CRAZY 7
"THE TATTLETALE HEART"
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.
One of the endless commercial successes that Marvel shamelessly ripped off was EC Comics' MAD. Orignally, they did 7 issues of a comic-book called CRAZY from December 1953-June 1954. (Oddly enough, Charlton did 2 issues of a comics called CRAZY, MAN, CRAZY between December 1955-June 1956.) Much later, Marvel revived their comic for 3 more issues from February-June 1973. And then, like MAD, they changed the format to a B&W magazine, and unlike MAD, started over the numbering-- for the 2nd time. The B&W CRAZY ran 94 issues from October 1973-April 1983.
Early in the run of that incarnation, issue #7 to be exact, they decided to do a parody of a famous Edgar Allan Poe story...
"THE TELL-TALE HEART".
This was the 14th comics version of this story, following...
Charlton's YELLOWJACKET COMICS #6 (Dec'45),
EC's THE HAUNT OF FEAR #15 [1] (May-Jun'50),
Gilberton's CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED #84 (Jun'51),
EC's SHOCK SUSPENSTORIES #8 (Apr-May'53),
EC's THE HAUNT OF FEAR #20 (Jul-Aug'53),
Charlton's WIN A PRIZE #1 (Feb'55),
Warren's CREEPY #3 (Jun'65),
Taika's ALBUM CLASSICOS DE TERROR #7 (1968),
Gino Sansoni's I CLASSICI A FUMETTI #17 (Sep'69),
Marvel's CHAMBER OF DARKNESS #3 (Feb'70),
Mundial's MAESTROS DEL TERROR #5 (1970) and
Skywald's SCREAM #8 (Aug'74)
...the last one, only 2 months earlier.
Marvel had done their "serious" version some 56 months earlier.
Fittingly-- or ironically, I can't quite make up my mind-- the art was supplied by Mike Ploog. Starting out as an assistant to Will Eisner (and spending much of his career "channeling" Eisner's art style), he had quite a reputation for horror comics, doing many stories for Warren, Marvel, and others, including runs on THE MONSTER OF FRANKENSTEIN, WEREWOLF BY NIGHT, and the Johnny Blaze flaming demon from hell motorcycle hero "Ghost Rider" (a misnomer if ever there was one).
After CHAMBER OF DARKNESS #2 ("The Day Of The Red Death"), this proved to be only the 2nd time I knew I'd have to CENSOR the material to make it acceptable for my blog. And for the exact same reason. NO, REALLY!!!
I wouldn't kid about a thing like this...
Nudity... violence... gore... perversion... all these things I can tolerate.
But SOME things I simply CANNOT allow!!!
In this case, rather than having to utilize some of my own artwork to do the "clean-up", I was able to reuse a visual joke created by Harvey Kurtzman & Jack Davis from MAD #13 (1954). Hey, I like to give credit where credit is due!
CRAZY 7
cover by NICK CARDY (Marvel Comics / October 1974)
Adaptation by Stu Schwartzberg / Art by Mike Ploog & Frank Chiaramonte
"Censored" stamps by Harvey Kurtzman & Jack Davis
(would I make up a thing like that?)
Page 39
Scan of CRAZY #7 from the GCD site.
Scans of CRAZY #7 interiors from
the Diversions Of The Groovy Kind blog.
Scan of MAD #13 page from the Lit Kicks site.
Restorations by Henry R. Kujawa
For more:
Read about Edgar Allen Poe at The Poe Museum site.
Read about THE TELL TALE HEART at Cliff Notes.
Read the complete short story at the Poe Stories site.
See the TELL-TALE HEART Gallery of Illustrations.
Audio:
Hear the Boris Karloff INNER SANCTUM MYSTERY episode!
Hear the WEIRD CIRCLE radio episode!
See the James Mason cartoon short!
Hear the Basil Rathbone recording!
See the Vincent Price performance!
Hear the Fred Gwynne CBS RADIO MYSTERY THEATER episode!
Comics:
Read the Rudy Palais TELL-TALE HEART adaptation!
Read the Johnny Craig TELL-TALE HEART adaptation!
Read the Jim Lavery TELL-TALE HEART adaptation!
Read the George Evans TELL-TALE HEART adaptation!
Read the Graham Ingels TELL-TALE HEART adaptation!
Read the Jack Kirby / Jerry Robinson TELL-TALE HEART adaptation!
Read the Reed Crandall TELL-TALE HEART adaptation!
Read the Nico Rosso TELL-TALE HEART adaptation!
Read the Gino Dauro TELL-TALE HEART adaptation!
Read the Tom Palmer TELL-TALE HEART adaptation!
Read the Francisco Blanes TELL-TALE HEART illustrated story!
Read the Rodolfo Paulus TELL-TALE HEART adaptation!
Read the Ricardo Villamonte TELL-TALE HEART adaptation!
Read the Mike Ploog TELL-TALE HEART parody!
Read the Alberto Breccia TELL-TALE HEART adaptation!
Read the Guido Del Carpio Rivera TELL-TALE HEART illustrated story!
Read the Don McGregor / Yong Montano TELL-TALE HEART adaptation!
Read the Vilmar Rodrigues TELL-TALE HEART illustrated story!
Read the Pablo Marcos TELL-TALE HEART illustrated story!
Read the Steve Bissette / Rich Veich TELL-TALE HEART parody!
Read the Jesus Blasco TELL-TALE HEART adaptation!
See my Edgar Allan Poe overview at this very blog!
(Continued in Poe 1974, Pt. 17)
