70s Horror and other non hero comics.

[livingdead70]

Was anyone else into stuff like House of Secrets, Haunted Tank, Weird War?
I loved these things as a kid. I recently got the DC reissued volumes of Haunted Tank and House of Secrets, I am hoping they do a Weird War one.
trey

[cjefferys]

Oh yeah, I used to love reading DC horror comics like House of Secrets, House of Mystery, Ghosts, etc. One thing that I thought was really cool about Neil Gaiman's SANDMAN series was how he tied a lot of the old DC horror hosts into the Sandman's world, even the really obscure ones.

[ctc]

Hmmmm....

Kinda liked Weird War; especially the Creature Commandos. I preferred the "off brand" books though, especially Doctor Spektor.

Don C.

[CaptainTrenchcoat]

Oh yeah, I used to love reading DC horror comics like House of Secrets, House of Mystery, Ghosts, etc. One thing that I thought was really cool about Neil Gaiman's SANDMAN series was how he tied a lot of the old DC horror hosts into the Sandman's world, even the really obscure ones.

Same here. I even went back and found the old issues of The Witching Hour and some of the others. At one point, I had all the first appearances of the characters. Still have some of them.

[The Toyroom]

I was a big fan of House of Mystery, Ghosts, G.I. Combat, Weird War Tales and, of course, Sgt. Rock.

[StrangeVisitor]

Was anyone else into stuff like House of Secrets, Haunted Tank, Weird War?
I loved these things as a kid. I recently got the DC reissued volumes of Haunted Tank and House of Secrets, I am hoping they do a Weird War one.
trey

Loved the 20-cent DC horror anthologies (don't forget Ghosts & Weird Mystery Tales). Also like that a lot of the 2 House of.... series often had a recurring scene on the cover of several kids witnessing some spooky goings-on.



And had love for the 70's Marvel reprints of the 50's-60's Atlas era horror & monster stories.

Kinda liked Weird War; especially the Creature Commandos. I preferred the "off brand" books though, especially Doctor Spektor.

Don C.

Spektor & Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery were pretty cool GK horror series I dug too. Just got 1st appearance of Dr. Spektor last year. Creature Commandos ( & GI Robot) in WWT were okay but among the latter stories I really followed was I...Vampire in HOM. Long before I heard of Lestat, it was the adventures of Lord Andrew Bennett that caught my attention.

[johnnystorm]

I used to read all of these in the 70s, then got rid of them in the 80s. But I've been picking up a lot of it lately because I'd forgotten how good a lot of it was. Plus it's still relatively cheap.

Houses of Mystery & Secrets (loved I...Vampire & the Patchwork Man one shot issue- wonder why they quit it after only one issue, given they went to the trouble of doing the logo change & all?)...Weird War (Creature Commandos especially)...Ghosts...Secrets of Haunted House (where I once had my first letter published!).

Agreed, Doctor Spektor is a forgotten Gold Key classic. One of the only series that GK did that seemed to follow some continuity. Great art by Jesse Santos as well- he also did a great turn at Marvel on the Scarecrow book in Dead of Night. Another wonderful character that's been relegated to occasional supernatural cameos.

[sgthompson]

I am a Marvel-man myself -- in fact I am working on a complete 70s Marvel horror collection. I love these books, remember picking them up as a kid. Me and my childhood buddies would all gang-up at someones house and watch the 3:30 afternoon movie, which was some classic monster flick, and trying to stay up till midnight on weekends to see the 12 o'clock movie. It was those movies that introduced us to 60s British horror films of Hammer's with Peter Cushing in most of them.
Anyway, most of the Marvel titles had a short new story mixed with a classic Stan Lee 50's story, but it was these books that some of the most future famous artists got their start, such as, Neil Adams, Buscema, and Wrightson (his first book was Chamber of Darkness #7, drawing 7 pgs and the cover).

