Loved this video! Theese Marvel runs don't get enough love, 70s horror is on the up :) Thanks for sharing the knowledge! My favourite covers from that period were Charlton... They got the Atmosphere just right :)
That guy is Digger, that's his first appearance later he's a member of Night Shift a villain team led by The Shroud, I like ToS #1, it's the only one I have as it's cover dated my birth month/year. Arkham House started with H. P. Lovecraft reprints I think and the town of Arkham was from his writing. It was a lot of fun to hang out with you and your lovely comics and to hear your great knowledge, thoughts and memories
Thank you so much! I'll have to take a break for a week or two (my uncle is in his last days and we drive 12 hours one way). But I'm not giving up the channel, just taking a break. BTW, I have some really really really cool subjects I'll bring up that other channels may not know about. I go for deep dives in comics.
@@drewgeraci8434 I found this video... IT was half way tolerable once I sped it up to 1.5 x or 2 x.... too much dragging out what you wanted to say... I would suggest also that you plop a Hall's mentholated cough drop in your mouth at the onset of any of these videos in the future.. this will keep your larynx moistened... and you will not get choked up or feel the need to drink water.. I bought all of those when they first came out... I actually bought multiple copies of the first few issues... thinking they would be worth something someday... Even Conan # 1 was an extreme disappointment.. Barry Smith...?... Bah !!.. here are the reasons those horror comics and others failed... despite having top named artists in the field at the time drawing them.. by the time the late 60's hit and early 70's... Most artists were drawing their stuff all over the pages . there were No borders.. they were NOT following.. Not the 6 panel NEAT drawings of the 50's... I found that most comics INCLUDING the superhero ones Marvel was putting out at the time to be TRASH... .. I found this "draw as you feel"... style too GARISH for me.. I quit buying comics around 1978... comics SHOULD be readable and Legible.... I could not follow them... Steranko was the WORST... I gave up on Dr. Strange...Steranko e ruined THAT one... Ditko should have stayed with it.. I did not mind Romita taking over for Ditko on Spider man too much... but after Romita ...?... FORGET IT.. Marvel ruined those horror.. comics.. and when they found they could not sell that crappy artwork... they tried to save face and recoup their losses due to lack of sales.. by changing those 2 into reprint comics... and they introduced...others as well including... "Where Monsters Dwell:... and "Where Creatures Roam"... why?.. because those comics would sell and they did not have to pay any artists for new artwork...and they were able to sell stuff people would buy... I enjoyed that reprinted artwork from the 50's that Marvel did for a while WAY more than I EVER enjoyed that trash they let the newer artists get away with. NO rhyme or reason to it... Warren publications started going downhill IMO for the same reason.. pretty much after their first 2 years... TRASH TRASH TRASH....
@@jeffcarlson3269 I appreciate the advice. In recent months, I've used cough drops and Gatorade Zero to prevent coughing and thankfully it seems to have worked. I understand the 'draw what you feel' at the expense of telling a story. Lots of new kids got their first break at Marvel around this time and they were not ready for prime time. So, in some senses, it lowered the bar. Similarly, many crappy artists in the early 1990s gave me the push I need to break into comics as an inker. The bar was set MUCH lower and I reasoned: "They'll take anybody." I didn't expect my career to last a year, because your work is constantly a resume for the next gig. But it's been decades and I'm very grateful.
@@drewgeraci8434 congrats on your success..... I wish I would have been old enough to catch E.C.'s and Atlas comics and the like in their heyday..... I was fortunate enough to remember seeing Spider man issue 4 at the newsstand when I was a kid... but I did not buy it... I did Not get serious about buying and collecting comics until 1966..... I Only wish I would have been smart enough to buy a few issues.. of Amazing Fantasy 15 ...mail order from Robert Bell out of New York.. back in 1968... when I started ordering comics from him... Amazing Fantasy 15 was selling for 8 dollars each .....back then in his catalogue... in 1967 they were 7.50 each...
Drew, your content and your commentary are great. I teach a high school Comic/Manga Drawing course and Im always looking for extra resources to use as instructional material. I will definitely be playing some of your videos for my classes. We will have some great discussions and lessons.
