Number 1454: Louie, Louie

Halloween will be upon us in a couple of weeks, and in an attempt to get in the spirit of the occasion I have two stories from Ace Comics’ Web of Mystery, both by Lou Cameron.

By way of explanation, Weird Romance #1 was a one-shot with public domain reprints, published by Eclipse Comics in 1988. Weird Romance had two stories by Lou Cameron from Ace Comics’ Web of Mystery, both from 1954. “One Door From Disaster” from WOM #27, and “Lair of the Silken Doom” from #25.

I’m showing “One Door” in blackline from Weird Romance because I don’t have it in its original color form. In the Eclipse reprint letterer Kurt Hathaway replaced the Leroy lettering of the first printing with hand lettering. “Lair of the Silken Worm” I’m able to show from its four color printing.

Another giant spider attack! I found this cover online, and don’t have a date for it, but I’ll bet whenever it was published it kept many a youngster awake and shivering at night after the lights went out.

More about →

Number 1311: Two Aces

Ace Horror is a blog in English which comes from Germany. It spotlights pre-Code horror comics from Ace. Ace is the comic book company from publisher A. A. Wyn who simultaneously published the fantastic and collectible Ace paperback books (including Ace Doubles, a special love of mine). Ace's comic books have grown on me over the years as I've seen more of them. The Ace Horror website is an invaluable resource for anyone studying Ace comics, or just interested in 1950s horror comics.

I’ve shown both of these stories before, and the Ace Horror website links to both of my original postings. If you check them out you can see the differences in my scans, then and now.

Both are from Web of Mystery #13 (1952). First up, a werewolf tale illustrated by Lou Cameron, from a time in his career when he was still finding his way artistically, and before he began signing his work. Next, Lin Streeter drew one of my favorite Ace horror tales, “Syr-Darya’s Death Song,” which is well illustrated, and contains one of my favorite single comic book panels. You can see it at the top of this page. As someone pointed out to me years ago when I created a privately printed postcard of the panel, "It's kinky without being real kinky, y'know? There’s a chick whipping a guy, calling him 'Dog' but they both have all their clothes on.” Ohhhh-kay. Sounds about right to me.

More about →