Here is a fairly complete list of all the 70s Marvel horror titles for your enjoyment:
Beware! (8 issues, becomes Tomb of Darkness)
Chamber of Chills (25 issues)
Chamber of Darkness (8 issues, becomes Monsters on the Prowl with #9)
Chamber of Darkness Special (1 issue)
Creatures on the Loose (27 issues, was Tower of Shadows 1 - 9)
Crypt of Shadows (21 issues)
Dead of Night (11 issues)
Fear (9 issues, becomes Adventures into Fear with Man-Thing storyline)
Frankenstein (18 issues)
Giant-size Chillers (4 issues, but there are 2 different #1's a '74 book that becomes GS Dracula and a later '75 issue)
Giant-size Creatures (1 issue, becomes GS Werewolf)
Giant-size Dracula (4 issues, #1 is GS Chillers)
Giant-size Man-Thing (5 issues)
Giant-size Werewolf (4 issues, #1 is GS Creatures)
Marvel Chillers (7 issues)
Monsters on the Prowl (21 issues, was Chamber of Darkness)
Supernatural Thrillers (15 issues)
Tomb of Darkness (15 issues, was Beware!)
Tomb of Dracula (70 issues)
Tower of Shadows (9 issues, becomes Creatures on the Loose)
Tower of Shadows King-Size (1 issue)
Uncanny Tales (12 issues)
Vault of Evil (23 issues)
Weird Wonder Tales (22 issues)
Werewolf by Night (43 issues)
Where Creatures Roam (8 issues)
Where Monsters Dwell (38 issues)
Worlds Unknown (8 issues)

Some of these may border on SciFi and monster books, some are all reprint books. I have excluded stuff like Man-Thing and Son of Satan. Books such as Strange Tales were hero books by the 70s. You could also include ARGGH! as a monster book.
I am still working on alot of these runs, so if you have any in 8.0 or higher and want to sell please PM me

Later True Believers

[kryptosmaster]

I am BIG into these. I am closing in on a complete run of all the DC titles. I have complete runs of some of them already.
Oh, and they aren't all that cheap. Believe me! In fact I just picked up the last issue I needed for Forbidden Tales of Dark Mansion.
Rich

[The Toyroom]

^ Ahhhh...the good ol' days of 52 pages for only 25 cents! Sigh....

[aquatroy]

Over the last few months I've become a huge fan of Joe Kubert's Tarzan. Just wonderful stuff.
I've also become a fan of pre-television Lone Ranger comics and Atlas/Marvel Western Characters.

[saildog]

As a kid, I was all about the Superheroes.

Lately, I've developed a taste for Western Comics and I've become interested in some of the old EC stuff (haven't bought any EC stuff, yet).

[ctc]

>Doctor Spektor is a forgotten Gold Key classic.

I got kinda nervous when Valiant started bringing back the old Gold Key characters.... I didn't want to see a new version of the Doc.

>One of the only series that GK did that seemed to follow some continuity.

I've noticed that a lot of the Gold Key books (which I've developed an odd fixation on the last few years) DID have continuity, but it was fairly loose. Characters would return, events would happen and stick. Spektor had a lot of this, but it was kinda subdued. Characters came back all the time, and past events would affect later stories. They even did one where you find out he was the direct descendant of ANOTHER Gold Key hero; Dagar the barbarian. (AND he teams up with Doctor Solar in one issue. One really, REALLY weird issue....)

There were tons of horror anthologies back in the day. Some of the Charlton ones were good too. "Midnight Tales" is another of my faves. So is "Scary Tales." (And I have custom Megos for Baroness VonBludd and Professor Coffin in the works right now.)

Don C.

[johnnystorm]

Oh, YEAH! Baroness Von Bludd! I'd like to see that custom when you finish!
She was great, funny how she doesn't get the Bad Girl Love that Vampi etc. do, mostly because she was a Charlton character. Somebody must own the character now, you think? I could see her in an ongoing series, similar to the Elvira stuff. I'd pick that up, I would!

Same with Dr. Graves and the rest. ...great characters you could build a series around. Who was the guy from Monster Hunters, the big game hunter?


And how about the Harvey host: Man in Black called Fate?

[ctc]

>Somebody must own the character now, you think? I could see her in an ongoing series,

Me too, especially considering they used to do little stories with her in the book. The first issue even has her origin. I wonder if the rest of the hosts had origins like that.

>Who was the guy from Monster Hunters, the big game hunter?

Colonel Whiteshroud.

Don C.