@@drewgeraci8434 You have a personality, so therefore I don't think you need a script. I teach in Florida and I've been thinking about creating a Sequential Art curriculum for the public schools here as I don't think we have one. I don't have a set script either, but I know the drawing skills they will have to know in order to pass the class. I teach them lettering, facial drawings, human anatomy, one point perspective, camera angles, and dynamic page layout.
Great video. Those early Chamber of Darkness and Tower of Shadows books are beautiful. Stunning art...layouts, pencils, inks, and colors all came together. It's a shame Marvel couldn't keep up the quality.
They had Joe Orlando editing those DC horror books. And DC back then was under Infantino but not as mindful of a house style as Marvel was. Orlando was an EC vet, knew what he wanted, and pushed for the right talent. He was the guy who started the Filipino Invasion of the 70s. With regard to Marvel, it’s hard to say “Stan Lee presents,” then follow that with horror. Marvel was quite into its own narrative, whereas at DC that was more editor-level than publisher-level. I personally was a DC guy in the 70s, moreso than a Marvel reader. My identity as a comics reader was rooted in DC, and the kids I met who loved Marvel more annoyed the Hell outta me. Had I been less of an outcast, I would have picked up Ghost Rider, Son of Satan, and Howard the Duck earlier.
VERY well said. In my mind, DC horror titles were for older kids because they were very edgy in their approach to art. Like Wein/Wrightson's Frogs. It's humor and horror mixed together. Also, Joe Kubert's flack bursts also scared me because it looked so real to me. But I love Bronze Age DC comics. I finally completed my collection of Jonah Hex and the Filipino were so good they could make Dick Ayers' art convincing. You could taste the dust. I may do an episode on Jonah Hex.
Marvel's refusal to break from their house style and making everything a superhero comic in drag dogged them all the way into the 90s, resulting in them releasing stuff like the Midnight Sons line and Sleepwalker while DC was conquering bookshelves with Vertigo.
I always saw these as a product of their time. The 70s had an interesting resurgence of classic horror tropes. It died out and got replaced by the slashers. The universal monsters never really regained that edge. Anyone that is about 15 years (and above) older than me, love this type of comic. But its a real hard sell for my generation (X/millennial). We want Jason and Freddy, not some stuffy looking Dracula. For transparency, I adore The Tomb of Dracula but it took until my 40s to eventually appreciate it.
I usually preferred the older stories. I didn't think of their age as a detriment. When Mad would publish teh 1950s stuff it was plain too see the stuff was better drawn.
Great bunch of books. I have only a few of those mags. Love those 70s horror books when some great talent was new. I recently did an episode on a book reprinting those Wood fantasy stories. Great work but doesn't fit the horror genre very well.
That Tower of Shadows cover at 14:18 - "I created the Demon that stalks Hollywood"... _Finally_ - we learn who's resposible for the Monster that is -- *Harvey Weinstein!* Also... The ad. at 13:58; I always did wonder where those 'hoodlums' in 1970's street gangs (and, of course, biker gangs) got those Wermacht WWII 'Coal Scuttle' helmets... I mean, yeah, I'm sure a lot of them pinched their grandfather's Normandy souvenirs/trophies, but that couldn't have accounted for _all_ of them, could it?! Turns out all the time they were ( _Koff!_ ) 'Surfing' - _Surfing(?!!)_ 🤨🧐 helmets! (Reproductions, presumably..?)
I really like the Marvel 1970s horror comics more than the DC horror, most of the Marvel titles was reprints of comics from the 1950s and early 1960s but my favorites from these are the Kirby monsters reprints. Great video 👍
I'll have to think it over Mostly because my topics have been about legendary creators and didn't want to equate my stuff with them. It might be too self-serving. But thanks for your kind words :)
well while the 70s marvel horror comics were OK, I loved the DC ones more. The Bernie Wrightson covers on House of mystery, secrets, witching hour etc. was a big sell for me. As for Marvel horor like the later 80s Marvel efforts like Bizarre adventures, Epic Magazine and Hellraiser anthology.
@@drewgeraci8434 also in the 70s my other horror fave was Warren comics with Eerie and Creepy. with those eye catching Frazetta, Corben, Vallejo and Ken Kelly. again was really a great sell. Also very excellent stories, my particular favorite was the Eerie with a particular serial called Night of the Jackass. alternate history what if Victorian london experienced a Jekyl hyde drug epidemic. the art and writing was really ahead of the competition by leaps and bounds.
