In
the 1940s and 50s, before the company focused exclusively on the adventures of
Casper the Friendly Ghost and Richie Rich, Harvey Comics was heavily investing
in publishing tales of horror, adventures, and noir crime. The company was
probably the biggest competitor to EC Comics during the 1950s before the coming
Comics Scare of one Dr. Wertham. Though Harvey Comics wasn’t as good in terms
of art quality or even story plotting, Harvey published dozens of titles
focusing on the gritty and macabre. Amongst those titles were the Totally Rad
Tales (which really doesn’t seem like a 50s title but something you’d see on
SNICK in the 90s) which boasted a mix of weird genre tales, Man in Black a sort
of Many Ghosts of Dr. Graves knock-off, and Black Cat one of the first titles
to feature a female hero and full of S&M leather and over sexualized
stereotypes. Harvey dabbled a little in humor tales as well before being more
kid friendly. An example of that was the WWII comic Sad Sack.
A
small example of all of the titles I just mentioned is included in this
sampler. The Black Cat story has some pretty good action but is laughable. A
fiery redhead who is sexistly put in her place by her beau and father by day,
the girl’s private detective boyfriend
can’t put two-and-two together when she disappears in her secret identity and a
spicy red head in black leather suddenly appears when things get rough. Daddy
knows really what’s going on, yet the boyfriend chalks it up to her being a
scaredy- cat little girl. It’s definitely not a shining example of women’s lib.
The
Man in Black tale has the title character telling a legend of a young man and
his sister held captive by an Arab prince. They can leave his kingdom
peacefully if the boy chooses which jar has a massive ruby hidden inside. But
if he chooses wrongly, the girl becomes a concubine and its sudden death for
the male sibling. I enjoy anthology horror tales, but this one isn’t all that.
I prefer EC’s work better. Even Charlton’s hit and miss selection of horror comics
is far more superior than this example of what Harvey had to offer.
The
same goes for the Totally Rad story. It involves a murdered store owner and a
motley line-up of country bumpkin stereo-types that are suspects in the crime.
Each suspect’s testimony is captivating but the ending is rushed and it’s not
clear if the person being accused of the crime or the person you assume is
getting away with murder are in fact the actual murderers.
I
can’t really judge the Sad Sack material. There’s only a one page sight gag. I
laughed, but it takes up less than 1% of the entire book.
I
got this comic for free from the publisher during a convention years ago. If I
was offered more freebies, I would give them a try. Hey, they’re free. But
would I lay down my hard earned bread for further volumes of these? Probably
not. Maybe if I came across them in a dime box, but that’s about as much I am
willing to shell out for more of the pre-comic code reprints of Harvey Comics.
(One exception: there is a Black Cat Holiday special that I want- make that
need- for my holiday/ Christmas comics collection)
Not
Worth Consuming!
Rating:
4 out of 10 stars.
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