Posted by Steve Busti, Museum of the Weird owner
Remember those ghastly monster mags with names like Tales Of Voodoo, Terrors of Dracula, and Tales From The Tomb? These were just some of the macabre titles produced by Eerie Publications from the mid-60’s to the early 80’s, when the “monster kid” craze was at it’s height.
If you’re not familiar with the infamous Eerie Publications (not to be confused with Warren Publishing’s “Eerie” magazine), these comic magazines featured some of the most gruesome and gore-filled artwork ever to grace the printed page!
One of Eerie’s returning artists was our old friend, eye-poppin’ Dick Ayers, who had contributed the inks to some of my pencilled covers for Bizarre Fantasy and Fantastic Worlds back when I first launched Flashback Comics in the mid-90’s.
Well, recently I discovered this devilishly delightful animated video created by scarstuff.com’s Jason Willis that I just had to share with you. Jason spent a month painstakingly collecting, scanning, and animating cover art from several titles from Eerie Publications using a combination of Photoshop, Motion, and Final Cut Pro to produce this masterpiece homage to the genre. In addition, Jason synced up the artwork to what he describes as “the Worst-Best Halloween Record” ever made, the old Johnson-Smith Horror Record that used to be advertised in all the comic books of the day. If you grew up in that era like me, even if you may not have ever heard the record you almost surely were familiar with the iconic artwork of the ads.
I was so impressed by Jason’s animation that I had to post it here, I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.
Meanwhile, if you’d like to learn more about Eerie Publications, over at BoingBoing.net there’s a recent article about Mike Howlett’s new book The Weird World of Eerie Publications, which covers everything you ever wanted to know about the sordid magazine publisher.
And now you can also buy Mike’s book right here through our web store, luckylizard.net! Get it now before they’re all gone!
Sources: http://www.boingboing.net/2011/01/11/-myron-fass-publishe.html
http://scarstuff.blogspot.com/2010/10/cast-of-eerie-publications-perform.html