamed until the television show, The Addams Family, was created in the early sixties.

Number 305


Zoo Zoo Zsa Zsa


David Miller provided these scans from his copy of Ajax's Madhouse #1, June 1957. Thanks, Dave!


The story is a satire about Zsa Zsa Gabor, her two sisters and their mom, who were a band of Hungarian immigrants to the U.S., eager for publicity, fame and fortune. Just in case you haven't ever heard of Zsa Zsa, you can read about her here. Long before Paris Hilton was a celebrity with no discernible talent beyond standing in front of cameras, Zsa Zsa created the template by which no-talent people can be in magazines, newspapers and television. It's the trick of celebrity: she was famous for being famous. It's fitting for Paris Hilton to emulate her; they're related. One of Zsa Zsa's many marriages was to a Hilton.

The artwork in this story is by the Jerry Iger studio, and it's probably a reprint from the 1954 Madhouse series, also by Ajax. Whew. It gets tough keeping track of all of this. The references to Tooloose Latruck are to the 1952 John Huston movie bio of Toulouse-Lautrec, Moulin Rouge, starring José Ferrer, and featuring Zsa Zsa as Jane Avril.