Monday, 28 October 2019

The Witching Hour



Like I've often said, DC mystery titles may not've always had the best stories, but they sure had the best hosts.
Sure, EC were first with The Crypt Keeper, The Vault Keeper and The Old Witch, and from our generation, you gotta love ol' Uncle Creepy and Cousin Eerie, but beyond telling their terrifying tales, you never actually saw them do anything.
By comparison, DC's books always had great framing sequences for their spooky storytellers, like here at The Witching Hour, where old school hags Mildred and Mordred, and their groovy younger sister, go-go sorceress Cynthia, constantly try to out-scare each other with their own spine-chilling stories.
( And isn't 'It's Twelve O'Clock...The Witching Hour!' the greatest come on to a comic ever? Only it's replacement 'It's Midnight...The Witching Hour!' beats it... )


To me, it's kind of irrelevant how good or bad the stories are, I just want to get back to the fun framing story. And not only because most of them are drawn by Alex Toth or Bill Draut, but because they're a lot of fun in and of themselves, like this inaugural piece from ish 1:





Or this one, where an old flame of Cynthia's shows up at the castle:





Or even this one, where the gals try to settle the issue of who's scariest once and for all, by inviting themselves round the neighbours, in much the same way The Munsters used to do:






Later on, Cynthia managed to convince her stick-in-the-mud sisters to leave their moldy old castle, and move to the city, which gave rise to loads more spooky gags, but unfortunately, by this point the gals had been relegated to just one page at the start of each issue, drastically reducing the individuality of the book.
A shame, as I'd read a whole book about these three, as long as it was in this style, and they hadn't been re-jigged into The Dreaming or any nonsense like that.



19 comments:

  1. Loved those first fourteen issues! Joe Orlando edited those, then abruptly left. He is the one who had Toth, Adams, Wrightson, Kaluta, Jeff Jones, Al Williamson, and so many other greats in those early issues.

    Regards,
    Chris A.

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  2. Boy! What a beauty. Perhaps too beauty, if you know what I mean ;)

    (It´s like James Woods said in "Videodrome": "Too much class. Bad for sex")

    And thanks for posting. I love Halloween!! Could I make 3 recommendations? I promise these will be short:

    -Movie: Evil dead (the original)
    -Records: Rediscovering lost scores 1, by Wendy Carlos (for the great unused tracks she composed originally for "The shining") and City of the living dead by Fabio Frizzi.
    -Comic:The upturned stone, by Scott Hampton.

    Happy Halloween to you all!!

    Manuel Ruiz

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  3. Stunning stuff I love Toths art and always enjoyed DC mystery comics, as you say not always great stories but some of the best artists in comics were usually represented. I only have 2 issue of Witching Hour (bought about 15 years ago) as it rarely seemed to appear in the Glasgow area but it looks like i missed a cool comic and will need to search for these issues.

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  4. Those early issues ( as Chris knows and Manuel's found out ) are solid gold, Paul. Like the early years of the Houses Of Mystery & Secrets, they're full of pretty much everybody who made the Bronze Age great.
    Like the numbskull I am, I completely ignored the mystery books as a kid, and only realised what I'd missed when I started investing in the Showcase Presents books ( worth getting if you can't get the originals ). Can't recommend these comics enough...!

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  5. Alex Toth was in top form in this comic, as was Neal Adams. I loved Neal's pencil drawing of Egor in no. 8. One of my favorite stories was in no. 9, "The Last Straw," drawn by Jose Delbo. "Trumpet Perilous" had a great Shangri-La vibe to it, too. Great finale and funny remarka from the hosts. Berni Wrightson was still cutting his teeth in issues 3 and 5, but there were hints of great things to come, and already plenty of atmosphere.

    Gene Poole

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    Replies
    1. Just checked them out again, yes indeed, both good ones, thanks.

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  6. Nick Cardy drew some of those early covers. He lived to be 93, passing away in 2013.

    - Neil

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  7. Like you, Pete, I was a late-comer to DC's 70's horror anthologies (Jonah Hex, too), and as a result, missing out on some of the best work from a virtual Who's Who of great Bronze Age artists.

    I've made up for that since, of course.

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    Replies
    1. As have I, and with Jonah too. Boy, I was a dope as a kid...

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  8. There were other DC titles like Secrets of Sinister House which had some surprise gems as well. The ninth issue has a Kaluta cover (with partial inks by Wrightson), a Kaluta two page opener, then a great Alfredo Alcala story, and so on. Various issues of The Unexpected also had some great stories and art in the late '60s and early '70s.

    Regards,
    Chris A.

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    Replies
    1. Same with Weird War Tales, Weird Mystery and Dark Mansion. Some nuggets among the compost.

      - Neil

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    2. You're both right about the other mystery books, but Weird War Tales really was a treasure trove, and a much better book than you'd expect. I'll add some from that to the list.

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  9. Here is Alex Toth's unused cover for the first issue:

    https://tinyurl.com/y68js3sp

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    Replies
    1. Oh yeah, I forgot I've seen that in Back Issue, I think. Gorgeous, thanks.

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  10. EC were the first to have hosts in horror comics, sure, but they stole the idea from radio shows like Inner Sanctum and Mysterious Traveller. If you want to read about old American horror radio, even listen to some of the shows, you can do so at http://www.radiohorrorhosts.com/

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  11. And I remember in a very early issue of Mad, Kutrtzman & Elder did Outer Sanctum, I think, yeah.

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  12. Marvel had Digger and Headstone P. Gravely in Tower of Shadows & Chamber of Darkness respectively, but the concept was so anemic that they were wisely ditched & the artists themselves were the hosts of the stories (Wood, Wrightson, Tom Palmer, etc.).

    Regards,
    Chris A.

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    Replies
    1. Can't say I wanted to see more of horror host Don Heck past the framing sequence though...

      -sean

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