Sunday, October 30, 2011

Happy Halloween

It's Halloween Day...time to let all the ghosts, goblins, spooks, specters, devils, and witches loose.

Over time I've collected thousands of pictures from various places on the Internet or scanned out of books. Here are some of the things that I file under "Halloween" in my computer files.

Are you afraid of clowns? Me too.

Are you afraid of ventriloquist's dummies? Me too.



Need I ask? I'm also scared of the headless man in the woods.


And while we're on the subject of headless, here's a photo I took off my television screen last year of a startling scene from CSI.


William Gaines, who later went on to fame and wealth by publishing Mad magazine, was once a publisher of horror comic books. In front of a Senate Investigating Committee he commented his horror comics were within the realm of good taste. A senator held up this comic and asked if Gaines considered it to be in good taste. He said yes, because he could have shown the blood dripping from the neck.


In the 1990s the artist of that notorious 1954 cover, Johnny Craig, drew himself drawing it.


Pursued by spirits!



The ghost's secret...


The smiling ghost I bring out this time of year for decoration, holding his Jack O'Lantern.


More Jack O'Lanterns...







The dead.

Legends Of Terror was published in 1826.

A scene of death from Life magazine...


The macabre...








The costumed...




The French surrealist painter, who disguised herself...

Eye see you!

The self-mutilators, for whom every day is Halloween...



The gross...cartoonist S. Gross, that is!


That devil woman who sizzles...


...that ol' devil face that fizzles!


Those bewitching witches, like the Booby Witch...


...witches on brooms or with their black cats...



...witches who dance in the moonlight...



...or witches with the evil eye...



Happy Halloween to all of you.



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Halloween horror comics

Horror comics were really popular in the 1950s. But the frightening images caused controversy with parents' groups and censorship ensued. The whole horror comics boom in American comics lasted just a short time, four or five years.

The book, Four Color Fear, Forgotten Horror Comics Of the 1950s, has a couple dozen great examples.


I found a few online to illustrate this posting. These stories are not from the book.

There's something very Halloweenish about these stories: ghosts swirling up out of their graves in search of vengeance, evil spirits awaiting a murderer to transport him to Hell, or a woman who becomes a witch to seek revenge on the man who jilted her.

We begin with a one-page story on Halloween superstitions...


A great place to find horror comics is The Horrors Of It All blog. At THOIA, as it's known, it's Halloween all year long.


















"Halloween," Witches Tales #18;

"The Dark Passage," Adventures Into Terror #10;

"The Dead Don't Sleep," Adventures Into Terror #30;

"Death By Witchcraft," Witches Tales #4.




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