IDW Continues to present some of the best (worst) of the Horror Comics from the pre-banned age of the late 40s early 50s when the genre was just finding it's way. These stories owe a great deal to the Golden Age of Old Time Radio which featured shows like Inner Sanctum and SUSPENSE which were designed to scare the willies out of you through the power of your imagination. With the decline in sales of superhero books in the mid to late 40s publishers were quick to find a new area to explore and many of these early horror comics feature 'horror hosts' later popularized by EC Comics and even later still with CREEPY and EERIE Magazine in the 70s-- but we can trace these hosts back to Old time Radio.
The stories collected in this volume run the range from Brilliant to Bizarre and feature some really amazing artists who would later go on to have huge careers in comics including Jack Cole and Gene Colan. This volume focuses on The Zombie and many of the tales within will be a surprise to fans familiar only with the post George Romero Brain/Flesh eating zombies which came about after his landmark film NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1967), some of the zombies in this book can still think and talk, and even narrate a story for us.
Subtle tales of right and wrong are mixed in, but they never get preachy. What they do get is entertaining and if you can put yourself in the mindset of a pre-Twilight Zone era audience you'll find many of the twist endings really surprising.
IDW goes one further, these books are lovingly produced and designed-- absolutely stellar paper quality and reproduction-- but keep in mind the idea here is to maintain the sometimes cheap printing look of old comics so you're not going to be getting recolored Archives like editions-- these are more like you found vintage books at a great garage sale for pennies.
HOURS of reading fun here, the perfect compliment to your late night -night stand reading. And be sure to check out IDW's other offerings featuring Dick Briefer's FRANKENSTEIN and Bob Powell's TERROR-- the books go together to form an impressive library that I hope will continue-- and at these prices they are a real bargain.
