Number 1917: Crime Machine

In 1971 Skywald Publications (a company founded by Sol Brodsky and Israel Waldman) published two issues of Crime Machine, which was a blackline reprint magazine of 1950’s crime comics, mostly from Avon.

Someone thought it was a good idea to introduce a host, Matt Grover, a “crime fighter and researcher into crimes and criminals of the past.” It required some paste-ups of Matt’s head in the splash panels of the stories. Perhaps the editor thought it would bring a touch of the present to stories of the past. Waldman, who had published the I.W. reprints line of comics sold through grocery and chain stores, had made his reputation with comics fans by reprinting old comic books, and when he co-launched Skywald he apparently had this sort of material lying around the office.

“Marion Gilmore” is drawn by Joe Kubert, and is a standard crime story of the era made special by Kubert’s dynamic artwork. Love that symbolic splash panel. (You got more of Joe’s artwork in the Pappy Tenth Anniversary Sunday post on July 3.) Marion’s story was originally published in Avon’s Parole Breakers #2 (1952). Did Gilmore really exist? Is this another example of a so-called true crime story? Did a girl luring men with an offer of sex, then having them mugged by her accomplices, move up to become crime queen of the San Francisco waterfronts? I don’t know. I don’t even care. Joe’s artwork is enough for me .

Number 1875: Heaping it on

In 2013 I showed an origin of the character, the Heap, by Tom Sutton and Robert Kanigher, from Skywald’s one-shot issue of The Heap (1971). You can see it by clicking the link below this story. The origin I am showing today is the one told a few months earlier, in issue #2 of Skywald’s black-and-white publication, Psycho.

If you hang around this blog long enough you will catch up on all of these crazy stories. Read this origin, then follow up with the second origin, and then picture Pappy in 1971 with a puzzled expression on his face.

More Heap origins! This one from the one-shot color comic, The Heap, from Skywald, the other is the original Heap from Air Fighters Comics #3 (1942); Just click on the thumbnails.

Number 1441: “You in a Heap of trouble, boy!”

 In 1971 I bought Skywald’s black and white Psycho #2, which had the origin of the Heap, drawn by Ross Andru and Mike Esposito, and written by Chuck McNaughton.

Surprisingly, a few months later along came a Comics Code-approved 25¢ color comic called The Heap #1,with the lead story drawn by Tom Sutton and Jack Abel, and written by former DC editor and writer Robert Kanigher! Both stories showed how the Heap was created from a plane wreck into some chemicals, but the stories surrounding the origin were different. The color Heap was the only issue, although its indicia claimed it to be a bi-monthly. Artistically, the character is drawn a bit differently: this version of the Heap, unlike the black and white version, does not have the long lolling tongue hanging out of the creature’s mouth. That might have been too gross for the Code, or maybe just the artist.

Knowledgeable fans know that the Heap was also a shambling monstrosity from the old Airboy Comics, and also a classic Mad comic book story by the one-and-only Will Elder. I'm sorry I can't show you the whole hilarious story featuring the Heap, “Outer Sanctum” from Mad #5, but here’s the Kurtzman-Elder version of...HEAP!

Number 876


The Man Who Stole Eternity


From Skywald's 1971 Psycho #3, a gem of a story by Golden Age great, Bill Everett. Everett, who had worked primarily for Timely/Marvel/Atlas, had left the comic book field for a time in the mid '50s, coming back to Marvel with Daredevil #1 in 1964.

This story, "The Man Who Stole Eternity," looks like he put some time into it; it's full of swirls and flourishes, tremendous atmosphere, weird creatures and a sexy girl, the sorts of things he did so well in horror comics work for Atlas in the early 1950s. Gardner Fox, another old-timer, wrote it. Fox, who wrote for nearly everybody in the comic book industry at one time or another, was facile with whatever genre he scripted. Superheroes, science fiction, western, horror...he did it all.

Everett, sadly, died at the young age of 55 in 1973; Fox died at age 75 in 1986. They were both there at the beginnings of the industry, very important in the history of the comics.