"Four Color Fear: Forgotten Horror Comics of the 1950s" (Fantagraphics, $30) is a new collection of off-brand (and probably public domain) comics from before the Comics Code of 1954 (which effectively neutralized the horror genre and infantilized the medium). The book will be intoxicating to comics fans and just a hoot for casual readers.
I suspect that most horror comics were pretty bad even before the code -- bad in the quality sense, not the gory sense. But you wouldn't know it by this book, which contains the crème de la blood from the wacky, unrestrained Halloween party that was precode horror comics. Editor Greg Sadowski assembles many famous names: Jack Cole (Plastic Man), Joe Kubert (Sgt. Rock), Basil Wolverton (Lena the Hyena), artists who later became famous at the legendary EC Comics (Reed Crandall, George Evans, Al Williamson) and guys who were good at aping EC Comics (Sid Jacobson, Howard Nostrand).
You won't see any stories from EC, nor will you see any from Timely/Atlas (later Marvel Comics) or anything by the unique Steve Ditko. Even so, I'm impressed with Sadowski's academic thoroughness, as he acknowledges their omission, explains why and then points to where they can be found.
My only complaint is that Sadowski's copious notes are collected in the back instead of packaged with each story, forcing a lot of flipping back and forth. Still, the notes aren't always about a specific story, but instead are often general information or quotes from 1950s artists. That should be welcome to fans and historians, because so little has been written about non-EC, non-Atlas, non-Ditko 1950s comics.
Meanwhile, Dark Horse's series collecting Warren Publishing's Eerie magazine is up to Vol. 4 ($50), reprinting issues from the late 1960s, when Warren's books were at their weakest. The art and stories are mostly by second-raters. But the editing is what annoys this ink-stained wretch the most, as it became simply atrocious after Archie Goodwin quit as editor around 1966.
Moving to the modern day, the first episode of AMC's adaptation of Image Comics' "The Walking Dead" Oct. 31 was top flight. I have high hopes for it. The same is true for Image Comics, which will reprint the original series as "The Walking Dead Weekly," with an issue each Wednesday for $3 beginning Jan. 5.
