Category Archives: Comic Book Creeps

Horror Hosts in Putrid Print

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Spotlight on: Forelock the Warlock & Mr. Karswell from Haunted HorrorComic Book Creeps

by Ryan B

For those of you who have not been haunting your local comic book crypt for, like, the last six months and therefore are not in the know about the gloriously gruesome new horror comic title, Haunted Horror, that is currently available, allow your old pal, Ryan B, to clue you in on just what you’re missing out on, and tell you all about the two grooviest new comic book horror hosts to hit the scene.

Haunted Horror #1

Haunted Horror #1

From the depraved minds of Craig Yoe – publisher of the Ghastly Award winning horror comic archive book, Zombies – and Steve Banes – horror comic blogger, and front man for the Missouri based rock band, Sons of Black Mass – comes the bi-monthly horror comic, Haunted Horror, which lovingly reprints stories from such forgotten golden age titles as Weird Chills, Adventures into Darkness, Chamber of Chills, and Worlds of Fear.

“So what?” You may be asking. “Why should I care about musty old horror stories from books I’ve never even heard of?”

You’ve got a lot of attitude, ya know that?

Well, what makes Haunted Horror so great is that all the stories it reprints are from pre-code horror comics. That’s right, before Dr. Wertham came along and ruined everything, these stories were what all the best juvenile delinquents on the block were reading and now you can read them too!

But what’s a story without a storyteller? Ah ha, that’s where Haunted Horror gets original.

Forelock the Warlock

Forelock the Warlock and Mr. Karswell are the masters of scaremonies in this book. Two brand new creepy characters created specifically for Haunted Horror, and in what I’m sure can only be an amazing coincidence they happen to look just like editors Yoe and Banes themselves. *cough, cough, wink, wink*

Speaking of Steve Banes, I recently got a chance to throw some questions his way via Facebook and here’s what he threw back:

RB: How did you and Mr. Yoe meet and decide to collaborate on Haunted Horror?

SB: We met through my blogs, primarily THE HORRORS OF IT ALL, I had been assisting with promotion of his books along with a handful of other great bloggers like Pappy and Mykal Banta… when he went into development of the Bob Powell Terrors collection I actually began donating stories, which led to Craig making me co-editor of the Chilling Horror ZOMBIES book and HAUNTED HORRORS series, with lots more horror projects on the way.

RB: How do you select the stories that appear in Haunted Horror?

SB: We have a huge pile of scans from my collection, Craig’s, and a handful of other contributors… we just try to keep each issue on the varied side with contrasting story plots and an interesting range of art styles, although issue #5 coming later this summer has a fun “sports horror” theme running through half the stories.

RB: What horror comics did you read growing up and were you inspired by them?

SB: My introduction to horror comics was the cool 70′s stuff that Marvel published featuring mostly reprints of their pre-code horror Atlas stories. I was more drawn to the style of the 50′s stuff illustrated by guys like Bill Everett and Joe Maneely… this forever sealed my obsession with Golden Age horror comics. And though I had been reading MAD ever since I was in 2nd grade, I didn’t discover the EC horror stuff until later.

RB: Who is your favorite comic book horror host?

SB: Mr. Karswell of course! haha

Mr. Karswell

Mr. Karswell

RB: Could you tell me a little about Mr. Karswell’s artist, Art Fuentes, and also how you guys got the legendary Angelo Torres to draw Forelock?

SB: I met Art Fuentes at San Diego Comic Con last summer (2012), he was a friend of Craig’s and already helping out with various artistic elements for the Yoe Books on titles and other stuff. He’s a great guy and incredible freelance artist with a huge range of styles. I know he worked at Spumco for a while– he makes these totally rad paper toys you have to see to believe: http://www.uncleghastly.blogspot.com
Craig knows everyone in the comic/entertainment industry, though I believe Angelo Torres‘ involvement with Haunted Horror first came up last year at SDCC too. His illustration of Forelock is mind blowing.

 

There ya have it, folks. Straight from the horrors mouth, as it were.

Now I encourage each and every one of you creeps reading this to drag yourself out of your coffin every other month and pick up this awesome book. Let Forelock the Warlock and Mr. Karswell be the friends you know you don’t have and never really wanted. They‘ll introduce you to all the best horror that the golden age had to offer. And remember, there’s no sghoul like the old sghoul!

Horror Hosts in Putrid Print

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SPOTLIGHT ON DRUSILLA, The Lost GhouLunatic         by Dyin‘ Ryan B.

Comic Book Creeps with Ryan B
Ah, yes–Drusilla.

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“Dru-who-lla?”, you may be asking.

Drusilla: the pale and mysterious fourth EC horror host that Time–and even some of the fans–forgot.

In my last article, I talked about how The Vault-Keeper and The Old Witch kind of got the-short-end-of-the-publicity-stick compared to the much more popular Crypt-Keeper. As far as the hosts of the EC comics’ horror magazines went I pretty much said they were the Ringo and Tito of the group. If they got the short end of the stick, however, than poor Drusilla didn’t even get the stick at all.

She was stickless.

Even the most hardcore genre and horror comic fans, that are more than familiar with all three GhouLunatics, might not have any idea who Drusilla is.

It’s pretty simple. In issue #37 of The Vault of Horror (the fourth to last issue of the series, by the way) The Vault-Keeper was suddenly joined by a mysterious “companion“.

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For the three issues that followed Drusilla was always there at V.K.’s side during the opening introduction. She was always silent, always staring. Is she a witch? Is she a vampire? Is she just an ordinary human who happens to be mute and have a fetish for creeps?

