STARTLING L.B. COLE COVERS

Star Publications, Inc. was founded by artist L.B. Cole and attorney Gerhard Kramer in 1949 and lasted until 1954 after Fredric Wertham included a number of their titles in his book, "Seduction of the Innocent" which became instrumental during the United States Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency hearings held in April of that year.

The imprint specialized in crime, horror, romance and funny animal titles. Italian illustrator Bruno Premiani was the primary editor, with additional editing by Cole. Premiani would go on to co-create the Doom Patrol and Teen Titans for DC. Some of the artists that contributed work to Star were Frank Frazetta, Joe Kubert, Alvin Hollingsworth and Wallace Wood.

STARTLING TERROR TALES was published from 1952-1954. L.B. Cole drew the covers for the 13-issue run in varying styles. His most remarkable are the ones he created with bright, lurid covers and, along with the electrically-charged titling must have really made these jump off the stands.

THE HORRIBLE ENTITY

A lot of discussion about pre-Code horror comics focuses on EC (of course) and other publishers who had the talents of artists such as Lee Elias, Warren Kremer, Bob Powell, Bernard Baily and others illustrating outrageous covers and stories for them. But one artist seems to often elude those praised for their work: Jay Disbrow.

Disbrow concocted some of the most vile and hideous monsters in the pages of Star Comics' STARTLING TERROR TALES. This story appeared in their second time around with the title (Vol. 1, No. 10, August 1954) with a cover by L.B. Cole. 

In this story, a mysterious fluid morphs into something both terrifying and deadly. "Finally, it resolved itself into a horrible entity of titanic proportions, with rippling tentacles, and an extremely grotesque head protruding from its enormous mass"!

See more Jay Disbrow monstrosities HERE.

YOU CAN'T JUDGE A HORROR COMIC BY ITS COVER!

After reports that EC Comic's horror titles were becoming profitable, numerous publishers were tip-toeing their way into the field, reluctant to go all in for an as-yet, largely untested new subject. As a result they used an interesting, but misleading "bait-and-switch" tactic.

A number of publishers mimicked EC's strategy of introducing horror stories into their crime titles (CRIME PATROL and WAR AGAINST CRIME), as well as swiping cover design ideas.. Thematically, it seemed like a fairly good fit and it was a cautious way of finding out how readers would react.

There was one problem with that: the cover images were as far as they went -- the interiors were still comprised of the usual crime stories that they had been using all along.

Shown here are a few examples some of the other publishers who experimented (such as it was) to test the blood-filled waters.

This is not an exactly a horror story, but it is definitely a weird tale (STARTLING TERROR TALES #13, art by Jay Disbrow).

Perhaps the most blatant come-on of all was Hillman's MONSTER CRIME, cover-dated October 1952. Behind the cover of the 52-page, 15-cent book were nothing more than crime stories from their overstocked inventory. The closet thing to horror was one story's title, "Another Hallowe'en".