A Sense of Doubt blog post #3272 - Hey Mom Reprint of #576 - How Eerie Changed Comics

A Sense of Doubt blog post #3272 - Hey Mom Reprint of #576 - How Eerie Changed Comics

On a Groundhog Day seven years ago, I published the post below on how the Eerie magazine (and also its sister Creepy) changed comics, especially in a mid-Sixties horror revival after the calumnious purge of horror and crime comics in the 1950s during the Satanic Panic of the McCarthy era.

This time period is smartly examine in the book The Ten Cent Plague, which I have written about here:

Wednesday, March 8, 2017

Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #610 - REPRINT - Ten Cent Plague Review

Eerie (and later Creepy) as well as other related publications from Warren, like Vampirella, were able to circumvent the Comic Code Authority, very much still in force in the mid-Sixties, by classifying themselves as magazines, much as Mad had done in re-branding itself as Mad Magazine.

In 1966, Eerie magazine was invented by Archie Goodwin, with whom I would work nearly 20 years later during my college internship at Marvel. If only I had the Internet back then. I would have had a much better sense of the great man with whom I worked.

Though Goodwin quit Eerie a year later, he rejoined the company to write and direct Vampirella.

As magazines were unbound by the Comic Code Authority, publications like Eerie (and soon a host of imitators) could revive the audience hungry for horror comics that had their favored genre yanked away in the demise of EC Comics and the creation of the code some ten years before.

If not for magazines like Eerie, the change in the Comic Code Authority in the early 1970s and its eventual removal entirely would not have been possible.

Likewise, as explained below, the great horror/monster works by Marvel and DC in the Seventies -- House of Secrets, Ghosts, House of Mystery, Witching Hour, Tomb of Dracula, Tower of Shadows and Man-Thing -- would not have been possible.

I added a more extensive cover gallery, featuring many more of the covers from Eerie up to its switch to superheroes, oddly, in the 1970s.

Here's links, covers, and the reprint below.

Thanks for tuning in.


ALL EERIE COVERS

https://www.coverbrowser.com/covers/eerie

Many covers here:
http://www.i-mockery.com/minimocks/eerie-magazine-covers/

and

http://www.i-mockery.com/minimocks/eerie-magazine-covers-part2/


All kinds of "creepy" covers:

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/485262928577900134/

and

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/426012445981050910/


ORIGINAL = Thursday, February 2, 2017

Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #576 - How Eerie Changed Comics

My first Eerie comic
and possibly my first horror comic ever
Nov. 1972

Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #576 - How Eerie Changed Comics

Hi Mom,

I have been thinking a lot about fear.

In part because the current "president" is engaging in fear-mongering and practicing unwise isolationism. The current sway of the administration reminds me of Hitler's rise to power in Nazi Germany.

So, it's fitting that I was reading Kieron Gillen's Uber comic last night, just days after posting Gillen's playlist for 2016. The comic is about what would have happened if the Germans had invented "the bomb" first, but here, the "bomb" is an enhanced human with powers to lay waste to humanity much like the atomic bomb.

I am afraid for our country. I am afraid to have a man I feel is a dangerous lunatic and an idiot in control of the greatest nuclear arsenal in the world. And I probably just put myself on the watch list if I was not there already with those comments. I don't care.

All of this may be an odd way to connect to writing about horror comics and the very "first" such comic of Eerie in particular, which was originally an Avon publication in 1947, and which later gave rise to EC Comics, and beyond that to the Warren magazines, one of which took the title Eerie (and so most of the art and materials here relate to the Warren magazine).

Also, maybe it's appropriate that the article I am sharing from the SF channel's web page is about how Eerie changed comics, and Eerie tells stories about fear, and fear is changing our nation right now, and not for the better.

Maybe this is a good time to stare into "the horror" and see what stares back.

Or as Emily Dickinson "The horror welcomes her again..."

But I will save the full poem for another time.

Eerie Magazine - Wikipedia

Eerie Magazine at Comic Vine

OMG!!! There's a Warren Magazine ARCHIVE!!!!!!!!!!! This is so awesome. I did not know this existed. I love this. It's my new favorite thing. Finding the archive just made the investigation I do, sometimes, when I re-post all worth it.

