Poe 1970, Pt. 1

 (Continued from Poe 1969, Pt. 17)

CHAMBER OF DARKNESS  3
"THE TELL TALE 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 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 publisher Martin 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.

Which brings us to...

     "THE TELL TALE HEART".

     This was the 10th 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), and
Gino Sansoni's I CLASSICI A FUMETTI #17 (Sep'69)
     ...the last 5 months earlier.

Unusual for this period, artist Tom Palmer was listed in the credits before writer Denny O'Neil-- which suggests that in this case, Palmer wrote the adaptation as well as doing full art, while O'Neil merely filled in the dialogue after-the-fact.  Mind you, this sort of thing had been going on at Marvel all through the 60s-- but you'd never guess from the posted credits (which, of course, reflected who got paid what).

Tom Palmer made his debut doing pencils on DR. STRANGE, but after a single episode, switched to inks, which he did for the rest of his career.  So it's interesting to see a rare example of him doing pencils.

The strangest observation I have to make about this adaptation is, not only does it make the murderer even more unlikable than he was in the original story, but also makes the murder VICTIM totally unlikable as well.  In addition, between the art and the dialogue, I'd almost swear it was the work of Neal Adams & Roy Thomas, rather than Tom Palmer & Denny O'Neil. (In either case, do they HAVE to put the "editor"'s name FIRST?  Nobody else ever does that!!!  Sheesh.)

This was originally posted on Tuesday, January 13, 2015.  For the sake of organization, it has been moved to this new location on 16-1-2022.

CHAMBER OF DARKNESS  3
cover by John Buscema & John Verpoorten   (Marvel  /  February 1970)

"THE TELL TALE HEART"  /  Version 10
Adaptation & Artwork by TOM PALMER  /  Dialogue by Denny O'Neil  /  Page 8

Page 9

Page 10

Page 11

Page 12

Page 13

Page 14

REPRINTS:

EL ENTERRADOR  7
cover by John Buscema & John Verpoorten  
     (La Prensa  /  Mexico  /  July 31, 1970)

Here's a very odd place the story was reprinted, from a French-Canadian publisher, under the translated title of "Le Coeur Indiscret!".

L'INCROYABLE HULK  37
cover by HERB TRIMPE
     (Editions Heritage  /  Canada  /  [Aout] / [August] 1974)

Copyright (C) Marvel Comics.

Scan of CHAMBER OF DARKNESS #3 from the Heritage Auctions site.
Scans of CHAMBER OF DARKNESS #2 interiors from
     the Diversions Of The Groovy Kind blog.
Scan of EL ENTERRADOR #7 from the Tebeosfera site
     with special thanks to Jesús Piernas
     and Jaime Alberto Torres at the International House Of Horrors FB group.
Scans of L'Incroyable Hulk #37 from the GCD 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!
     (coming soon)
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!
     (coming soon)

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!   
     (coming soon)
Read the Steve Bissette / Rich Veich TELL-TALE HEART parody!
     (coming soon)
Read the Jesus Blasco TELL-TALE HEART adaptation!

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

(Continued in Poe 1971, Pt. 1)