What's behind that door? Readers wanted to know when they grabbed up copies of the first issue of ADVENTURES INTO THE UNKNOWN off the stands in the Fall of 1948. It took almost two years after Avon published their one-shot EERIE COMICS for another full-blown horror comic to appear and it arrived in fine style; ADVENTURES INTO THE UNKNOWN was the first all-new, all-horror comic published on a regular basis.
ACG Comics was founded by Benjamin W. Sangor in 1943. After supplying his son-in-law Ned Pines with animation cartoonists to work part-time for his own comic book company, he tried his hand at the business by forming the Sangor Shop. The first ACG books were funny animal titles published under the Creston imprint. Fred Iger, part owner of National Periodical publications bought a slice of Sangor's company in 1946, then the rest of it in 1953. Harry Donenfeld, who had published the first Superman and Batman comics bought it from Iger and owned it until 1967 when it ceased publishing.
During the Golden Age of comics in the 1940s, Richard E. Hughes co-created a few superheroes for Pines, including The Black Terror and Fighting Yank. In 1944, he became the business manager for ACG and remained there until the company closed in 1967. During that time he edited the full 147 issues of ADVENTURES INTO THE UNKNOWN, as well as writing many of the scripts.
Hughes' editorial policy did not allow for the gory and gruesome nature that horror comics were known for during the pre-Code era and as a result ACG escaped much of the wrath from the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency in early 1954 and the draconic rules of the Comics Code Authority ratified later in the same year. He retired from the comics industry in the 1960's (likely when ACG folded) and ended his days writing replies to customer complaints for Gimbel's Department Store in New York.
NOTE Ads have been removed from this scan.
ADVENTURES INTO THE UNKNOWN
Vol. 1 No. 1
Fall 1948
B. & I. Publishing Co., Inc. (American Comics Group [ACG])
Editor: Richard E. Hughes
Cover: Ed Moritz
Pages: 52
Cover price: 10 cents
CONTENTS
"The Werewolf Stalks"
Script: Frank Belknap Long
Art: Ed Moritz
"The Living Ghost"
Script: Frank Belknap Long
Art: Fred Guardineer
"Strange Spirits: Voodoo"
Script: ?
Art: King Ward
"It Walked By Night"
Script: Frank Belknap Long
Art: Max Elkan
"The Cursed Pistol"
Script: ?
Art: Ed Moritz
"The Castle of Otranto"
Script: Frank Belknap Long adaptation of Horace Walpole novel
Art: Allen Ulmer
"True Ghosts of History: The Vengeful Specter of Lord Tyrone"
Script: ?
Art: Ed Moritz
"Haunted House"
Script: Frank Belknap Long
Art: King Ward
That's a remarkable cover. I wonder if Joe Orlando was inspired in any way by this one for the classic House of Mystery cover which marked that comics turn toward ghostly terror years later. Admittedly Joe's a bit more on the nose.
ReplyDeleteHard to say since the haunted house scene became a bit of a trope.
ReplyDelete