Number 190


Sheldon Moldoff takes us through the Doorway to Horror!


When I first encountered organized comics fandom in its early phase, 1961, there was a focus on the DC superhero comics of the early '40s, specifically All Star Comics, and Max Gaines' All-American line of DC's superheroes. Sheldon "Shelly" Moldoff, who was born in 1920, was one of the earliest of the stars of DC Comics, drawing lots of covers but best known in 1961 for the work he had done 20 years prior on Hawkman. He was revered for Hawkman. He used a lot of swipes from Alex Raymond's Flash Gordon, but to be fair, everybody swiped. At the same time he was being revered for that earlier work, he was being reviled for his then-current work, as Bob Kane's ghost on Batman. The fans who loved his stuff didn't know he was the same guy they hated. 

If you read Moldoff's version of things, he was an idea man as well as an artist. He came up with the idea for horror comics, pitching the idea to Bill Gaines, who--according to Shelly--took the idea and ran with it, leaving Moldoff drinking from his cup of bitter gall.* Oh well…you win a few, you lose a lot. Moldoff took his ideas to Fawcett, and after EC's horror comics took off, Fawcett published his horror stories.

This story, "Doorway to Horror," from Fawcett's Worlds Beyond #1, dated November, 1951, is a fairly typical story, but it's a good solid entry in the horror comics annals.

Shelly also drew the cover. Click on it to see it full size. It illustrates a story done by Bob Powell and posted in Pappy's #110.

Sheldon Moldoff was one of the cartoonists who made the Golden Age what it was. He and his peers worked hard for little money, they made their deadlines, they weren't flashy, but they were professional and dependable. In my opinion, "Doorway to Horror" is one of Shelly's better jobs. I think he enjoyed the horror work, the deep shadows, the whole noir atmosphere. It may have been in an artistic sense what would have attracted him to Batman.

*Tales Of Terror!/The EC Companion By Fred von Bernewitz and Grant Geissman, Fantagraphics Books, 2000.

Number 188

The Not-Quite-Kelly


Howie Post is one of those comic artists who worked in the business for so many years his work is everywhere. This particular strip, from DC's Animal Antics* #9, July-August 1947, was drawn when Post was only 21 years old, based on his birth year of 1926. He started in comics when he was still in his teens, not as young as Joe Kubert or Frank Frazetta, but still a prodigy, as far as I'm concerned.

In his later career Post did a daily syndicated comic strip called The Dropouts, and Harvey Comics are filled with his pages, mostly in Hot Stuff. The Little Devil and Spooky, The Tuff Little Ghost. He has a very appealing style, full of action and humor

Post's early art was inspired by Walt Kelly. According to Post he met with Kelly and comic book packager Oscar Lebeck about doing work for them. His method of inking and penciling was inspired by Kelly, but different enough that it is wholly Post. "Presto Pete" is a funny animal magician strip. I think it's quite good. I don't know if Post wrote his own material, but it's well done. Rather than being a clone of Walt Kelly, Howie Post went on to develop his own style, instantly recognizable. That is until he invented Anthro for DC Comics in 1968, where he went from funny devils, funny ghosts and funny animals to funny cavemen.

*Post mistakenly calls Animal Antics a book he packaged for Timely (Marvel), rather than DC in his TwoMorrows interview from Comic Book Artist #5. This is the danger of interviews with artists who have fallible memories stretching back five or six decades, or even more.

Number 187


The Waterboys

Here's something you don't see anymore: a monster story combined with Cold War jitters. "The Merman Menace" is from Forbidden Worlds #5, published by the American Comics Group, dated March-April, 1952. The writer is unknown, but according to the Grand Comics Database, the artist is Lin Streeter, about whom I know little. About all I could learn about Streeter is that he was active in comics from the early '40s until at least the 1950s.

You've gotta love having a monster pumped full of adrenalin and benzedrine to get him back up to speed, so he can get revenge on the Reds. It's in the story, folks. I don't make this stuff up.

It's a bonus! I'm enclosing an extra story about another famous half-fish, half-human hero. The story is from the late 1940s, and was part of the box full of comic book tear sheets I received years ago. I went through and assembled the complete stories, of which this is one. Comic title unknown, by a writer and artist unknown. (See note by reader Darci below.)

Number 186


When Rick Griffin Was In Drag

When people think of artist Rick Griffin, they think of his psychedelic dance posters, his comix work, and artwork like this, taken from the important 1972 publication, The Man From Utopia:

They might not realize the Rick Griffin they know was preceded by a Rick Griffin they don't know. I've owned this copy of Drag Cartoons #12, dated February 1965, since it was new on the stands without knowing that Rick Griffin illustrated two of the strips, for a total of five pages in the magazine. Hard to explain, but I just never noticed. I stumbled onto them while looking at an Alex Toth strip in the same issue.



Griffin started out doing cartoons for Surfing magazine. I have no idea how many issues of Drag Cartoons he appeared in. That's for the Griffin completists amongst us to tell us.

When Rick did these strips he was about 20 or 21 years old, influenced by the cartooning styles of the early 1960s, and by Mad comics, which he might have read off the newsstands as they appeared, or later encountered in the series of Mad paperbacks. Or both. In the last panel of "The Highwayman" strip he uses the word "furshluginer." A dead giveaway as to his influence.

The artwork on "The Highwayman"--writer not credited, but for the record it's by Alfred Noyes from his 1906 poem--is more detailed, using a lot of pen and ink lines. The second strip isn't as ornate, and frankly, not as good. I'm including it anyway because I just know you guys wanna see this stuff. Looking at Griffin's work during his salad days can give you a comparison of how much development he made during his career. In his case there was a huge leap of development during a very short period of time, just a couple of years.

Griffin died in 1991 in a motorcycle accident. He wasn't even 50 years old. He left a legacy of some wonderful artwork that will outlive us all. I believe that one hundred years from now the San Francisco dance posters of the 1960s will be as the Toulouse-Lautrec and Alphonse Mucha prints are to our era. The art lovers of a century hence will be celebrating an important art form, by then long gone, but idolized along with the work of the best fine artists of the era. A Rick Griffin Website is available.