The Groundbreaking Horror of Adventures Into the Unknown #1 at Auction

Posted in: Comics, Heritage Sponsored, Vintage Paper | Tagged: acg, pre-code horror, Richard E. Hughes

Adventures into the Unknown from writer ACG is a vastly underrated comedian ebook sequence which launched with tales by Frank Belknap Long.

Adventures into the Unknown from writer ACG (American Comics Group) is a vastly underrated comedian ebook title. Regarded as the first ongoing American comedian ebook horror sequence, the title lasted 174 points from Fall 1948 to August 1967 — a number of months earlier than different publishers started to ease into horror-focused titles, and a few yr and a half earlier than EC Comics’ horror titles started in earnest.  Adventures into the Unknown is underrated from a artistic standpoint as effectively. The sequence maintained a excessive customary for tales and artwork all through, beneath the editorship of trade pioneer Richard E. Hughes. And most of the debut challenge’s tales had been written by horror and science fiction legend Frank Belknap Long. There’s a replica of excessive grade instance of Adventures Into the Unknown #1 (ACG, 1948) CGC FN/VF 7.0 Cream to off-white pages up for public sale in the 2023 July 13 – 14 Pre-Code Horror & Crime Comics Showcase Auction #40227 at Heritage Auctions.

Frank Belknap Long started writing for pulps in 1924 with Weird Tales.  He grew to become a detailed good friend of H.P. Lovecraft and made early contributions to the Cthulhu Mythos.  Long had expanded his vary to science fiction by the Nineteen Thirties, in pulp titles equivalent to Astounding Science Fiction and others.  By the late Forties, Long was additionally writing comedian books and contributed the scripts for many of the tales of the first two points of Adventures into the Unknown, in addition to tales for a number of different early points.

Long’s tales for Adventures into the Unknown #1 embrace an enchanting combine of horror tales from historic to fashionable.  One fascinating selection for this challenge is his transient however efficient adaptation of Horace Walpole‘s The Castle of Otranto:

The Castle of Otranto, by Horace Walpole, is usually seen as the first Gothic novel. Its first version, printed in 1764, claimed to be a translation of a piece printed in Naples in 1529 and newly found in the library of ‘an historical Catholic household in the north of England’. It tells the story of Manfred, the prince of Otranto, who’s eager to safe the fort for his descendants in the face of a mysterious curse.

American Comics Group, which printed newsstand comedian books from 1943 to 1967, was owned by Fred Iger, with DC Comics proprietor Harry Donenfeld turning into a co-owner in the early Sixties. Writer/editor Richard E. Hughes ran the line. The writer is greatest remembered for the launch of the first ongoing horror-comics title, Adventures into the Unknown, and the satirical-humor hero Herbie Popnecker who was launched in the Forbidden Worlds sequence. ACG is underappreciated for its capacity to navigate the transition into the Comic Code period which ended many different publishers of its form.

Artists collaborating with Long on this challenge embrace Fred Guardineer, Edvard Moritz, Max Elkan, King Ward, and Al Ulmer. An necessary and extremely underrated second in the historical past of American comics, there is a copy of Adventures Into The Unknown #1 (ACG, 1948) Condition: VG and several other different points of the sequence obtainable on this week’s 2022 July 10-11 Sunday & Monday Comic Books Select Auction #122228 at Heritage Auctions.

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