Thursday, December 25, 2014

Poe 1967, Pt. 2

(Continued from Poe 1967, Pt. 1)

EERIE  12
"THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH"
     (IN COLOR)

The real "golden age" of POE comics continues!

Warren, in late 1967, ran into some financial difficulties.  While Forry Ackerman's baby "FAMOUS MONSTERS" plowed on with no noticable drop in quality (that would come in the period following Boris Karloff's death), both CREEPY and EERIE lost most of their top talent, as well as their editor & top writer Archie Goodwin.  They also began having about 50% of every issue consist of reprints of material that wasn't that old to begin with.  And, as someone pointed out to me, they even began having covers appear on the wrong issues, and mis-spelled words on some of those covers.  Good grief!

As things were just beginning to go right over the edge, a real gem appeared, from one of the few NEW artists who had real talent, and must have been eager enough to work for lower page rates:  TOM SUTTON.  Several years ago, while re-reading a big chunk of my Warren collection, I was reminded that his art had apparently had a big influence on the work I did while in high school-- both in my home-made "crime" and "horror" comics.  In effect, this guy was one of my unsung heroes!

Which brings us to Warren's 5th POE adaptation:

     "THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH".

     This was the 6th comics adaptation of the story, following...
Marvel's ADVENTURES INTO WEIRD WORLDS #4 (Spring'52),  
Charlton's THE THING #2,  
Continental's CLASSICOS DE TERROR #9 (1960),  
Marvel's STRANGE TALES #83 (Apr'61), and  
Dell's Movie Classic of THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH (Aug-Oct'64),
     ...the last one some 3 years earlier.

Suffice to say, Warren's version-- by the departing Archie Goodwin & the incoming Tom Sutton-- was the most "authentic" to date.

As an aside, the cover, illustrating a scene from the 1944 movie THE MUMMY'S CURSE-- was apparently done by artist Dan Adkins to accompany a reprint of the comics adaptation of THE MUMMY'S HAND, done a few years earlier in Warren's MONSTER WORLD #2 (Jan'65).  Probably as a result of the editorial confusion going on at this time, the story appeared in CREEPY #17 (Oct'67) instead of EERIE #12 (Nov'67).  "OOPS!"  Incidentally, while Russ Jones & Joe Orlando are credited with that particular movie adaptation, I've read the art was actually done by Dan Adkins, uncredited, in his most "Wally Wood"-like mode.

As it happens, this was the very 1st Poe story I decided to add COLOR to.
I guess this just shows how much I enjoy Tom Sutton's work for Warren from this period.  Since he used intricate B&W line rendering for shading, not graytones, I figured this would actually work quite well.  The trick is to use mostly solid, "flat" colors, as well as faded-out pastels, to not get in the way of all that gorgeous linework.

When I initially set this up (on 12-25-2014), I posted both the B&W and COLOR versions, but I just don't do that sort of thing anymore.  (This page modified on 4-25-2019.)

ENJOY!

EERIE  12
cover by DAN ADKINS   (Warren  /  November 1967)
"THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH"  /  Version 6
Adaptation by Archie Goodwin  /  Art by TOM SUTTON  /
COLOR by Henry Kujawa
Page 3
Page 4
Page 5
Page 6
Page 7
REPRINTS:

You might think with all the reprints in the regular issues from late 1967-70, they wouldn't need an ALL-reprint "Annual".  THINK AGAIN!

EERIE  1970 YEARBOOK
Cover by Frank Frazetta   (Warren  /  1969)
Production Dept. composite of the covers of EERIE #2, 3, 5 & 7.
Like many American publishers, Warren stories were reprinted by a wide
variety of publishers overseas, usually in a jumbled, chaotic, haphazard way.  Ibero Mundial de ediciones in Spain was one of those publishers...

VAMPUS  12
cover by SANJULIAN   (Ibero Mundial de ediciones  /  Spain  /  1972)
Semic in Finland was another one...

SHOKKI  13
cover by R. CONWAY   (Semic  /  Finland  /  [December] 1974) 
"PUNAINEN KUOLEMA"   
("THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH"  /  Version 4)
VAMPI-COMIC  13
cover by ENRICH TORRES   (Paben Verlag  /  Germany  /  1975)
I see I'm not the only one who decided to take a whack at coloring
Tom Sutton's art...

