3rd January 2011

Video

The Horror! The Horror!: Comic Books the Government Didn’t Want You to Read!

Anyone familiar with the history of comics should also be familiar with the Comics Code created by the comics industry in the 1950’s to regulate the content allowed in the “children’s” medium. The code was designed as a protective measure against government regulation, a radical threat which loomed over the industry at the time, and it throttled a lot of the most creative, interesting, and campy titles of the time, which fell into the genres of crime and horror. The Horror! The Horror! is a book that collects tons of these comics and provides historical context and thematic exploration.

Each section of the book is opened up with an essay, frequently on one of several important tropes in 50’s horror and crime comics, like werewolves, severed heads, crime, brainwashing, and undeath. They’re closed with tons of full-color covers, as well as excerpts and entire stories to illustrate these points. I’m really struggling to think of a concept for a book that I would be more excited about.

Here’s my favorite quote from one of the included comics: “We’d better go before someone else finds out … that I’m the seeing-eye man for a retired blind werewolf!” Can someone explain to me why this isn’t a real profession? I finally find my calling and it’s not even an actual thing.

My one gripe with this thing is that in his writings, Jim Trombetta shows himself to be quite knowledgeable on the topic, but he sometimes references comics which there simply isn’t room enough to include in the book. You can still understand his points, but when you hear about some of these comics and can’t actually see them, it’s kind of a bummer. But what’s there is fucking great; the art of Jack Davis, Steve Ditko, Bill Everett,  Bill Gaines, Graham Ingels, Howard Nostrand, Wallace Wood, and Basil Wolverton, just to name a few of the heavy hitters, is found inside, and the book also comes with a DVD of Confidential File, a 1955 television documentary, directed by Irvin Kirshner, about the evils of comic books, that features some pretty surreal ideas of how comics corrupt youth.

Some key moments for me were the following covers:

Steve Ditko’s first comic book cover ever, The Thing No. 12, featuring some hot vampiress-on-lady action:

The craziest comic book cover I’ve ever seen, one of only three ever done by the mysterious William Ekgren:

And what book on 50’s horror and crime comics would be complete without this classic eye-opener by Bernard Baily:

Sure, it’s grotesque, but it’s also one of the most important and iconic images in comics history. Way to keep it alive, Racebannon.

Tagged: 1950'sCrime Doesn't PayJim TrombettaThe Horror! The Horror!crime comicshorror comicsIrvin KirshnerConfidential Filescience fictionSteve DitkoWilliam EkgrenBernard Baily