Who knows?

EC comics went under after Vault of Horror #40, so there’s no telling what was in store for her character. All that is known is that she was designed and created by artist Johnny Craig who was the artist most responsible for The Vault-Keeper’s signature look. Clearly, when designing her, Craig must have drawn inspiration from Vampira, who was herself a pale, raven-haired hostess who was very popular around the time of Drusilla’s creation.

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Separated at Death? A suicide-by-side comparison of Maila Nurmi and Drucilla.


Nowadays it’s not uncommon on sites such as Facebook and Tumblr to see collages people have made combining images of Vampira, Elvira, Morticia Addams, and Lily Munster. I would propose that Drusilla should also be remembered and included in the same group as those other beautiful, Gothic women.

Apparently I’m not the only one.

As of this articles publication, the website www.graphittidesigns.com is selling an awesome Drusilla t-shirt along with several other GhouLunatic products.

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There is a little hope that Dru may not be completely forgotten, not by everybody. And now you, faithful reader, know about her as well. So, go spread the gospel of Drussila! Tell anyone who will listen all about her and her brief, but memorable appearances in the world of EC Comics. She is an important part of our comic book heritage and she needs to be preserved.

And I’m not talking about formaldehyde.

Horror Hosts in Putrid Print

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SPOTLIGHT ON THE VAULT-KEEPER & THE OLD WITCH          By Ryan B.
Comic Book Creeps with Ryan B
In almost every group, team, gang, or ensemble, there will always be that one individual who is more popular or stands out from the rest. For one reason or another they get the limelight, while the others are doomed to obscurity. People love Alvin, but forget about “The Chipmunks”. Josie gets the glory, while the others are just simply “The Pussycats”, and if you only know one member of The Rat Pack it’s probably Frank Sinatra, not those other guys.
DoorYou can count The Vault-Keeper and The Old Witch as being a part of this second banana category as well. While The Crypt-Keeper got selected by the fickle finger of fate to go on from the old EC comic books to become a huge television and movie personality, not to mention a marketable horror icon, his two fellow GhouLunatics got left in the dark.
So allow me to shed a little fright on those guys. Continue reading →

Ryan B reads Elvira’s Christmas Carol

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By Ryan B
Ryan B is wishing all of you a Merry Scary Christmas over at his Blog Comic Book Crud with this special story that he picked out just for you!
Keep an eye out of it socket for a horrifyingly entertaining article about your ol’ EC pals, The Vault-Keeper & The Old Witch in a future  instalment of Ryan B’s Comice Book Creeps right here on Horror Hosts and Creature Features!
“Yay! Christmas day has finally come and Santa brought me everything I asked for… after a little persuasion. Once I let him go and he flew out of sight, he shouted, “Merry Christmas to all!” and then took off in fright.

So since I’m in such a holly jolly mood today I decided to give you all a Christmas treat.
A story featuring many of your favorite horror hosts including Cain, Abel, Destiny, and Elvira! There’s even a special (sort of) appearance by Zacherly.

So here ya go, from Elvira’s House of Mystery Christmas Special, it’s a horrific twist on a classic Dickensian tale.”

Horror Heroes In Putrid Print: Vampirella

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SPOTLIGHT ON VAMPIRELLA                                                                        By Ryan B
“In the world of horror comics there are two separate yet equally important groups of main characters. These are their stories.”

I didn’t mean to come across like a episode of LAW & ORDER but whadda-ya-gonna-do?
Anyway, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the two different types are as follows:


Exhibit 1. THE HORROR HOST – In anthology titles we have characters such as THE CRYPT KEEPER, THE VAULT KEEPER, and THE OLD WITCH from E.C. publications or UNCLE CREEPY and COUSIN EERIE from Warren Publishing. There is a guy or ghoul whose sole purpose is to present the reader with a chilling tale or two, but stay mostly behind the scenes of things themselves.


Exhibit 2. THE HORROR HERO – This other type has become more popular in recent decades. Characters like SPAWN, HELLBOY, and THE GOON that do not present the story, but participate in it themselves, getting mixed up in murder plots, zombie apocalypses, and taking on villains more traditionally found in late night Creature Features. They are usually monsters themselves as well.
Continue reading →

Horror Hosts in Putrid Print

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SPOTLIGHT ON THE CRYPT-KEEPER                                                         By Ryan B.

“Hey, you! Young’un! Do you know who The Crypt-Keeper is?”
“You mean that guy from the old TV show?”
“…Sit down.”

Long ago, in a wondrous time known as the 1950’s, when the world had a certain glow about it (thanks largely to atomic energy), people swooned while Perry Como crooned, tuned in every week to watch the wacky hijacks that June Cleaver’s Beaver got into, and nine out of ten doctors recommended smoking. Amidst this climate, a well established comic book company called EC decided to reinvent itself. The EC in EC Comics started out standing for “Educational Comics” and printed bible stories, animal fables, and stories from history. That was under its founder, Max Gaines. After his death, his son Bill took over the company and changed the name to “Entertaining Comics” which, no doubt, saved on having to buy new company stationary. After testing the waters with new things like teen and romance comic books, Bill realized that what he had really liked to read himself as a child was horror, crime, and science fiction stories. His editor, Al Feldstein, felt the same way and  soon EC was in the suspense business. Stories of murderers, monsters, and men from Mars became the new trend in comic books and EC led the way with its three top sellers, The Vault of Horror, The Haunt of Fear, and The Crypt of Terror, later retitled Tales from the Crypt.

Continue reading →