Peter Normanton – Mammoth Best Horror Comics

Peter Normanton (ed.) – The Mammoth Book of Best Horror Comics (Robinson, 2008)

That line-up in full!

Peter Normanton – Foreword

1. The Dark Age Of Comics: 1940’s – 1950’s

Famous Tales Of Terror (Yellowjacket #1, Sept. 1944)
Hitler’s Head (Weird Terror #1, Sept. 1952)
No Rest For The Dead (Journey Into Fear #12, March 1953)
He (Black Cat Mystery, Aug. 1952)
The Secret Files Of Dr. Drew (Rangers Comics #49, Oct. 1949)
The Corpse That Wouldn’t Die! (Web Of Evil #2, Jan. 1952)
Bride Of Death (Adventures Into Darkness #7, May 1952)
Dungeon Of Doom (Chamber Of Chills #6, March 1952)
Terror Of The Stolen Legs (Dark Mysteries #18, June 1954)
Den Of Horror (Weird Terror #3, Jan. 1953)
The Living Dead (Dark Mysteries #20, Oct. 1954)
Marching Zombies (Black Cat Mystery #35, May 1952)
Grave Rehearsal (Strange Fantasy #7, Aug. 1953)
A Glimpse Of The Pit (Horrific #9, Jan. 1954)
The Horror Of The Walking Corpse (Dark Mysteries #16, Feb. 1954)
The Thing That Walked At Night (Ghost Comics #9, Winter 1953)
Partners In Blood (Journey Into Fear #6, May 1952)
Dead Man’s Revenge (Shocking Mystery Cases #50, Sept. 1952)
The Hand Of Glory (Chilling Tales #13, Dec. 1952)
The Man Who Would Be Fate (Hand Of Fate #21, Aug. 1954)

2. The Terror Returns: 1960’s – 1970’s

The Master Of Dread End (Ghost Stories #1, Sept. 1962)
Santa’s Claws (Web Of Horror #3, Apr. 1970)
The Game Keeper (Ghostly Haunts #40, Sept. 1974)
Fatal Scalpel (Weird Vol. 2. #1, Dec. 1966)
The Weirdest Character I’ve Ever Known! (Ghostly Haunts #38, May. 1974)
Now … Another Maniac! (Psycho #18, May. 1974)
Through A Glass Darkly (Ghostly Tales #113, Feb. 1975)
Ghosts Walk Among Us (Psycho #15, Nov. 1973)
Tradition Of The Wolf (Nightmare #23, Feb. 1975)
Sea Of Graves (Web Of Horror #2, Feb. 1970)

3. The Faithful Few: 1980’s – 1990’s

Killer Planet (Death Rattle Vol. 2, #1, Oct. 1985)
Over His Head (Twisted Tales #2, Apr. 1983)
Christmas Carol (Demon Dreams #1, Feb. 1984)
Mr. Monster: His World (Dark Horse Presents #14, Jan. 1988)
Home Ties (Twisted Tales #6, Jan. 1984)
One Of These Days (Deadworld #6, Dec. 1987)
The Dunwich Horror (The Haunter Of The Dark & Other Grotesque Visions, 1999)
Dream Snake (Robert E. Howard Mythmaker, 1999)
Purgation (The Confessor Demonicus-ex-Deo, 1999)

4. A New Millennium Of The Macabre: 21st Century

Dread End (From The Tomb #12, Feb. 2004)
The Festival (Bedlam #5, July 2004)
The Crawlspace (From The Tomb #18, Christmas 2005)
Immortal: A Vampire Tale (Black Boar Press, 2003)
There Was An Old Woman (Fleshrot Tales From The Dead #2, 2003)
Cal McDonald: A Letter From B.S. (Drawing On Your Nightmares #1, Oct. 2003)
Luna’s Story: Little Red Riding Hood (Nightmares & Fairy Tales #8, March 2004)
The Graveswellers (Morbid #2, Feb. 2005)
Shuteye (Zacherley’s Midnight Terrors #2, 2004)

Acknowledgements.

Blurb:

In over 500 pages this book collects the finest tales of terror from the past sixty years of comic book publishing. It encompasses all eras of the genre, from the ‘weird menace’ horror of the perennially popular 1950s pre-Code comics published by EC, to the dark modern gems of the 90s and 2000s.

Discover the tales that drove the American youth of the 1950s into a frenzy and resulted in legislation to put an end to their gruesome content – the pre-Code comic book macabre that was Dark Mysteries, Chamber of Chills, Weird Terror and Journey into Fear. Contributors from these early years include Bernie Wrightson, master adapter of Lovecraft, Mary Shelley and Stephen King; Mike Kaluta, the man behind The Shadow, Metropolis, and The Spawn of Frankenstein; and Rudy Palais, the EC artist responsible for such twisted works as Marching Zombies.

Modern contributions include Pete Von Scholly’s The Graveswellers (the man behind The Shawshank Redemption, The Mask, and The Green Mile), David Hitchcock’s self-published Immortal – a Vampire Tale (creator of the Jack the Ripper comic Whitechapel Freak), Thomas Ott’s G.O.D. from Greetings from Hellville (acclaimed Swiss noir artist), Legendary Canadian counter-culture cartoonist Rand Holmes’ Death Rattle, and Vincent Locke’s One of These Days (famed for his underground hit zombie comic Deadworld), and comic-book legend Steve Ditko’s Disaster Doom Death

Not had a chance to give this anything more than a cursory browse yet, but it looks terrific! The second strip, from Weird Terror (Sept 1952) for example, is a delightful little thing entitled Hitler’s Head and who could resist The Terror Of The Stolen Legs? Review to follow ASAP but, in the meantime, has anyone else had the pleasure?