Number 830

Jesse Marsh and the Valley of Mists

Jesse Marsh was a workhorse for the West Coast office of Dell Comics, drawing a variety of comics during his career. He's probably best known for his long stint on Tarzan, which he drew for 153 issues, not including annuals. He was a very fast artist, reputed to use penciled indications, then drawing directly on the boards with brush and pen. He also did his own lettering. As prolific as he was It doesn't look like he cut corners, though. If you study this story page by page you'll notice he did mostly full figures and full backgrounds. Alex Toth, a Marsh fan, did an article on him for Panels magazine, and you can read it here.

As a kid, I read Tarzan, both ERB novels and comic books, but didn't know the artist Jesse Marsh's name until I picked up a Whitman edition of Tarzan And The Forbidden City. It used Marsh pen-and-ink illustrations, and identified him as the artist.

"Valley of Mists" is from Tarzan #18, 1950. It's probably scripted by another Dell workhorse, writer Gaylord Dubois. The Tarzan comic book followed some of the lead of the original Edgar Rice Burroughs Tarzan novels, with lost cities and civilizations tucked away into a fantasy Africa loved by many writers of that era, not just Burroughs.

Number 829


Frightful Frankenstein Friday


Back in the early days of this blog, 2006-07, I ran a feature called Frankenstein Friday, which weekly, one by one, posted all of the stories I had from various issues of Dick Briefer's Frankenstein comic book, both the funny and horror comics versions.

Now we're back, along with several other bloggers, for one more day of Frankenstein Friday, celebrating Craig Yoe's new book, Dick Briefer's Frankenstein. Craig has combined some of the best of the best Frankenstein stories, covering the phases of his career, as chronicled by Briefer: the original, horrible-looking monstrosity, the funny Frankenstein, and the not-so-horrible, but horribly misunderstood monster.

As is true with all of Yoe's books, production work is second to none. This is the first book in a series about horror comics, a series I'm looking forward to.

Having seen the book, I give it my unqualified endorsement and enthusiastic approval. You will definitely want this book in your library. It is available at the usual booksellers as well as Amazon.com.

Dick Briefer is one of the great comic book men, whose career was most active during the 1940s. Here's a Frankenstein story by him from Prize Comics #39, 1944, where Frankenstein becomes a member of the Gestapo! (This story is not taken from Craig's book.)








You never have enough Frankenstein! Here is a photo of Craig's beautiful Dick Briefer's Frankenstein volume along with original Frankenstein comics #1 and #23 from the Pappy collection.

Karen Jambeck, wife of Dave Miller and friend of Pappy and Mrs. Pappy, is menaced by the Monster! Hope you got away, Karen, we don't want you to miss your birthday next Monday!

Sixteen fellow bloggers are also participating in Frightful Frankenstein Friday:

The Fabuleous Fifties

And Everything Else Too

Big Blog Of Kids' Comics

Blog Of Frankenstein

Sherm Cohen's Cartoon Snap

The Comic Book Bin

Comicrazys

Four-Color Shadows

Frankensteinia

The Horrors Of It All

The I.T.C.H. Blog

Magic Carpet Burn

Sekvenskonst (Sequential Art)

Sequential Crush

Steven Bissette

Random Acts of Geekery

Number 828

Wolves of Wednesday

Halloween is fast approaching. I suppose one of these first days I'll have to buy a bag of Mentholyptus cough drops, one cough drop each for the kiddies' trick or treat bags. Hey, nothing's too good for the kids in my neighborhood. All 600 of them, many of them with mustaches and tattoos. And those are the girls. Without costumes.

Anyway, speaking of the hirsute, how about a bit of werewolf action? First up, "Wanda Was A Werewolf" is from DC's House Of Mystery #1, 1952. "Wanda" is my mother's name, and, while not wishing to disparage her memory, there were times when she sprouted long pointy teeth and deadly sharp claws. I exaggerate, but "my" Wanda did sometimes let out her inner beast on me, especially when I was guilty of something (which was often). The Grand Comics Database says Win Mortimer ? (question mark means they're not sure) drew it.

Second, "Your Grave Is Ready," originally published in The Unseen #9, in 1953. This version is scanned from Eclipse Comics' Seduction Of The Innocent, #6 in a series of 6, from 1986. It's drawn by the team of Andru and Esposito.