ACG
COLLECTED WORKS: ADVENTURES INTO THE UNKNOWN VOL. 1 (PS Artbooks,
2011; Hardcover)
Collects
Adventures
Into The Unknown
Nos. 1-5 (cover dates Fall, 1948- June/July, 1949)
Writers:
Unknown
Artists:
Edvard Moritz, Fred Guardineer, Max Elkan, Al Ulmer, King Ward, Ed
Good, Paul Reinman, John Blummer, Leonard Starr, Charlie Sultan, Pete
Riss, and John Celardo
I
and many others have said this repeatedly over the years but it bears
repeating: we are truly living in the Golden Age of collected
editions. These are the good old days. This title is
historically significant because it was the first Horror anthology,
pre-dating even EC's legendary titles by years. ACG stands for
American Comic Group, a company that sort of spun out of other
companies from the '30s. They lasted until 1967, when they switched
to doing commercial comic supplements into the 1980s.
As
is the case with all Golden Age comics, these are dated by modern
standards and require the reader to take into context the era in
which they were originally published. If you expect 2013
“sophistication” then you will be disappointed. If you, like me,
are a lover of all comics from all eras then you will find yourself
drooling over these obscure, expensive old comics. Just getting an
opportunity to pore over these treasures is a joy.
I
love the rawness of the writing and especially the artwork of old
comic books. No photoshop back then! Art supplies were expensive and
these guys had to be fast and good in order to make the meager,
near-poverty level living that they did back then. I must give a
shout out to the work of Edvard Moritz, a lost great if ever there
was one. Great craftsmanship and storytelling ability, he is one of
the countless old school artists whose names are lost to the mists of
time. If these collections serve any purpose, it is to help modern
comic fans remember the contributions of these pioneers. While, say,
Mike Deodato might not claim Moritz as an influence, those who
influenced him (or those who influenced the artists that influenced
them) undoubtedly were impacted by the work of these cats. In
short, it's important for fans to know about this stuff.
Storywise,
these are all charming and loveable, with topics ranging from things
that go bump in the night to ghosts, haunted castles, pirate ghosts
(or is it ghost pirates?), mirrors, paintings, haunted houses,
haunted ships, vampires, so on and so forth. There is zero gore in
these comics, although it is not uncommon for murders to occur.
Issue
1's The Living Ghost has a set of characters which were
obviously intended to be an ongoing feature. The silly nonsense
continues in Issue 2 with Out of the Unknown, where the faux
Horror/ occult overtones continue as Tony once again consult Dr.
Vandyke at the Institute for Psychic Research. The Living Ghost has
captured Gail, but Dr. Vandyke once again has an answer: conjuring
the Dark Phantom, the hated enemy of the Living Ghost. Gail and Tony
pull a double cross and the Phantom beats the Ghost...only the
Phantom's spell which captured the Ghost fails when he lives the
mortal world. There was a blurb at the bottom of the last panel which
stated that it would continue with issue 3, but like many old comics,
things came to an abrupt halt and we are left hanging. Was this
storyline continued in future issues? It wasn't continued as of the
end of issue 5.
Issue
2's Kill, Puppets, Kill! is one of those stories that has been
told and ripped off so many times that you feel like you've read it a
dozen times before. Someone should do some research and find out
where this whole killer puppet thing started. We get treated to some
early Al Feldstein artwork in Issue 3's The Creekmore Curse.
His craft was already fully developed, with Feldstein creating a
proper creepy mood with his finely detailed artwork.
Issue
4's The Affair of Room 1313 blazes a trail that The
Twilight Zone would follow a decade later. Issue 5's The
Ghostly Crew features amazing artwork by Jon Blummer, whose work
resembles ol' Ghastly Graham Ingels of EC Comics fame. A search
reveals that he did a ton of comic work in this era, mostly for DC.
His claim to fame is creating the mostly forgotten Golden Age hero
the Fighting Yank. Readers of Dynamite's Project Superpowers
will recognize that character.
I
have the first four volumes of this line, and 5 should be out shortly
while 6 is slated for an early 2014 release. PS pumps these books
out, which is good and bad. Good because we will all live to see the
completion of all 21 volumes. Bad because we have to pay for them. Oh
well, it's like I always say: who needs food when we can have comic
books?
Junk
Food For Thought rating: 4.75 out of 5.
The
OCD zone- Dark Horse has
since released their own line of Adventures
Into The Unknown Archives.
The difference between their version and the PS Artbooks line is that
Dark Horse offers full blown restoration, whereas PS uses scans. PS
has an extra issue (and higher page count) than the Dark Horse book
as well as all of the original ads. I am sure that the Dark Horse one
is nice too, but I had the PS one first and am perfectly happy with
it. So which way is the right way to go? That is up to you. I am just
throwing the information out there. I am all about the consumer/fan
having access to as much information as possible, which is part of
this blog's “mission”, if it has such a thing.
DVD-style
Extras included in this book: No extras
unless you count all of the ads and letter pages. There are a few
short introductions which give some valuable background information
on the title.
Linework
and Color restoration rating: 4 out of 5. These are high
resolution scans, a warts and all approach. You get to see these
comics as they were originally printed, dots, line bleed, and off
registration color in all of it's glory. One or two of the scans seem
fuzzy, and few of them are a tad murkier than the others. There is
little done to correct the yellowing of the source material. Having
said that, I am perfectly fine with the way that the material is
presented in this book, and I tend to skew uber-anal retentive. Your
mileage may vary.
Paper
rating: 5 out of 5. Beautiful thick uncoated stock paper with
zero glare under any light. Believe me, I have tried reading it under
the following light sources: natural sunlight, incandescent light
bulbs, compact fluorescent light bulbs, halogen bulbs, and even LED.
Yes, I use all of the above sources in my house for such experiments.
This
book smells fantastic, the result of glorious, toxic Chinese ink
printed on virgin Amazon rainforest trees. The unique smell is a
mixture of lead paint chips, asbestos from broken and crumbling
tiles, mercury from recalled thermometers, and the final magical
ingredient: the blood, sweat, and tears of the Chinese children
working the sweatshop printing presses!
Binding
rating: 5 out of 5. PS makes OCD friendly and OCD approved books,
so it should come as little surprise that this book has sewn binding
and a casing not glued square to the spine, allowing the book to lay
completely flat from the first page to the last as Godzilla intended.
Hardback cover coating rating: 5 out of 5. PS does not use dustjackets on
their books. The image is screen printed on the hardback itself with
a glossy coating. The blue portion of the cover has a dull matte
finish and is resistant to scuffing with reasonable handling. If you
throw your books around like the Samsonite gorilla then you might be
able to do some damage.
