Today's post is a lesson on how to ruin perfectly good Matt Baker art. As a horror comics fan, you're no doubt well aware that the infamous trio of Carl Burgos (editor), Irving Fass (art director and brother of Myron) and Ezra Jackson (art editor) at the equally-infamous offices of Eerie Publications were known for doctoring up their story reprints and changing the titles to make them more grisly and "horrifying" than the originals. Let's take a closer look on just how they maimed and mangled Baker's art to suit their magazine.
The story in question was originally published by the Universal Phoenix Features Syndicate in SEVEN SEAS COMICS #2 (July 1946) and was the second of the Baker-illustrated series of South Sea Girl stories scripted by Manning Lee Stokes. It bears no title except for the character's name (Alani in the story). Baker's signature is plainly visible on the bottom right of the splash panel.
With issue #3, SEVEN SEAS COMICS was printed without any publisher information. It was edited by Jerry Iger and Ruth Roche, who became a business associate of Iger's. A woman who held a high position during the Golden Age of comics, she is credited with writing scripts for SHEENA, QUEEN OF THE JUNGLE, PHANTOM LADY, SENORITA RIO, KAANGA and FLAMINGO, a newspaper strip with a female lead character, again illustrated for a time by Matt Baker.
The indicia for issue #4 lists the publisher as Leader Enterprises Inc. and Iger and Roche were still listed as editors. The final two issues have neither a publisher name or an imprint and Iger and Roche had dropped off the list as editors with no replacements mentioned. Since many of the recurring series, writers and artists still had work in these issues, it is likely that it was continuing to be created out of the Iger Shop and possibly backed by another company that footed the bill for printing.
In July 1952 the aforementioned South Sea Girl story in issue #2 was reprinted with modifications in Farrell's VOODOO #2. Robert W. Farrell was an attorney who founded his own comics line in 1951, financed by Excellent Publications (another one of his companies) and included imprints such as Ajax-Farrell, America's Best and Red Top Comics. Previous to this, he wrote the SCORCHY SMITH newspaper strip, as well as writing many scripts for the Iger Shop. It was because of his association with Iger that he likely ended up using Iger reprints for his own comics.
It's easy to see the edits that were made: the story title, "Horror in the Hills" is added to the splash panel; Alani's name is changed to El'nee; the colors are different, including the native girls' skin tone which is changed from light to dark and there are minor ink-line embellishments, as well as background variations. In addition, Alani's two-piece outfit -- for some unknown reason -- is changed into a one-piece dress. Luckily, outside of inking over his signature, there is little here to detract from Baker's original art. It will be almost 20 years later that we see the true tragedy of this beautiful artwork manipulated into something truly ugly.
Fass & Co. appropriated the Baker SEVEN SEAS/VOODOO story and make it into another one of their hideously-mutated entries in TALES FROM THE TOMB #6 (July 1969). First, the title is changed to the Eerie Publications-appropriate "He Rose from the Grave". Next, they broke out what must have been a gallon of India Ink and proceeded to splash on plenty enough to reproduce "better" in black and white. Much of Baker's fine detail is removed and replaced with blobs of black, shading and cross-hatching. Burgos, or whoever doctored this up makes the beast-man's face more into a disfigured monster instead of a prehistoric man, which is how he is described in the other two versions. I could go on, but the bottom line is, while I can understand they radically changed the art in order to make it clearer for black and white printing, it's still a disgrace to a masterful illustrator like the one-and-only Matt Baker.
For better viewing, click on the images to expand.
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