A place to buy such classics: http://www.creepyclassics.com/category.sc?categoryId=59

This is a cool site.

http://www.retrospace.org/2010/10/cover-gallery-2-creepy-and-eerie.html

SOME COVER GALLERIES

https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2016/10/31-creepy-scary-unsettling-horror-comic-covers.html

http://www.i-mockery.com/minimocks/eerie-magazine-covers/

http://horrorillustrated.blogspot.com/2013/04/eerie-covers-warren-mags.html

http://boingboing.net/2014/09/11/a-collection-of-gory-and-ghast.html


TEXT BELOW FROM - http://www.blastr.com/2017-1-29/eerie-70-year-anniversary-horror-comics

Here's how Eerie #1 ushered in the age of horror comics 70 years ago

Sun, Jan 29, 2017 12:00pm

With horror and supernatural comics crowding the shelves in most comic book emporiums these days, it's almost hard to imagine a time when they weren't omnipresent.  But prior to 1947, Golden Age funny books were mostly packed with heroic tales of costumed crimefighters like Batman, Superman, Aquaman and Captain Marvel or the cartoon antics of Walt Disney's Donald Duck, Goofy and Mickey Mouse.

This all changed in one January jolt 70 years ago with the release of Eerie #1, the world's first true fright title injected with original content. Published by Avon Publications, this unsettling anthology was the spark that ignited the bonfire of interest in horror comics that continued throughout the mid-1950s. At 52 pages long, it contained six separate stories delivering a tempered range of sensational supernatural shocks.

Eerie #1 is often recognized as the first out-and-out horror comic book and its then-frightening full-color cover depicted a crimson-eyed demon clutching a dagger and creeping toward a scantily-clad woman whose hands were tied, kneeling inside a crumbling mansion. Inside, the terrifying tales celebrated the nefarious actions of ghosts, vampires and zombies.  

The roster of scary stories were: "Dead Man's Tale," "Proof," "Mystery of Murder Manor," "The Man-Eating Lizard," "The Strange Case of Henpecked Harry," a "Goofy Ghost" strip and "The Eyes of the Tiger." Most of the creator names have been lost to history but the nine-page gem, "The Man-Eating Lizard," showcased the works of writer Edward Bellin and art by rising stars George Roussos, Fred Kida and Joe Kubert.

This historic issue sold out by the end of January and was not seen again until Avon resurrected the title in 1951 for a 17-issue run, finishing in 1954.

In 1954, Congressional hearings on comic books and their alleged links to juevenile violence and corruption put a swift halt to lurid pre-code horror titles spawned mainly by William Gaines' EC Comics like Tales From The Crypt, The Vault of Horror and The Haunt of Fear. One fact that often gets misinterpreted is that the Comics Code Authority was a self-imposed solution, initiated by the titans of the industry to appease the backlash and was not demanded of them by the government. Still, this heavy censorship and negative public sentiment had already nuked the horror comics biz as wholesomeness and sterility reigned throughout post-war America.

It wasn't until the Comics Code was revised by the industry in 1970 that the horror comic enjoyed its second renaissance, seeing both Marvel and DC leaping boldly into the marketplace with memorable titles like House of Secrets, Ghosts, House of Mystery, Witching Hour, Tomb of Dracula, Tower of Shadows and Man-Thing, all featuring some of the finest linework ever seen from legendary names like Bernie Wrightson and Neal Adams.  

This resurgence of interest led to the mounting swarm of black-and-white horror comic magazines in the '70s that fell vaguely outside the code, including Warren's Vampirella, Eerie and Creepy and Skywald's Nightmare, Scream and Psycho.

Today's huge horror marketplace is rich and diversified, pumping out hundreds of titles celebrating the mania of mutant monsters, vengeful ghosts, shambling zombies and the psychological phantoms of the human mind.

So it all started with a tiny little horror comic with the title of Eerie, an oft-forgotten book that hit the shelves 70 ago this month. Light a birthday candle and check out some of the interior pages in the gallery below and let us know your favorite classic horror titles.

COVER GALLERY - EERIE AND CREEPY

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Reflect and connect.
Have someone give you a kiss, and tell you that I love you.
I miss you so very much, Mom.
Talk to you tomorrow, Mom.
- Days ago = 578 days ago
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1702.02 - 10:10
NOTE on time: When I post late, I had been posting at 7:10 a.m. because Google is on Pacific Time, and so this is really 10:10 EDT. However, it still shows up on the blog in Pacific time. So, I am going to start posting at 10:10 a.m. Pacific time, intending this to be 10:10 Eastern time. I know this only matters to me, and to you, Mom. But I am not going back and changing all the 7:10 a.m. times. But I will run this note for a while. Mom, you know that I am posting at 10:10 a.m. often because this is the time of your death.

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NEW COVER GALLERY - REVERSE ORDER

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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2402.02 - 10:10

- Days ago = 3136 days ago

- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.