Chills, They're Multiplyin'

I've blogged in the last couple of summers about the legendary BBC2 horror double bill that was screened in the summers of 1975 to 1983 ( eschewing '82) on Saturday nights. As you probably know by now, the pattern was generally a Universal monster picture, followed-after the cricket highlights- by a Hammer or American International or Amicus fright-fest.

This year, as in the last couple of summers, I'm recreating that experience at home on dvd. The line-up for 2013 includes Hammer's Dracula; House of Frankenstein; House of Dracula; Hammer's Mummy; Tower of London; Revenge of Frankenstein and Dracula AD 1972.

I was never frightened by these movies as a kid ( although Hammer's original Dracula give me some delicious chills watching alone some weeks ago. Having finally been able to turn the heating off in the Highlands, the abrupt bang of  contracting metal almost had me clawing at the ceiling in cartoon alarm just at Christopher Lee's most feral moment!)

I was unsettled more by comics which were my introduction to the horror genre as a wee laddie. Random issues of DC's House of Secrets, House of Mystery, Witching Hour and Phantom Stranger, usually bought for me by my tenant-famer aunt and uncle were totemic, frightful side-steps from the super-hero genre. Especially this one...

Joe Orlando's stable of "mystery" books were the best-selling comics at DC for a while, in the mid-Sixties. Gothic romance paperbacks were very popular and in that vein ( pun intended) so was Dark Shadows, a series that was never screened in Scotland, to my knowledge. These comics preceded the change to the Comics Code that ushered in Morbius, Tomb of Dracula, Werewolf By Night and the use of the adjective "Weird" at DC.

It's likely that the House of Ideas launched Tower of Shadows and Chamber of Darkness as competition for Orlando's anthologies.  I never read a solitary issue of either title in their brief heyday. I always gravitated first to the FF, the Avengers, Sub-Mariner and Iron Man, with rarer forays into Captain Mar-Vell, Spider-Man, Thor, X-Men and SHIELD. (I never warned to Daredevil 'til the 70s and the war books, not at all.)

I wonder now why Stan didn't make Dr. Strange- whose title was cancelled in the late 60s- the host of a mystery book as DC did to an extent with Phantom Stranger and The Spectre in the latter issues of his Sixties incarnation. Stan's editing of current Twitter sensation Jim Steranko's work on ToS issue 1 led to something of a rift between them, allegedly.

I remedied my unfamiliarity at the beginning of this month with ToS King-Size Special from Dec 1971. Behind a Romita sr. cover is work by Lee, Thomas, Heck and Buscema plus a moody, Orientalist Ditko short.The highlights include "Witch Hunt", a Thomas/Heck story affectionately lampooning Dark Shadows; "One Hungers", a Neal Adans short that reminds me of Stephen King's nerve-shredding "The Raft"; and a gorgeous Buscema tale called "A Time to Die" in which sceintist Sebastian Scrogg seeks immortality.

This annual- because that's what it was, really- was a contemporary of the Defenders' debut story ( see Materioptikon) and the Conan/Bull of Heaven adventure ( more of which in a future post.)

Chamber of Darkness Special hails from January 1972- the era of Marvel's "framed covers". The Bullpen Bulletins page refers to a move to 52 pages, mirroring DC  and a combined Iron Man/DD comic, which never came to pass ( did it?)

Again, "It's Only Magic" features haunting work by John Buscema, recalling the Silver Surfer's monthly series. There's a dated spook-story about a teenager who bridles at being told to shave; it includes a gag about Smith Brothers cough drops, completely obscure to we "Britishers"- I had to look it up while typing.
 "Always Leave 'em Laughing" is a twist in the tale time-travel story by Don Heck and Ghost Rider's Gary Friedrich. Heck's best work in this issue is introduced by bashful Stan himself and it's a futuristic adaptation of "Masque of the Red Death". Scripted by Roy Thomas, the story depicts an experimental posion gas, its "crimson appetite feeding on the very air itself."

By the spring of 1971, mere weeks after these issues were on sale, ToS became Creatures on the Loose, ultimately the home of Lin Carter's Barsoomian pastiche, Thongor. CoD was rebranded as Monsters on the Prowl, where I first discovered REH's King Kull. This was probably unsurprising, given the award-winning Conan comic's success and the fact that Wally Wood's heroic fantasies had been published in ToS.

Why did these titles fail, where DC's anthologies flourished, in most case, until the end of the 70s? Was it the literary tone, with the adaptations of Poe and Lovecraft? Were the hosts- Digger and Headstone P. Gravely- inferior to sardonic Cain or mod witch Cynthia? I can't say but, given how much I enjoyed seeing this unfamiliar material, can we please have a b/w reprint edition of the best of these anthology titles?

Coming soon: Tamm and Tom.

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