@@johnwalsh4857Since I've pretty much caught up on the Marvel Comics I want, I've been getting the Eerie and Creepy. I've learned that the best place to find them is at comic conventions.
The Comics code Authority killed off Horror as far as comics is concerned!!! The magazine format by contrast did a whole lot better!!! The reason for the formation of the code was because of the graphic content of the Horror comics of the 1940s & 50s in the first place!!! The complaints about them were just like the complaints about video games today!!! Thus driving them to be sold as adult books!!!!🤔🤔🤔
Hi do you know the story of the scam artist that pretended to have lost his legs and eye who lived near some train tracks? There was also one about a guy who had a rat tail who went on a date with a lady that had a cat tail. She ate him in the end.
I don't recall either of them. My uninformed guess would be that those were DC stories. Even Marvel's 'horror' books were somewhat tame and DC really created some nasty horror stories that get under your nails. Wish I could've helped
Oh yes, loved the video! Filled in gaps in my knowledge! Thank you!
Loved this video! Theese Marvel runs don't get enough love, 70s horror is on the up :) Thanks for sharing the knowledge! My favourite covers from that period were Charlton... They got the Atmosphere just right :)
The reprint stories from the 50s were great too. Often the only way we as readers get to see that stuff.
I've never had a look through any of these issues. Really informative video. Thank you, Drew Geraci.
That guy is Digger, that's his first appearance later he's a member of Night Shift a villain team led by The Shroud, I like ToS #1, it's the only one I have as it's cover dated my birth month/year. Arkham House started with H. P. Lovecraft reprints I think and the town of Arkham was from his writing. It was a lot of fun to hang out with you and your lovely comics and to hear your great knowledge, thoughts and memories
Thank you so much! I'll have to take a break for a week or two (my uncle is in his last days and we drive 12 hours one way). But I'm not giving up the channel, just taking a break. BTW, I have some really really really cool subjects I'll bring up that other channels may not know about. I go for deep dives in comics.
@@drewgeraci8434
I found this video... IT was half way tolerable once I sped it up to 1.5 x or 2 x.... too much dragging out what you wanted to say... I would suggest also that you plop a Hall's mentholated cough drop in your mouth at the onset of any of these videos in the future.. this will keep your larynx moistened... and you will not get choked up or feel the need to drink water..
I bought all of those when they first came out... I actually bought multiple copies of the first few issues... thinking they would be worth something someday... Even Conan # 1 was an extreme disappointment..
Barry Smith...?... Bah !!..
here are the reasons those horror comics and others failed...
despite having top named artists in the field at the time drawing them.. by the time the late 60's hit and early 70's... Most artists were drawing their stuff all over the pages . there were No borders.. they were NOT following.. Not the 6 panel NEAT drawings of the 50's...
I found that most comics INCLUDING the superhero ones Marvel was putting out at the time to be TRASH...
.. I found this "draw as you feel"... style too GARISH for me..
I quit buying comics around 1978...
comics SHOULD be readable and Legible.... I could not follow them... Steranko was the WORST... I gave up on Dr. Strange...Steranko e ruined THAT one... Ditko should have stayed with it..
I did not mind Romita taking over for Ditko on Spider man too much... but after Romita ...?...
FORGET IT..
Marvel ruined those horror.. comics.. and when they found they could not sell that crappy artwork... they tried to save face and recoup their losses due to lack of sales.. by changing those 2 into reprint comics... and they introduced...others as well including... "Where Monsters Dwell:... and "Where Creatures Roam"...
why?..
because those comics would sell and they did not have to pay any artists for new artwork...and they were able to sell stuff people would buy...
I enjoyed that reprinted artwork from the 50's that Marvel did for a while WAY more than I EVER enjoyed that trash they let the newer artists get away with.
NO rhyme or reason to it...
Warren publications started going downhill IMO for the same reason.. pretty much after their first 2 years...
TRASH TRASH TRASH....
