After acquiring characters and art from Novelty Press, Golden Age great L.B. Cole formed a partnership with publisher Gerhard Kramer they called Star Publications, Inc. with the imprint Star Comics. Their first title was BLUE BOLT, a superhero comic. When horror began to get popular, Cole threw his hat in the ring and changed the name to BLUE BOLT WEIRD TALES OF TERROR with issue #111, then to BLUE BOLT WEIRD TALES. Again the title changed to GHOSTLY WEIRD STORIES, which took over the numbering from BLUE BOLT WEIRD TALES with issue #120. It lasted for five quarterly issues until it was lights out in late 1954.
This issue belongs to Jay Disbrow, who wrote and illustrated all the stories except for one. Disbrow had a way with drawing some crazy-looking monsters and his various creatures are the highlights of his Pre-Code horror stories.
Jayson "Jay" Disbrow studied commercial art and illustration from the Famous Artists School. The "school" was a correspondence program formed in New York in 1948 that was well-known for it's "We're Looking for People Who Like To Draw" one-page ads seen ubiquitously in comic books after adding a cartooning course. He cited Alex Raymond, Hal Foster, Burne Hogarth and Edgar Rice Burroughs' stories as his inspirations. He worked for the Iger Shop as an inker for Fiction House titles and freelanced for Cole for Star Comics.
While this issue isn't necessarily as violent or gory as a number of other Pre-Code horror comics, it was nevertheless called out by Dr. Fredric Wertham in his inflammatory book, "Seduction of the Innocent".
GHOSTLY WEIRD STORIES
No. 120 (no Volume indicated)
September 1953
Star Publications Inc. (Star Comics)
Editor: L.B. Cole
Cover: L.B. Cole
Pagers: 36
Cover price: 10 cents
CONTENTS
"Night-Monster"
Script: Jay Disbrow
Art: Jay Disbrow
"The Mummy's Hand" (one-page story)
Script: Jay Disbrow
Art: Jay Disbrow (as Jayson)
"Ghostly Idol" (reprinted from Jo-Jo Comics #22 (Fox, December 1948)
Script: ?
Art: Bob Webb (and others, possibly Matt Baker)
"The Vengeful Phantom" (one-page story)
Script: Jay Disbrow
Art: Jay Disbrow
"The Djinni of Bazra" (one-page story)
Script: Jay Disbrow
Art: Jay Disbrow
"The Garden of Horror"
Script: Jay Disbrow?
Art: Lee Loeb
I've always liked Jay Disbrow's work. It was at once archaic and sleek. His sci-fi was retro, but fascinating.
ReplyDeleteI find Disbrow's art during this period to be somewhat anachronistic (in a good way!) and visually could have easily been seen in 40's comics. Still, the style suitably fits with the horror comics of the 50's.
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