Number 1959: Ravin' about the Raven Sisters

It is day two of our ACG Week.

The publisher was prolific with comic books based on the supernatural. Beginning with Adventures Into the Unknown, followed by Forbidden Worlds — both surviving until ACG shut down in 1967 — and then added Out of the Night and Skeleton Hand, and even The Clutching Hand, a one-shot, which were gone by the time the Comics Code was implemented.

The supernaturals usually involved a young couple facing some horrible unearthly menace, yet winning out in the end. It was a formula that worked, because they used it a lot. So it is with “The Raven Sisters” from Out of the Night #3 (1952). Most of the eight pages are backstory, telling us that 300 years ago the Raven Sisters were evil vampire witches who could become ravens (not bats). It also shows the hero, Larry, is very handy with sharpened wooden stakes, using them as javelins against the sisters. Just another day in the life of an American Comics Group supernatural, showing that despite the threatening evil, love conquers all!*

Karswell showed this story in his blog, The Horrors of it All, in 2008. The Grand Comics Database tells us that Pete Riss did the artwork, and Norman Fruman the script. Riss was a journeyman comic book artist who worked for several publishers during the forties and fifties.

*Notice the burning candle on the left side of the splash panel. If it wasn’t a deliberate joke by the artist, then it was Freudian.

Number 1535: Clutching hands and faces of fear

I think the American Comics Group did a fine job of using a small number of titles to keep the company afloat during both boom and bust years of comic books. It started as Better or Nedor, and its early history is documented elsewhere. You can read about it in this preview PDF of Alter Ego #61, with a fascinating article by Michael Vance. When ACG came up with its supernatural titles, Adventures Into the Unknown and Forbidden Worlds, they became the two books that were their mainstays, and would take them to the end of their history in 1967.

The supernaturals, as assistant editor Norman Fruman called them, sold quite well, and ACG added Skeleton Hand, which didn’t make the crossover to a Comics Code-approved book (probably because of its title), Out of the Night, and a one-shot issue of The Clutching Hand, which isn’t identified as ACG on its cover. That’s likely because ACG was trying out stories that didn’t have the boy-girl happy endings that a lot of their “horror” stories did. Fruman is listed as editor of The Clutching Hand. According to one bio I read of Fruman, he wrote about 700 scripts for Better/Nedor/ACG.

Here are examples of the two styles, one with the happy ending, and one more typical of the horror comics from other publishers.

From Forbidden Worlds #17 (1953), drawn by Al Camy:

From The Clutching Hand (1954), drawn by Kenneth Landau:

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More Ken Landau, including a pre-Code story from Out of the Night, and a story for the very last issue of Forbidden Worlds in 1967. Just click the thumbnail.