@@jeffcarlson3269 I appreciate the advice. In recent months, I've used cough drops and Gatorade Zero to prevent coughing and thankfully it seems to have worked. I understand the 'draw what you feel' at the expense of telling a story. Lots of new kids got their first break at Marvel around this time and they were not ready for prime time. So, in some senses, it lowered the bar. Similarly, many crappy artists in the early 1990s gave me the push I need to break into comics as an inker. The bar was set MUCH lower and I reasoned: "They'll take anybody." I didn't expect my career to last a year, because your work is constantly a resume for the next gig. But it's been decades and I'm very grateful.
@@drewgeraci8434
congrats on your success.....
I wish I would have been old enough to catch E.C.'s and Atlas comics and the like in their heyday.....
I was fortunate enough to remember seeing Spider man issue 4 at the newsstand when I was a kid... but I did not buy it... I did Not get serious about buying and collecting comics until 1966.....
I Only wish I would have been smart enough to buy a few issues.. of
Amazing Fantasy 15 ...mail order from Robert Bell out of New York.. back in 1968... when I started ordering comics from him...
Amazing Fantasy 15 was selling for
8 dollars each .....back then
in his catalogue...
in 1967 they were 7.50 each...
Drew, your content and your commentary are great. I teach a high school Comic/Manga Drawing course and Im always looking for extra resources to use as instructional material. I will definitely be playing some of your videos for my classes. We will have some great discussions and lessons.
WOW - Thank you :) It's an honor. Plus it shows me that I'm going in the right direction. I don't read a script, I just freestyle.
@@drewgeraci8434 You have a personality, so therefore I don't think you need a script. I teach in Florida and I've been thinking about creating a Sequential Art curriculum for the public schools here as I don't think we have one. I don't have a set script either, but I know the drawing skills they will have to know in order to pass the class. I teach them lettering, facial drawings, human anatomy, one point perspective, camera angles, and dynamic page layout.
Would've loved to have taken a course like that after high school.
i never even heard of tower of shadows. how many horror books did they have?
Great video. Those early Chamber of Darkness and Tower of Shadows books are beautiful. Stunning art...layouts, pencils, inks, and colors all came together. It's a shame Marvel couldn't keep up the quality.
The 70s Marvel horror titles are something I know next to nothing about, but this video has definitely peaked my curiosity. Great video, sir!
This is an excellent topic for a video. Barely started it.
They had Joe Orlando editing those DC horror books. And DC back then was under Infantino but not as mindful of a house style as Marvel was. Orlando was an EC vet, knew what he wanted, and pushed for the right talent. He was the guy who started the Filipino Invasion of the 70s. With regard to Marvel, it’s hard to say “Stan Lee presents,” then follow that with horror. Marvel was quite into its own narrative, whereas at DC that was more editor-level than publisher-level. I personally was a DC guy in the 70s, moreso than a Marvel reader. My identity as a comics reader was rooted in DC, and the kids I met who loved Marvel more annoyed the Hell outta me. Had I been less of an outcast, I would have picked up Ghost Rider, Son of Satan, and Howard the Duck earlier.
VERY well said. In my mind, DC horror titles were for older kids because they were very edgy in their approach to art. Like Wein/Wrightson's Frogs. It's humor and horror mixed together. Also, Joe Kubert's flack bursts also scared me because it looked so real to me. But I love Bronze Age DC comics. I finally completed my collection of Jonah Hex and the Filipino were so good they could make Dick Ayers' art convincing. You could taste the dust. I may do an episode on Jonah Hex.
So many great reasons to pick these up, especially love the Tom Sutton art and the Conan try out from Barry.
Marvel's refusal to break from their house style and making everything a superhero comic in drag dogged them all the way into the 90s, resulting in them releasing stuff like the Midnight Sons line and Sleepwalker while DC was conquering bookshelves with Vertigo.
Well said.
I had no idea. The covers and titles look like DC comics with a Marvel box slapped on.
Big time.
I always saw these as a product of their time. The 70s had an interesting resurgence of classic horror tropes. It died out and got replaced by the slashers. The universal monsters never really regained that edge. Anyone that is about 15 years (and above) older than me, love this type of comic. But its a real hard sell for my generation (X/millennial). We want Jason and Freddy, not some stuffy looking Dracula. For transparency, I adore The Tomb of Dracula but it took until my 40s to eventually appreciate it.
As kids, we would laugh at this Marvel "horror" gimmick, calling these comics "new covers, old reprints."
