True Love Comics Tales: Tomb of Terror

Wednesday, October 30, 2019

Halloween HeartBreak TOMB OF TERROR "Rift of the Maggis" / HORROR TALES "Gift of Horror"

We've presented the classic O Henry story a couple of times...

...but this version from Harvey's Tomb of Terror #11 (1953) ain't the heartwarming Christmastime tale!

Written and illustrated by the highly-underrated Howard Nostrand, it has a kool EC Comics vibe thanks to artist Howard's stylistic similarity to Jack Davis!

Due to the restrictions of the Comics Code, the story couldn't be reprinted without partially-rewriting and totally-redrawing it!

So, Eerie Publications handed it to artist Oscar Fraga with the script reused...verbatim in Horror Tales V7N1 (1975)!

Note: b/w magazines weren't covered by the Comics Code, so Oscar could have gone even gorier...

Happy Halloween!

Wednesday, October 10, 2018

TOMB OF TERROR "What D'You Know, Joe?" / WEIRD "Gruesome Shock"

Here's a tale that's so NOT nice...

...that it was told twice, by two different publishers...using the same script!

The first version, illustrated by Jack Sparling, is from Harvey's Tomb of Terror #13 (1954).
Because it was considered too gruesome (even with heavy editing) to be reprinted, it was never printed in Comics Code-approved color comics.
But, the script, by an unknown writer, was re-used verbatim in a re-drawn version for Eerie Publications' b/w magazine Weird V9N1 (1969) with Cirilo Munoz providing the expanded (6 pages compared to 5 in the original) story's art!