Oh, The Horror!

Friday Comic Book Day.

I am selling my Timely books on Ebay at a slow and steady pace. At the moment I have the first of a few lots up with my Marvel Tales issues from the fifties, Timely's golden age of horror. Among them is a very poor book, without a cover even. So I am showing it here in full, not from my own scans, but an online copy, with the cover.

I particulary like the odd styles that were allowed in these books. Among comic book historians there was the idea that EC was the only company that allowed their artists to use their own style, but in fact it was mostle DC who had a strict visual editorial policy. Stan Lee got his art everywhere and he liked it (or didn't care) if every story looked different. He also allowed artists to sign their work, although he apparently didn't mind if they did not want to.

Followers of this blog know I am a huge fan of the mid fifties work of Gorge Tuska. This story shows all his strengths. In fact, both the theme and it's handeling suggest that this could be a Stan Lee story, who like working with Tuska. But teher are no other hints supporting this. Stan Lee wrote in batches and there are no other Lee stories surrounding this job number.

Martin (or Marty) Rosenthall was a comci book artist with a very small output. Among fans he is best known for working alongside Ross Andru and Mike Esposito on their selfpublished titles under the MikeRoss imprint, mostly inking Ross Andu and signing as Thall. In an interview in Alter Ego a couple of years ago, he told the interviewer he had even invested in their company with money he had gotten from his mother.

Chuck Winter's style is just plain weird. He was not suited to very much except horror comics and even then only in limited doses. He was a graduate from the Iger shop, where drawing abillity does not have been the primary requisite. Steven Thompson mentions that he was a jazz age advertising artist and he may have gotten back to that. There are no credits for his work after the fifties and also no mention if he is still with us or not. probably not, because it seems he was an older artist by the time this story was made.

Tony DiPreta deserves a book of his onw, so varied and long lasting was his career. He is now mostly remembered for his run on joe Plaooke from the ealry sixties onward. But before that he did all sorts of stuff, including a long run as a regular on Gleason's crime comics of the forties. But the work he did for Stan Lee and the atmospheric style he adopted for this, is the most inspired of his career to me. And at least it looks most like a personal style.