(Continued from Poe 1969, Pt. 14)
CHAMBER OF DARKNESS 2
"THE DAY OF THE RED DEATH"
Marvel Comics (at times in its early history sometimes referred to as Timely or Atlas)
was always a 2nd-level publisher-- somewhere in the middle as far as
quality was concerned-- whose specialty was flooding the market with
imitations of whatever was then currently popular.
For about a decade their massive output was stifled after their publisher Martin Goodman
had foolishly allowed his accountant to con him into shutting down his
own distribution company to sign with someone else, who his accountant
was probably getting kickbacks from. Too bad he didn't realize his new
distributor was under investigation by the Feds for racketeering
charges, and within months was shut down, taking Goodman's comics with them! He was only able to keep going by signing with yet another outfit-- who was owned by National (later DC), who limited his monthly output. This went on until he SOLD his company to Perfect Film, who quickly moved his operation to another distributor. Before long, Marvel's
output increased dramatically. Sales were going down across the board,
but by putting out MORE and MORE product, he was apparently able to
make up the losses.
One of the genres Marvel had long specialized in was horror. This had been mostly eliminated in the 60s in favor of superheroes, but when they started losing sales, other genres were looked into again. In late 1969, 2 new anthologies debuted-- TOWER OF SHADOWS and CHAMBER OF DARKNESS. It became obvious to me that Goodman liked doing 2 bi-monthlies instead of 1
monthly, as not only did each book sit on the newsstands a full month
longer before being returned, but it also took up twice as much
shelf-space, thus squeezing out his competitors.
Despite the MOUNTAIN of horror books Marvel published at the height of the early-70s horror boom, strangely enough, I've only been able to locate 3 POE adaptations from that period. Which brings us to...
"THE DAY OF THE RED DEATH".
This was the 8th comics version of this story, following...
Marvel's ADVENTURES INTO WEIRD WORLDS #4 (Spring'52),
Charlton's THE THING #2 (Apr'52),
Continental's CLASSICOS DE TERROR #9 (1960),
Marvel's STRANGE TALES #83 (Apr'61),
Dell's THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH Movie Classic (Aug-Oct'64),
Warren's EERIE #12 (Nov'67), and
Taika's ALBUM CLASSICOS DE TERROR #3 (1967)
...the last one about 2 years earlier.
The art was by veteran Don Heck, perhaps most famous for the early run of Iron Man in TALES OF SUSPENSE.
Although his style fell out of favor late in his career as far as
super-heroes went, in his early years he was revered for his work in
various genres, including crime, westerns, romance, and... HORROR!
Perhaps to set this one apart from the previous adaptations (especially the excellent Tom Sutton version only 17 months earlier), adapter Roy Thomas
elected to set the story decades in the future, at a time when the
entire world was wracked by plague, and only the corrupt super-rich
could afford "safety".
To my astonishment, I found this EXACT same idea was reused 6 years later,
as an episode of The CBS Radio Mystery Theater!!!
In what appears to have been a last-minute change and butcher-job
paste-over, the regular "host" of the magazine was removed and replaced
by 2 images of the company's Editor-- with Thomas'
dialogue done in the style said Editor was known for. However, for
ETHICAL reasons, I have SURGICALLY REMOVED those images along with the
connected dialogue, and REPLACED them with one of MY OWN characters, Professor Willard Wier. Apart from being the leader of a team of crime-fighting monsters, he's proven here to be a good horror host as well. Since 1975,
he's consistently been one of my favorite and most fun characters to
write. (The credits have been modified as well to reflect the changes.)
The cover is listed at the GCD as by John Romita. I suppose... Most of Marvel's art from this period had a far-too-"generic" look to it anyway. At least there's NO mistaking Don Heck's work for anyone else's! This is possibly my favorite story from him during this entire period.
This page was originally set up on January 9, 2015. Initially, I found scans of this story at the Random Happenstance blog, as well as photos (not scans) supplied by Mike Cannon, Jr. However, in June 2016, fan Pete Doree set up much-better scans at The Bronze Age Of Blogs, which I ran across on 10-23-2016. And so, here I am on 3-17-2018,
setting up a NEW page to replace the old one. It's a lot of work, but
trust me, it makes it much easier to do future fix-ups if these pages
are set up in chronological order.
This was originally posted on Saturday, March 17, 2018. For the sake of organization, it has been moved to this new location on 1-10-2021.
CHAMBER OF DARKNESS 2
cover by JOHN ROMITA (Marvel / December 1969)
(inspired by "The Masque Of The Red Death") / Version 8
Adaptation by Roy Thomas / Art by DON HECK
Revised art, text & lettering by HENRY KUJAWA / Page 15
Page 16
Page 17
Page 18
Page 19
Page 20
Page 21
The reprints...
EL ENTERRADOR 4
cover by JOHN ROMITA (La Prensa / Mexico / April 1970)
Both TOS and COD began featuring reprints only a few issues into their run, always a bad sign and an indication of just how cheap the publisher really was. The story was reprinted in an Annual just 3 years after it originally appeared.
CHAMBER OF DARKNESS SPECIAL 1
Cover by JOHN ROMITA (Marvel / January 1972)
Revised art, text & lettering Copyright (C) 2014 HENRY KUJAWA.
Professor Willard Wier is a Trademark of HENRY KUJAWA.
Scans of CHAMBER OF DARKNESS #2 cover
and CHAMBER OF DARKNESS SPECIAL #1 cover
from the Heritage Auctions site.
Scan of CHAMBER OF DARKNESS #2 interior page 1
from the Random Happenstance blog.
Scans of CHAMBER OF DARKNESS #2 remaining interiors
supplied by Mike Cannon, Jr., and from
The Bronze Age Of Blogs supplied by Pete Doree, with special thanks!
Scan of EL ENTERRADOR #4 from the Bartolomeu40 blog.
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 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!
Read 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!
See the CHRONOLOGICAL list of Edgar Allan Poe stories!
See the ALPHABETICAL list of Edgar Allan Poe stories!
(Continued in Poe 1969, Pt. 16)
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