The seventies saw not just a boom in the horror genre in both colour and the black and white magazines field but also the creation of a new, albeit short lived competitor in the marketplace.
Atlas/Seaboard.
This company launched with much fanfare and attracting a lot of talent from the comics world was around for barely a year or so before it collapsed, but Atlas did produce a few good comics including this one, Weird Tales of the Macabre aimed at the older reader in a black & white format.
The stories which were unrestrained by the oppressive and thankfully now departed Comic Code Authority because it was a magazine rather than a comic with the type of fare found in Warren Comics who dominated the "adult" market.
There are six tales in this issue, all of which were of a goof standard in story and art, even if a couple were far from original.
The Bog Beast is the story of a "muck monster" who rises from a tar pit to make contact and learn about the human race on behalf of the "Elders" of whom we learn nothing else as this was to be on-going story and this issue was to be the last. Needless to say man reacts the way you would expect, and is reminiscent of Man-Thing and Swamp-Thing from the big two, Marvel & DC.
Dr Mercurio's Diary is up next with a tale of vampiric rats will make you squeal.....
Pat Boyette of Charlton Comics fame produces a bizarre tale of Gods and scientists fighting demons with a twist of the sort you might just expect, Carrion of Gods.
However the best is saved for last with Who Toys with Terror about a boy, his Aurora Monster kits and an evil uncle. And then there is The Staff of Death with a moral that if you "witch-hunt", make sure that your victim isn't a real witch!
Just two issues in this short lived series. Hopefully I'll be able to pick up the first issue one of these day.
No comments:
Post a Comment