Witchcraft #5 and its Pre-Code Horror Kelly Freas Cover, at Auction

Posted in: Comics, Heritage Sponsored, Vintage Paper | Tagged: Atomic Age, Avon Periodicals, Kelly Freas, pre-code horror

Best often called a science fiction artist of covers for pulps & paperbacks, Kelly Freas did a implausible Pre-Code Horror cowl for Witchcraft #5

Kelly Freas (1922 – 2005) is greatest often called a science fiction and fantasy artist on pulp covers for titles like Astounding Science Fiction, Planet Stories, and Weird Tales, and paperback covers for publishers together with Signet, Ballantine Books, Ace Books, and Avon Publications.  Famously, he reworked his October 1953 cowl portray for Astounding Science Fiction at the behest of the band Queen for the duvet of their 1977 album News of the World.  He was additionally a longtime contributor to Mad Magazine amongst others. But it is his work for Avon Publications that pursuits us right here, as a result of along with being a paperback and pulp writer, that firm additionally acquired into the comics guide enterprise. According to GCD information, they revealed Kelly Freas’ very first work in comics, and it is a doozy.  There’s a pleasant copy of the Pre-Code Horror gem which options that basic Kelly Freas painted good lady cowl on Witchcraft #5 (Avon, 1953) CGC FN- 5.5 Off-white pages up for public sale within the 2023 July 13 – 14 Pre-Code Horror & Crime Comics Showcase Auction #40227 at Heritage Auctions.

Freas painted this Witchcraft #5 cowl in 1952 and adopted up with a canopy for Fiction House’s The First Christmas a couple of months later.  His subsequent work for Mad Magazine was the one artwork he did for comics for practically 15 years (once more, per GCD information) till his covers for Marvel Comics magazines, Warren Publishing magazines, and National Lampoon starting within the Seventies.  The Witchcraft #5 cowl could also be loosely based mostly on the characteristic story for this concern, which is a few witch kidnapping a younger lady and giving her over to the satan.  Years later, she returns to the world as an grownup and finds love — however cannot fairly escape her haunted previous.

For all of these covers over an achieved and prolific profession, the Witchcraft #5 cowl stands out as distinctive amongst his comics work, and there is a copy of Witchcraft #5 (Avon, 1953) CGC FN- 5.5 Off-white pages up for public sale within the 2023 July 13 – 14 Pre-Code Horror & Crime Comics Showcase Auction #40227 at Heritage Auctions.

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