The Poster Plague

Here's the strip that led directly to the creation of one of my all-time favourite Bronze Age books, DC's humour / horror hybrid Plop!
Steve Skeates had tried to sell The Poster Plague to Warren with no success, while over at DC Sergio Aragones was trying to convince Joe Orlando to put more humour strips in House Of Mystery. 
Joe liked Steve's script, and so Sergio finally got a chance to show what he could do, and the piece slipped in, unannounced, into HOM #202.
Readers went nuts ( or Mad or Crazy if you prefer ) and The Poster Plague won the Shazam! award for best short story of 1972.
No fools they, Orlando and Carmine Infantino started thinking about a whole book of this sort of thing, as explained by Sergio in an interview with Dewey Hassell in Back Issue:
' Joe Orlando and I were sitting in a restaurant talking with Carmine Infantino. They wanted a magazine that was different, something about black humour.
Carmine came up with the name. We were talking about it and he said, 'What will we call it?'
And I said, 'We can call it anything, because if the magazine is good, it will stay.'
And he said, 'No, we can't call it, for instance ... PLOP!' ( possibly recalling the sound effect of 'KLOP!' from 'The Poster Plague' )
And I said 'Yes, we can.'
So here's how Klop! got it's start.

Plop!

Here's something DC really should do a Showcase edition of:


Plop! The Magazine Of Weird Humor was '70's DC's answer to Mad. Or, to be more accurate, a humor version of their own House Of Mystery. Concocted by Carmine Infantino, Joe Orlando, Steve Skeates & World's Fastest Cartoonist Sergio Aragones, Plop! ran for 24 issues, and featured tons of sick, stupid stuff no teenage boy could resist.


It all started with a story that Skeates submitted to The House Of Mystery called The Poster Plague. Editor Orlando thought it too silly to be illustrated in a 'serious' style, so gave it to Sergio to do, put it in HOM *202 and promptly forgot about it.
Except The Poster Plague wouldn't go away. Reader response was phenomenal, and the piece went on to win the Shazam! Award for best short story of 1972.
Realizing there was money to be made, the four got together to discuss a new comic, full of such dark, twisted stories; tying it all into already established terror titles House Of Mystery & House Of Secrets by having horrific hosts Cain & Abel ( along with sister Eve ) presenting each issue. But what to call it?
Aragones opined that they could call the new book anything, because if the book was good, the title would fit. Infantino disagreed: They couldn't call it, for instance....PLOP!
Of such stuff are legends made.....

I can't resist unloading a great big Plop! here, so here's a mix of issues 4 & 18 for your delight & delectation. And if you wanna read The Poster Plague, It's in Showcase Presents The House Of Mystery Vol.2, which you should already have anyway...