CREEPY  25
cover by KEN KELLY   (Publicness  /  France  /  1975)
EERIE ARCHIVES Volume Three
Cover by FRANK FRAZETTA   (Dark Horse  /  June 2010)
As a bonus, here's a still from THE MUMMY'S CURSE (1944),
to compare with Adkins' cover above.
Copyright (C) Warren Publishing
New color Copyright (C) 2014 by Henry R. Kujawa

Scan of EERIE #12 (1967) from the Heritage Auctions site.
Scans of EERIE #12 (1967) interiors from The Golden Age blog.
Scan of EERIE YEARBOOK (1969) from the Heritage Auctions site.
Scan of VAMPUS #12 (1972) from the  Necronomicon Delostemplarios site.
Scans of SHOKKI #13 (1974) from the Muuta.Net site.
Scans of VAMPI-COMIC #13 (1975) supplied by Ernie Laczo
     with special thanks!
Scan of CREEPY #25 (France / 1975) from eBay.
Scan of EERIE ARCHIVES Volume Three (2010) from the GCD site.
Scan of THE MUMMY'S CURSE photo from the Hollywood Metal site.

Restorations by Henry R. Kujawa

For more:
Read about Edgar Allan Poe at The Poe Museum site.
Read about Edgar Allan Poe at the Biography site.


Read about Tom Sutton at Lambiek Comiclopedia.
Read the Tom Sutton interview at The Comics Journal.

Read about THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH at the Spark Notes site.
Read about THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH at the Crime Reads site.
Read about THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH at the Slate site.

Read the complete story at the Poe Stories site.
See the RED DEATH Gallery of Illustrations.

     Audio:
Hear the Basil Rathbone recording!
Hear the CBS RADIO MYSTERY THEATER episode!

     Comics:
Read the Bill Everett RED DEATH adaptation!
Read the Bob Forgione RED DEATH adaptation!
Read the Manoel Ferreira RED DEATH adaptation!
Read the Steve Ditko RED DEATH adaptation!
Read the Frank Springer RED DEATH adaptation!
 

Read the Tom Sutton RED DEATH adaptation!
Read the Nico Rosso RED DEATH adaptation!
Read the Don Heck RED DEATH adaptation!
R
ead the Robert Inwood RED DEATH illustrated story!
Read the Dino Battaglia RED DEATH adaptation!   (coming soon!)

Read the Miguel Calatayud RED DEATH adaptation!   (coming soon!)
Read the Ricardo Villamonte RED DEATH adaptation!
Read the Richard Corben RED DEATH adaptation!
Read the Wayne Howard RED DEATH adaptation!   (coming soon!)
Read the Esteban Maroto RED DEATH adaptation!   (coming soon!)

Read the Francisco Agras RED DEATH adaptation!   (coming soon!)
Read the Flavio Colin RED DEATH adaptation!
      (Coming soon:)
Read the John Lawn RED DEATH illustrated story!
Read the Auraleon RED DEATH adaptation!
Read the Enrique Alcatena RED DEATH illustrated story!

Read the Phillipe Cazaumayou RED DEATH adaptation!
Read the Alfonso Martinez RED DEATH adaptation!
Read the A.L. Pareja RED DEATH adaptation!
Read the Alberto Breccia RED DEATH adaptation!
Read the Daryl Hutchinson RED DEATH adaptation!

Read the Steve Leialoha RED DEATH adaptation!
Read the Eric Stanway RED DEATH adaptation!
Read the Ted Naifeh RED DEATH adaptation!
Read the Horacio Lalia RED DEATH adaptation!
Read the Gris Grimly RED DEATH illustrated story!

Read the Stanley Shaw RED DEATH adaptation!
Read the Erik Rangel RED DEATH adaption!
Read the Wendy Pini RED DEATH adaptation at the Masque Musical site!
Read the Julio Azamor RED DEATH adaptation!
Read the Jean-Louis Thouard RED DEATH adaptation!

Read the Alineromero9 RED DEATH adaptation!
Read the Sabaku-No-Sarri RED DEATH adaptation!
Read the Eric Stanway RED DEATH adaptation!
Read the David G.Flores RED DEATH illustrated story!
Read the Richard Corben's 2nd RED DEATH adaptation!

Read the Turner Mark-Jacobs RED DEATH adaptation!
Read the Edu Molina RED DEATH adaptation!
Read the Terrance Lindall RED DEATH adaptation!
Read the Pete Katz RED DEATH adaptation!
Read the Gareth Hinds RED DEATH adaptation!

Read the Uka Nagao RED DEATH adaptation!

     Misc.:
Read the Tom Sutton RED DEATH adaptation!
Read the Tom Sutton HOUSE OF USHER adaptation!


See the CHRONOLOGICAL list of Edgar Allan Poe stories!
See the ALPHABETICAL list of Edgar Allan Poe stories!

(Continued in Poe 1967, Pt. 3)

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