When I was a wee lad in the Sixties I was monsterized.
While playing with my Project SWORD, Major Mat Mason, Lite Brite, Action Man and Glow Globs, my older brothers were fully immersed in the monster craze and used to read the brilliant Creepy and Eerie Comics by Warren publishing.
While playing with my Project SWORD, Major Mat Mason, Lite Brite, Action Man and Glow Globs, my older brothers were fully immersed in the monster craze and used to read the brilliant Creepy and Eerie Comics by Warren publishing.
This came into its own during the dark season starting at Halloween and peaking at Christmas, when new comics arrived as if by magic!
I was hooked!
I was hooked!
When I was old enough to go up town on Saturday I continued where they'd left off, buying back issues and new ones from a fabulous comic stall on Preston market.
But it was my Brothers' earlier copies that have stuck in my mind to this day, as the stories were so genuinely scary and the illustrations out of this world.
One such dastardly tale was Hop Frog. It was originally penned by Edgar Alan Poe and adapted for Creepy. Like the similar Cask of Amontillado [check back here tomorrow for Celtica Radio's Halloween reading of this] it scared me to death!
You can find it in full online either as Poe's grim original from 1850 or if you have Warren's Creepy comic Issue 11 check out Reed Crandall/ Archie Goodwin's comic-strip masterpiece.
Better still, get hold of an old book of Poe's works, settle in your favourite armchair and read the 'old fashioned' way in front of a roaring fire!
But be warned! Hop Frog, a classic tale of tyranny and revenge, is not for the squeamish or easily offended.
However, if like me, you like the dark matter of Sixties monster comics, Hop Frog is dripping with gothic grue and ideal for a dark night''s reading this ghostly season.
Hop Frog got another chance to shine, this time in the Roger Cormen 1964 movie masterpiece, Poe's Masque of the Red Death, in which the diminutive jester Hop Toad is superbly played by the talented Skip Martin, pictured below.
Not for the faint hearted, Masque is a tale of love, wrath and grisly revenge in the court of Prince Prospero played exquisitely by Vincent Price.
Hop Frog got another chance to shine, this time in the Roger Cormen 1964 movie masterpiece, Poe's Masque of the Red Death, in which the diminutive jester Hop Toad is superbly played by the talented Skip Martin, pictured below.
Not for the faint hearted, Masque is a tale of love, wrath and grisly revenge in the court of Prince Prospero played exquisitely by Vincent Price.
What will you be reading, watching or listening to this Halloween?
The first image above, showing Creepy's Hop-Frog, immediately spotlights the kind of detailed artwork which helped establish James Warren's magazines as firm fan faves and genre leaders. Because Creepy, Eerie and their sister, Vampirella, were magazine size publications, they were sold in magazine racks instead of alongside comics. Because of this Warren was able to sidestep the CCA and hit fans with more horror and violence than the self-censored comics of the time. Having said that, as a lad I knew them comics and I still call them comics even now.
ReplyDeleteA fine tribute to Warren's Creepy and Hop-Frog at Halloween, Woodsy. I like it :)
Yep, Creepy and Eerie were essential reading for Sixties and early seventies horror nuts like us! Warren captured the monster craze Zeitgeist perfectly like Famous Monsters did for other horror fans. I'm pleased to say that I spent some time and dosh on getting back all the Creepy's and Eeries I'd read as a kid and they wait now in a large box ready for my first day of retirement in a few years when I'll read the lot with a large glass of champers!
DeleteListen out for another Edgar Allen Poe classic tonight Tone, the Cask of Amontillado on Celtica Radio. The link will apear on the blog later tonight after a little something about vampirella!
Deletemany years ago in 1989 i played bass guitar in a heavy metal band called amnesia.. our masterpiece was "hop frog" ,a or piece.... unfortunately the tape was missing.. how many memories!!! ew
ReplyDeletefantastic EW! Its a shame there's no recording of it. We could play it here! Goblin was another well-named group and they were the house band of Dario Argento and his supernatural movies. Have you heard them?
Deleteyes,i have heard Goblin... cool and a bit disquieting ;) ew
ReplyDelete