Or There's Nothing to "Fear"

In 72', the Silver Age of comics or what it would one day eventually be known as had ended. The Bronze Age started two years prior and the old guard has joined with the new. The horror comics of the fifties and sixties have long since ended but the seventies brought about a conglomerate of stories, characters, and reprints.

As time passes, memories fade and/or distort. As much emphasis I place on my New Mutants #15 as the beginning of my collection, it wasn't my first comic book, I attribute that honor to a oversized treasury edition of Star Wars, but there's a chance, however slim that my first introduction to comic books could have been a reprint compilation by Stan Lee, Larry Leiber, Don Heck, Steve Ditko, and Jack Kirby.

Fear #8 had four vignettes from both Journey into Mystery #62 and Tales of Suspense #26, these were released in November of 60' and 61' respectively. I read, reread, hidden, lost, found, read again, twisted, torn, crumbled and eventually lost again. It was decades before I found another copy. The memories resurfaced as I perused a box of comics at the Philadelphia Comic-Con. The John Severin cover rekindled enough to realize it was worth the four dollars to read a book from my past.

This was a true reader copy. The back of the board was marked (3.0), I would grade it a 4.5 and hope that one day I will be able to acquire a 9.8 copy as well as ungraded copies of the two comic books that spawned the issue. The four mini stories are "It Crawls by Night", also the book title, "Never Trust a Martian", "I Can't Escape the Creeping Things" and lastly "The Face". I still have yet to determine my favorite story.

I looked through the whole book looking for credits. The first two didn't have any. I had to check out Comicbookdb.com to get an inkling of who was credited and some of the information provided had question marks next to their names.

To begin "It Crawls by Night" was pencilled by Jack Kirby and inked by Richard Ayers. It was seven pages. The .20 cover price and June 1972 publication date are indicators I did not buy this off the rack when it was new. I'm going to pretend that years later when my Aunt noticed my Cousin's interest in girls increase while his desire for comic books waned must have been the chance to get rid of them. Instead of throwing them out, I became the receptacle for their destruction rather than the more traditional trash can.

The questionable aspect is who in their right mind would give a reprint of horror stories dubbed Fear to a child. I would guess I was four or five when a stack of comic books were given to me and the issue was pressed in between issues of Crazy and Sub-Mariner.

The second title "Never Trust a Martian" written by Larry Leiber, plotted by Stan Lee, and illustrated by Don Heck also had to be looked up on the Comicbookdb website. This was a story about communists wanting to take dominion over the Cold War with the United States. They hatched a plan to scare the American people by making them think that the Martians were attacking (something that was never done as well as H.G. Wells "War of the Worlds" radio drama). These same Russians were then kidnapped by actual Martians and taken away to Mars for fear that their invasion plans a 1000 years hence would be found out. It was six pages long.

The first two vignettes were from Tales of Suspense #26. They both started with the proverbial splash page. I'm curious if things were so different a single year earlier when Journey into Mystery #62 had "I Can't Escape from the Creeping Things" as one of the stories. This story also was short, only six pages, but did not start off with a splash page. The three paneled page is the first of the three stories that has proof of an artist with the printed signature S. Ditko.

This five page story has my favorite two panels from any comic I have owned before 1984 on page three and four. Each of those pages has a picture of a tree growing to such a massive size its limbs engulf a Victorian styled mansion. I remember thinking how much they looked like a maze and if I ever find my original copy I'm pretty sure there will be pen marks as I tried to find the non-existent finish line.

The last story not only jumps back to Tales of Suspense but it also begins with a splash page. Were these oversized splash pages a way to entice new readers before scaring them? Did Dr. Wertham ever think these post "Seduction of the Innocent" published horror comic books would one day be reprinted in the seventies? Did Stan Lee and S. Ditko start signing their work preparing for their amazing creation?

Stan Lee's cursive print and S. Ditko steady hand have their claim of creativity in the lower right hand corner. I wish all these stories had the full credits attributed to the creators. Did Stan Lee use "Fear" as a way to show off the work to new readers, was it a way for Marvel to hold onto the rights a little bit longer? Did reading this book over and over create a tolerance to all the horror movies I ever saw that never scared me? An American Werewolf in London withstanding.

It's slightly ironic that one of my first comic book experiences were by three of the greats that would take me well into my twenties before I appreciated who they were. Eventually I will get Tales of Suspense #26 and Journey into Mystery #62 but until then I'm going to read Fear #8 again.

Thank you Stan, Steve, And Jack.

Thanks for Reading

Tnerb

Ps. An honorable mention also goes to George Klein who also has an art credit on "It Crawls by Night".

If anyone else knows anything, please add below

And for something completely different...

http://tnerb-myfirstblog.blogspot.com/2013/01/living-on-tipping-wage.html

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