Posted in: Comics, Heritage Sponsored, Vintage Paper | Tagged: golden age, pre-code horror
Mel Keefer’s cowl for the 1953 Toby Press launch Tales of Horror #8 contains a large monster rampaging in New York City.
Tales of Horror #8 is a textbook instance of the significance of the energy of a very good comedian e-book cowl. This basic Pre-Code Horror cowl by artist Mel Keefer primarily based on the function “The Big Snake” in this situation is the key issue that drives the curiosity in this title amongst Pre-Code Horror collectors, becoming in that area of interest between horror and the large monster science fiction theme that was about to explode throughout this mid-Fifties period. This situation has been in demand in latest instances, however no copies above CGC 5.5 have ever come to public public sale, and the highest-graded copy is a CGC 6.0. An obscure comedian e-book with a weirdly eye-catching cowl, you will hardly ever get a shot at a duplicate as good as this Tales of Horror #8 (Toby Publishing, 1953) CGC VG/FN 5.0 Off-white to white pages up for public sale in the 2023 July 13 – 14 Pre-Code Horror & Crime Comics Showcase Auction #40227 at Heritage Auctions.
Keefer is primarily remembered as a syndicated caricature artist, having labored on strips together with Perry Mason, Dragnet, Gene Autry, and the long-running gold strip Mac Divot. In comics, he labored on a range of warfare, western and different titles for publishers together with Toby Press, Charlton, Dell, and Marvel. Keefer additionally did work for comedian magazines CARtoons and Drag CARtoons. In his story “The Big Snake,” a power-mad scientist creates a serum succesful of creating large animals with the intent of utilizing it to create a military with which to take over the world. One of these experiments in the end will get out of management and rampages in New York City.
Toby Press was fashioned by Elliot Caplin, brother of cartoonist Al Capp. Caplin had been the editor of Parents’ Insitute’s comedian e-book line, which included True Comics, Calling All Girls, and Varsity. A the time the firm was fashioned, Newsweek characterised Toby Press as a three way partnership between Capp and his brother as a automobile for publishing comics primarily based on Capp’s Li’l Abner, however the writer did way more than that, in the end publishing over 350 comedian books 1949-1955. Tales of Horror was printed through their Minoan Publishing Corp. imprint.
Interestingly, “The Big Snake” had initially appeared in Tales of Horror #3 with a really totally different cowl. But the writer would in the end return to the large monster theme on the covers of Tales of Horror repeatedly. There’s solely 57 entires for this situation on the CGC census, and nearly all of them are mid- or low-grade. You’ll hardly ever get a shot at a duplicate as good as this Tales of Horror #8 (Toby Publishing, 1953) CGC VG/FN 5.0 Off-white to white pages up for public sale in the 2023 July 13 – 14 Pre-Code Horror & Crime Comics Showcase Auction #40227 at Heritage Auctions. For those that are new to Heritage Auctions, please take a second to take a look at their FAQ on the bidding course of and associated issues.
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