Vintage Magazine: Famous Monsters of Filmland, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Pg. 31 - 49)

Some like to say the printed word is dying (which I disagree with) and others say that magazines will be a thing of the past in the future. Honestly, that one's harder to argue against. Just a couple of weeks ago I saw a three-pack at the store of Halloween-themed magazines I won't name. I was so excited to get a bunch of fun recipes and pictures and craft ideas, but in actuality all I found were a bunch of ads for junk I'd never buy. That's all magazines are now unless you're paying premium prices. Look back to older publications like this, though, and the ads are few/far-between, and they certainly don't dominate the whole thing. Ah well, rant over. Enjoy these awesome stills, pranks, and fun articles. Bonus points to the awesome 'Mad Magician' page about Vincent Price and his many colorful deaths.

Vintage Comics: Nightmare, Issue #3: The Wonderful Wizard, The Quivering Brain, The Witches Sabbath, etc. (Pg. 14 - End)

With so many stories packed into so few pages, I was unable to fit them all in the title, so the additional two at the end of this comic are: 'Charles Fort, The Supreme Doubter' and 'Crafton's Curse'.The first story here seems to have far too much stuff packed into each page for the reader to follow the first time around, and there's an additional character drawing eerily reminiscent of Peter Cushing (but just a little too early for that to be anything but a coincidence.) It's actually the 'true story', albeit brief, of Daniel Dunglas Home, a man reputed to be able to fly, levitate objects, contact the dead, and predict the future. I can't imagine what a show by that guy would've been like, and I definitely plan on doing a write-up of him in the future. I mean if you look up photos of him, the guy's as magnificent as Oscar Wilde in his famous leaning portrait.

The next story gets points just for the title alone. THE QUIVERING BRAIN. You're also required to always scream a title like that, announcer-style. It's impossible not to. It's a bit melodramatic, I'm not going to lie, but I think the concept alone makes it one of my favorite stories I've featured on this blog so far. Then we're lead into a disturbing summary of what constitutes a proper witch's sabbath, a summary of a historically influential skeptic named Charles Fort, and another story about a mobster getting his just desserts.

All-in-all, not an incredible issue, but some of the concepts are at least ripe for modern revisions.

Vintage Comics - Skeleton Hand, Issue 1 : Deathless Mortal, The Ghost of Company C (Cover - Pg. 11)

One of the slightly more beat-up comics I've come upon, I simply couldn't resist that cover. Monsters. Skeletons. Even what appears to be a vampire...but they have nothing to do with the first story, alas. Still...can you ever get anything better for Halloween than a group of ghouls just having a good time? I don't think so.

The first story is a nicely dark twist, which seems to be fairly uncommon in many of the stories, as rarely do we tend to see more than the occasional gruesome ghost...I rather liked these old man-goblins in their odd little way. The second one is a little reminiscent of the a simple little 30s or 40s farce you'd watch in-between movies.