I usually preferred the older stories. I didn't think of their age as a detriment. When Mad would publish teh 1950s stuff it was plain too see the stuff was better drawn.
Great bunch of books. I have only a few of those mags. Love those 70s horror books when some great talent was new. I recently did an episode on a book reprinting those Wood fantasy stories. Great work but doesn't fit the horror genre very well.
That Tower of Shadows cover at 14:18 - "I created the Demon that stalks Hollywood"... _Finally_ - we learn who's resposible for the Monster that is -- *Harvey Weinstein!*
Also... The ad. at 13:58; I always did wonder where those 'hoodlums' in 1970's street gangs (and, of course, biker gangs) got those Wermacht WWII 'Coal Scuttle' helmets... I mean, yeah, I'm sure a lot of them pinched their grandfather's Normandy souvenirs/trophies, but that couldn't have accounted for _all_ of them, could it?! Turns out all the time they were ( _Koff!_ ) 'Surfing' - _Surfing(?!!)_ 🤨🧐 helmets! (Reproductions, presumably..?)
HA! Love it!!!
I really like the Marvel 1970s horror comics more than the DC horror, most of the Marvel titles was reprints of comics from the 1950s and early 1960s but my favorites from these are the Kirby monsters reprints. Great video 👍
I LOVE 70's Marvels.
They didn't fail...they just didn't sell enough copies. 😏
Hey, Drew. I knew your name is familiar in the comic industry. Welcome to RUclips.
Thanks you 😀
Pull-out some of your work Drew. Show us the comics you were in. That would be cool.
I'll have to think it over Mostly because my topics have been about legendary creators and didn't want to equate my stuff with them. It might be too self-serving. But thanks for your kind words :)
If you won't serve yourself, who will?
@@docsavage8640 Good point :)
I finally got around to doing an episode of my books! ruclips.net/video/lTo9g4YvmYA/видео.html
well while the 70s marvel horror comics were OK, I loved the DC ones more. The Bernie Wrightson covers on House of mystery, secrets, witching hour etc. was a big sell for me. As for Marvel horor like the later 80s Marvel efforts like Bizarre adventures, Epic Magazine and Hellraiser anthology.
You got it - DC was the master of horror comics because they didn't write them nor draw them like superheroes
@@drewgeraci8434 also in the 70s my other horror fave was Warren comics with Eerie and Creepy. with those eye catching Frazetta, Corben, Vallejo and Ken Kelly. again was really a great sell. Also very excellent stories, my particular favorite was the Eerie with a particular serial called Night of the Jackass. alternate history what if Victorian london experienced a Jekyl hyde drug epidemic. the art and writing was really ahead of the competition by leaps and bounds.
@@johnwalsh4857Since I've pretty much caught up on the Marvel Comics I want, I've been getting the Eerie and Creepy. I've learned that the best place to find them is at comic conventions.
Makes sense now why 1st Guardians of the Galaxy art was just oh, so bad!
Fantagraphics is republishing the late 60s Marvel horror comics under the Lost Marvel label.
15 cents a comic was a long time ago,
i liked the video,.....
precode horror guy myself.....
The Comics code Authority killed off Horror as far as comics is concerned!!! The magazine format by contrast did a whole lot better!!! The reason for the formation of the code was because of the graphic content of the Horror comics of the 1940s & 50s in the first place!!! The complaints about them were just like the complaints about video games today!!! Thus driving them to be sold as adult books!!!!🤔🤔🤔
@randolphdixon891 100% true. And it was hard to sell horror comics that are tamed by the CCA.
Well I read that the CCA relaxed their standards in the early 70s, which led to titles like "Werewolf at Night" and "Tomb of Dracula".
Hi do you know the story of the scam artist that pretended to have lost his legs and eye who lived near some train tracks? There was also one about a guy who had a rat tail who went on a date with a lady that had a cat tail. She ate him in the end.
I don't recall either of them. My uninformed guess would be that those were DC stories. Even Marvel's 'horror' books were somewhat tame and DC really created some nasty horror stories that get under your nails. Wish I could've helped
@@drewgeraci8434 Oh that's ok you probably come from a different time cause you look younger than me
@@homelesshannah50 You already made my day! I'm in my mid-50s
@@drewgeraci8434 Oh snap!