This YOe Books/IDW Publishing collaboration seemed doomed almost from the start.
Craig Yoe's forward that recounts how he was first introduced to Fiction House's massive anthology series Jumbo Comics was a brilliant piece. Then we get an introduction by noted comic book historian Michael H. Price. However, his look at Jumbo Comics is a rambling mess that leads the reader to believe that they'll be experiencing stories of jungle goddess Sheena, swashbuckling tales adapted from Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo and Mickey Mouse inspired funny animal yarns written and illustrated by comic book legends such as Al Feldstein, Bob Kane and Matt Baker. Yet all you get once you slough through about 50 pages of pre-code comics commentary,, that seems more like an commercial for the authority's other scholarly works, is a collection of spectral tales called The Ghost Gallery.
Jumbo Comics had about a dozen regular features that appeared in the publication's 15 year history. The book was known for it's voluptuous dames, thanks in very large part to Feldstein, Baker and Maurice Whitman. Yet none of these artists worked on The Ghost Gallery. Or if they did, none of their efforts are presented in this 2015 hardcover, except for a few sketches and completed pieces. Instead, one should expect to view the efforts of Alex Blum, Bob Hebberd and the famed but more anonymous staff of the Iger Shop. That's right; a lot of the work in this book was considered so beneath the staff at Fiction House, that it was sourced out to an art house and the lack of creativity and love for the source material shows.
Officially, it was titled The Ghost Gallery by Drew Murdoch. Only there was no Drew Murdoch on the Fiction House staff. He's actually the main character. You might think that he's narrating each story. But aside from the first page (and maybe the very last panel) which would have Murdoch explaining his paranormal investigations to a cynical criminologist, the author of these mortifying myths takes a more active role in the story.
The stories seemed rushed, which is how it was in the Golden Age of comics. The more pages turned out, the more money a writer, artist or inker could make. Artistically, the art isn't bad. But it doesn't stand out amongst the crowds either. Here, it's the writing which is not all that good. The plots have more holes than Swiss cheese, and there seems to be massive edits throughout the flow of the adventures. That leads me to believe that perhaps the writer had these vast plots that due to time or page allotments had to be trimmed - alot!
Thankfully, the stories get better towards the end. Sadly, the less we see of Drew Murdoch, the better the ghost tales got. Eventually, Murdoch became a phantom in his own series, though his name remained in the title. Eventually, Fiction House too gave up the ghost when the comics scare saw an end to all but a handful of publishers by the end of the 1950s.
I just wasn't a fan of this book. I tried to enjoy it and it did get better the last third of the book. But I really could have done without all of the extraneous information about both the publisher history and all the extra details on the other features that appeared in Jumbo Comics but not in this volume. It was almost like Michael H. Price wrote an essay about the entire company's publishing history in hopes that would be used in other future Yoe publications that feature the other stars of Jumbo Comics. A clever way to save money- sure. And maybe this generalized history was Craig Yoe's idea. Regardless, it is not a great way to introduce readers to what they might find inside, especially if they bought this book expecting to find works by the omitted artists praised in the prose section of the book.
Rating: 5 out of 10 stars.
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