Number 1454: Louie, Louie

Halloween will be upon us in a couple of weeks, and in an attempt to get in the spirit of the occasion I have two stories from Ace Comics’ Web of Mystery, both by Lou Cameron.

By way of explanation, Weird Romance #1 was a one-shot with public domain reprints, published by Eclipse Comics in 1988. Weird Romance had two stories by Lou Cameron from Ace Comics’ Web of Mystery, both from 1954. “One Door From Disaster” from WOM #27, and “Lair of the Silken Doom” from #25.

I’m showing “One Door” in blackline from Weird Romance because I don’t have it in its original color form. In the Eclipse reprint letterer Kurt Hathaway replaced the Leroy lettering of the first printing with hand lettering. “Lair of the Silken Worm” I’m able to show from its four color printing.

Another giant spider attack! I found this cover online, and don’t have a date for it, but I’ll bet whenever it was published it kept many a youngster awake and shivering at night after the lights went out.

Number 1311: Two Aces

Ace Horror is a blog in English which comes from Germany. It spotlights pre-Code horror comics from Ace. Ace is the comic book company from publisher A. A. Wyn who simultaneously published the fantastic and collectible Ace paperback books (including Ace Doubles, a special love of mine). Ace's comic books have grown on me over the years as I've seen more of them. The Ace Horror website is an invaluable resource for anyone studying Ace comics, or just interested in 1950s horror comics.

I’ve shown both of these stories before, and the Ace Horror website links to both of my original postings. If you check them out you can see the differences in my scans, then and now.

Both are from Web of Mystery #13 (1952). First up, a werewolf tale illustrated by Lou Cameron, from a time in his career when he was still finding his way artistically, and before he began signing his work. Next, Lin Streeter drew one of my favorite Ace horror tales, “Syr-Darya’s Death Song,” which is well illustrated, and contains one of my favorite single comic book panels. You can see it at the top of this page. As someone pointed out to me years ago when I created a privately printed postcard of the panel, "It's kinky without being real kinky, y'know? There’s a chick whipping a guy, calling him 'Dog' but they both have all their clothes on.” Ohhhh-kay. Sounds about right to me.

Number 989


Statues and tombs


Lou Cameron is one of the better artists of the early '50s horror comics. His work popped up with regularity, even if he didn't seem to be exclusive with any one publisher. Cameron usually signed his name to his work, when many other artists didn't.

A few years later Lou traded his drawing board for a typewriter. He went into writing paperback novels, which was a very good career move.

A couple of years ago via e-mail I was in touch with Lou's son-in-law, who reported Cameron was quite elderly, but still living. Let's hope that's still true.

"The Night the Statues Walked" is from Ace Comics' Web Of Mystery #19, 1953, and "Within the Tomb of Terror," is from Chilling Tales of Horror, a black-and-white reprint magazine from 1970. Under its original title, "The Tomb of Terror," it was published in ACG's Forbidden Worlds #5, 1951. I featured it five years ago in Pappy's #47. The scans are pretty bad, but if you've got to see it you can click on the link.

Number 665


Twice told tale


Yesterday's posting was of a Sheldon Mayer science fiction story told both through Mayer's original art and the printed story. Today we also have something with two versions.

It looks like plagiarism. Someone at Eerie Publications, producers of some of the schlockiest black and white horror comics of the late '60s though the '70s, came up with the idea of just re-drawing old horror comics stories. After all, it'd save them from having to pay someone* to write a story, and who'd know, really? Well, the Eerie Publications folks probably didn't figure on the obsessive-compulsive comic book types who love this sort of trivia. Obsessive-compulsive types like Pappy, for instance.

The black and white version, "It Cried For Blood" is done by a Spanish artist whose signature looks like Torre Radiso. Let me know if I'm wrong (as I'm sure someone will). It comes from the April 1979 issue of Weird Vampire Tales Volume 3 Number 1,** and is a near word-for-word knockoff of "Name From the Nether World" from the early 1950s Ace comic, Web of Mystery #17.

You can read "Name From the Nether World" at Karswell's The Horrors Of It All blog.

*I'm assuming here. They could have paid. I just don't know. They re-drew several old stories, many from Harvey's horror comics line.

**It could also have showed up in other publications from this company. They continually recycled stories amongst their magazines.