Hello! and Welcome! Thank you for visiting the musty confines of my Secret Basement Laboratory! If you've been here before, then you know the drill–keep your eyes peeled and your hands to yourself. If this is your first visit, then, pull up a stool and don't mess with the test tubes! Ignore the sheet-draped shape on the large table in the corner...come again?...yes, yes it does look curiously like a supinely slumbering giant, doesn't it?
But never mind that!
Today I've concocted a post about something as old as time and equally as dependable. Thievery is the ugly but honest noun it goes by, but there are other, slightly-less inflammatory synonyms that could be applied, like: appropriation, purloining, infringing, borrowing...just to list a few.
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| from Captain Marvel Adventures #150 (Fawcett Comics, 1953) |
When someone does something that strikes a chord with an audience, big or small, there are bound to be imitators who'll strike while the proverbial iron is hot, hoping to hammer out a bit of success for themselves as well. Or, perhaps, when someone is inspired by a musician, painter, writer, what-have-you, it fails to germinate inspiration in originality beyond aping the thing that inspired them in the first place. The final tine of the purloiner's pitchfork is built for those who see something interesting but obscure, and do a pastiche in hopes that the overlooked source material won't be discovered and compared to their own.
There is, of course, the infamous twelve year lawsuit between Fawcett Comics and DC Comics (at the time National Comics Publications) claiming that Captain Marvel was an illegal infringement of Superman, that eventually led to the dissolving of Fawcett (ouch!) and DC ultimately purchasing the rights to continue to use the Fawcett characters (double ouch!). And there's the story of William Gaines's use of several of Ray Bradbury's stories for his EC Comics titles like Weird Science, Weird Fantasy and The Haunt Of Fear, among others, without crediting the author and cleverly changing the titles of the tales. For example Bradbury's tale "The Handler", from his short story collection Dark Carnival, was used as fodder for the tale "A Strange Undertaking" in the sixth issue of The Haunt Of Fear (Feb. 9th, 1951). The story was credited as being co-scripted by editor Gaines and artist/writer Al Feldstein. Of course Bradbury eventually caught on and sent the company a very tactfully worded note stating that the publisher had failed to send him remuneration for the secondary rights to his work and was sure "...this was probably overlooked in the general confusion of office work, and I look forward to your payment in the near future."
Of course, once things were legitimized, EC began touting their Bradbury connection, reprinting the story with the proper credits.
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| The original uncredited splash page for "A Strange Undertaking" in issue 6 of The Haunt Of Fear. |
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| The re-titled and credited reprint of Bradbury's "The Handler", illustrated by Graham Ingels. |
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| From the Oct. 1951 issue of Mysterious Adventures. Art by Palette. |
The horror comic point is a salient one, as I finally dust off and polish the actual point of this post. I was recently re-reading issue thirty-one of the excellent pre-code horror comics reprint title Haunted Horror, put out as a joint venture between Craig Yoe's Yoe Comics and publisher IDW. It somehow escaped my notice on the first read, but there was a very obvious (and hardly ignorant inclusion I have to assume) infringement in the issue of a tale from an October 1951 issue of Mysterious Adventures, titled "If The Coffin Fits...Get In!". This tale from Story Comics features two brothers–Johnny and Bill Norris–who are driving home from a funeral in a storm, when they pass a mysterious woman walking in the rain. They give her a lift, presumably just coming from the funeral herself. Her name is Helen and she lives above a curio shop with some interesting items in it, like two little novelty coffins which Johnny and Bill are inspired to purchase. Bill becomes infatuated with the strange and beautiful woman, but Johnny has his reservations. For one thing, the little novelty coffins they'd purchased seem to be growing in size each day. Bill thinks the whole thing is nonsense, but, eventually the coffins sprout silver nameplates that have their names on them, and Johnny realizes that the coffins are for them, and the mysterious Helen is actually Death!
The brothers flee town, there's a car accident, Bill finds himself at a strange shack outside of town where...you may have guessed it...Helen is waiting with the coffins.
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| From the April - May 1952 issue of Dark Mysteries. Art by Tony Tallarico. |
This brings us to the second tale, taken from Master Comics title Dark Mysteries, issue number six, published in April–May of the following year. The story "If The Noose Fits – Wear It!" is (almost) the exact same story! Two friends, Harry and Tod, visit a waxworks. Harry becomes intrigued by a figure of a noose-bound witch, while Tod becomes obsessed with a beautiful woman in the museum crowd. We're told the story of a woman wrongfully accused of witchcraft and subsequently hung. The noose surrounding the figure in the museum is of course the original used on the poor lady, and as a bonus, there are tiny novelty nooses for sale in the museum gift shop for collectors–made from the fibers of the original, of course!
Tod and Harry buy themselves some nooses and Tod gets friendly with Mara, the mysterious and beautiful woman he met at the waxworks. Well, as you might have guessed, the nooses begin to grow each day, sprouting tags with their names on them. Tod and Harry freak out and flee town. There's a car accident, and Tod finds himself at a shack outside of town where Mara is waiting with the nooses. Turns out Mara is actually Death!
Coincidence? I find it hard to believe. Unfortunately there isn't a whole lot of information out there (or perhaps I've been digging in the wrong dirt?) about the comics companies. Story Comics operated from 1951 through 1955, with horror, romance, war and crime comics. Master Comics published two titles: Mysterious Comics (1951-1955) and Romantic Hearts (1953-1955) which reprinted tales from the Story Comics title of the same name, so perhaps they were two publishing titles operated by the same publisher, which would explain the cannibalism. There's clearly a more-than-slightly-similar plot to the stories, with a bit about witchcraft thrown in the latter, for it to be entirely fortuitous. The design of the Helen and Mara characters are practically cookie cutter, there's a theme of floating (though differently illustrated) skulls around the margins of the panels in each, and, of course, the growing death objects seal the deal. It's hard to say what brought on the appropriation of the earlier story. It's hard to believe "If The Noose Fits..." was created out of the overwhelming popularity of the original. Perhaps Tony Tallarico (or the uncredited writer) needed ideas to meet a deadline and grabbed one of many in a then-glutted stream of horror comics and found an interesting story that he could tweak a little for his own purposes. The world may never know.
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| Definitely worth adding to your pull list. |
Whatever the case may be, the stories are great examples of amazing pre-code horror comics and I highly recommend you seek out the issue of Haunted Horror, or, go to the wonderful The Horrors Of It All blogsite, where Mr. Karswell, the host and co-editor of Haunted Horror (and it's sister title Weird Love) posts pre-code horror comics for your enjoyment; including the two tales discussed!
Enjoy.
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