Eerie was a one-shot horror comic book cover-dated January 1947 and published by Avon Periodicals as Eerie # 1. Its creative team included (among others) Joe Kubert and Fred Kida . It was the first true, stand-alone horror comic book and is credited with establishing genre horror comics. [1] [2]
After the initial issue, the title went dormant for a number of years and was returned to newsstands as a continuing title in 1951.
Description, content, and creative team
Eerie is a full-color, 52 page, standard format, one-shot horror comic published by Avon Periodicals with a price of US $ 0.10 and cover-dated January 1947. The book was released as Eerie # 1. [1] [3]
The comic book’s glossy, [3] cover depicts a red-eyed ghoul clutching a dagger and a rope-bound , voluptuous young woman in a derelict moonlit ruin. The book’s content includes six full-length horror feature stories and a two-page humorous tale.
The issue featured six stories that were fairly tame in the depiction of gore and violence found in horror fiction . [2] “The Eyes of the Tiger” follows a man haunted by the ghost of a stuffed tiger; [2] [3] “The Man-Eating Lizards”, with the story by Edward Bellin and pencils by Joe Kubert , tells the story of an island infested with flesh-eating lizards; [2] [3] and another, “The Strange Case of Henpecked Harry” (with art by Fred Kida ), follows a man spooked by the bloody corpse of his murdered wife. [2] [3] Other features include “Dead Man’s Tale”, “Proof”, and “Mystery of Murder Manor”. A two-page humorous tale starring Goofy Ghost rounds out the issue. [3] Members of the creative team include Fugitani [1] and George Roussos . [2]
Following the January 1947 issue, Eerie disappeared from newsstands shelves.
Ongoing series
In 1951, Eerie # 1, cover-dated May / June 1951, was published by Avon and saw a run of seventeen issues. [2] The first issue of Eerie reprinted “The Strange Case of Henpecked Harry” from the 1947 Eerie one-shot as “The Subway Horror”, [3] and issue # 12 printed a Dracula story based on the Bram Stoker novel. Several covers featured large-breasted women in bondage . Artists Joe Orlando and Wallace Wood were associated with the series. The title saw a run of seventeen issues, ceasing publication with its August / September 1954 issue.
Eerie then morphed into the second iteration of the science fiction anthology Strange Worlds with issue # 18 (October / November 1954). [1]
References
- ^ Jump up to: a b c d Overstreet, Robert M. (2004). Overstreet Official Comic Book Price Guide. Random House . 527.
- ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g Goulart, Ron. (2001). Great American Comic Books . Publications International, Ltd. 173.
- ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g Smith, Keith (2009). “GCD Issue Details: Eerie # 1” . Grand Comics Database . Retrieved 2009-02-07 .