YOU'RE INSANE!

Lust, murder, revenge and yes, hallucinations and insanity -- it's all here in this chillingly weird issue of WEIRD CHILLS #1 (Stanley Morse/Key Publications, July 1954) with a cover by Bernard Baily and a story by the equally twisted Basil Wolverton.

Script: ?

Art: Eugene Hughes

Script: Bruce Hamilton

Art: Sal Trapani

Script: ?

Art: Sal Trapani?

Script: Basil Wolverton?

Art: Basil Wolverton?

Script: ?

Art: Eugene Hughes?

EARLY FRAZETTA AND A DISEMBODIED HAND!

Horror comics fans will know the name Bernard Baily (April 5, 1916 – January 19, 1996) from his outrageous covers for titles such as Stanley Morse's MISTER MYSTERY.

Bailey began his comics career with Jerry Iger, who teamed up with Will Eisner and created the Eisner & Iger Studio. He also worked for National/DC and co-created The Spectre and Hourman.

In 1943, he founded Baily Publishing Company with fellow artist Mac "Capt. Marvel Jr." Raboy. Together they produced comics for several imprints such as Rural Home Publishing's Croyden and and Holyoke Publications.

His creative staff was a kind of revolving door affair. Some of the artists that came and went were Carmine Infantino, Gil Kane, Dick Briefer and Nina Albright, one of the few women working in comics during the Golden Age.

One of the more esoteric titles to come out of his studio was TALLY-HO COMICS, done for the even more obscure Swappers Quarterly in December 1944. The story, "Snowman" is generally recognized as Frank Frazetta's first comic book work. It is said that John Giunta let the 15-year-old Frazetta pencil a few things on his story -- what exactly they were is up for speculation, including the previous credit he received for inking.

The story from the issue shown here today is a bit of an odd, early crime/horror story featuring a character named "The Man In Black". There have been a few so-named throughout the years, but this particular character could have been inspired by Baily's The Spectre, introduced a few years before. What makes this story ultra-creepy is the disembodied (and bloody) hand that crawls across the panels.

The cover is by John Giunta. The scriptwriter and artist(s) are unknown, but I suspect Baily himself might have had a . . . uh, "hand" in it!

THIS MAGAZINE IS HAUNTED NO. 1 (FAWCETT)

"I am Doctor Death! And through my eyes you shall see horror that defines comprehension!" And so begins the introduction to the first issue of Fawcett's interestingly-titled THIS MAGAZINE IS HAUNTED.

With superhero comics on the wane, artist Sheldon Moldoff saw the writing on the wall and began soliciting publishers for his ideas for horror comics. In an article for Roy Thomas' ALTER EGO #3 (TwoMorrows, Spring 2000), he explained: "I had shown This Magazine Is Haunted and Tales of the Supernatural to Will Lieberson [of Fawcett Comics] before I showed them to Bill Gaines, because I trusted Will Lieberson much more. He showed it to the big guys at Fawcett, and he said, 'Shelly, Fawcett doesn't want to get into horror now; they don't want to touch that'". Moldoff then took his package proposal to Bill Gaines who accepted it and had Moldoff sign a contract to seal the deal. Moldoff's worst fear was realized when Gaines soon retracted his offer and EC's lawyer, Dave Alterbaum, threatened to blacklist Moldoff if he brought suit against EC.

Not to be denied, he took his comics package back to Fawcett. He recalled: "Will Lieberson said, 'Let me bring it back to Fawcett again, and see if they'll take the title'. And so they did; they took This Magazine Is Haunted and Worlds of Fear and then Strange Suspense Stories. What they did was pay me $100 for the title, and give me as much work as I wanted, and I also did the covers." It is not known if opting for this agreement ended up paying better than his original proposal for royalties.

Perhaps as payback against Gaines, Moldoff created the character Doctor Death, who hosted each story in THIS MAGAZINE IS HAUNTED, much like The Old Witch and the other Ghoulunatics at EC.

Besides Moldoff's cover and story, this issue features art by George Evans who was just a few months away from his first work for EC (one wonders what Moldoff thought about that!). Bernard Baily, who created some of the most notorious covers of the Pre-Code era also has a story. Of further note is Charlotte Jetter's lettering for the story "Stand In For Death". At the time Jetter was married to Fawcett art editor Al Jetter. She had a long career and worked for a number of publishers including Marvel, DC, Charlton, Atlas/Seaboard and Warren.

THIS MAGAZINE IS HAUNTED ran for 14 issues, with cover dates from October 1951 until December 1963, at which time -- as a result of the restrictions caused by the Comics Code Authority -- exited the horror comics business and sold the title to Charlton, who ran it for seven more issues in 1954 without the CCA seal of approval.

THIS MAGAZINE IS HAUNTED

Vol. 1 No. 1

October 1951

Fawcett Publications Inc.

Executive Editor: Will Lieberson

Editor: Roy Ald

Art Editor: Al Jetter

Cover: Sheldon Moldoff

Pages: 36

Cover price: 10 cents

CONTENTS

"The Curse of Carnoc Castle"

Script: ?

Art: George Evans

"Stand In For Death"

Script: ?

Art: Bernard Baily

"The Coffin Maker!"

Script: ?

Art: Sheldon Moldoff