Bob Powell's Terror: The Chilling Archives of Horror Comics Volume 2 [Hardcover]

Bob Powell's strong artwork is a joy to see, and this book not only reprints some of his best classic horror stories but some are shot from the original artwork too, with the brushstrokes visible. The next best thing to seeing the actual artwork.

Once again, Craig Yoe has produced a fantastic archive book. Buy it!

If the artists of the "Golden Age" of American comics were fighting it out in leagues, Bob Powell would be solidly mid-table Premiership; not up there at the very top with the auteurs, innovators and supreme stylists, but more than competent, capable of the occasional surprise and supported by a loyal fan base. And if you think that metaphor is senseless, wait till you read the stories in this book.

Said book covers Powell's work in the horror genre for Harvey and Fawcett comics in the early 1950s. Powell was a hugely versatile craftsman, capable of strong work in many genres, and his horror work is powerful and distinctive. Harvey are generally regarded as the best EC imitators and Powell's work does contain EC-ish elements: the darkly cartoonish elements echo Jack Davis, the monsters and beasties are as yukky as those of Graham Ingels, he has a touch of Johnny Craig's paranoid atmospherics and he does dangerous dames as well as Jack Kamen. It's to Powell's immense credit that he blends all this into a strong and distinctive style of his own which is particularly notable for its bold, clear story-telling, imaginative viewpoints and technical experimentation. Had he worked for EC, he'd be much more celebrated, and he certainly had the artistic chops to have worked there. However, he worked at Harvey and Fawcett, on stories (some of which he wrote) so much less mature and coherent than those from EC. Revisionists tell us that the gap between EC and the other horror comic publishers of the early 1950s isn't as wide as we've always been told. On purely pictorial grounds, there's some truth in that, as this book eloquently demonstrates: but the stories in non-EC horrors, though sometimes capable of accidental surrealist power, were, for the most part, dismal. The Harvey stories weren't quite that bad, but the overwhelming feeling on reading this book is sadness at seeing an exceptionally capable artist wasted on such poor material (a situation which, to be fair, is hardly unique in the history of American comics).

That said, the book offers an excellent opportunity to explore and admire Powell's undoubted talent. As with all of Craig Yoe's archival books, it has superb production values and is elegantly designed. It comes in a handsome hard cover, the reproduction from the original comics is as good as could be expected, and the two stories printed from Powell's original art, and thus presented in black and white, really bring home how strong his drawing and storytelling were. There's also an introductory biographical essay on Powell, supplemented by some fascinating archive material. A letter to comics historian Jerry De Fuccio, written in the mid-sixties, is exceptionally poignant, as it's clear that Powell never quite came to terms with the collapse of the comics industry in 1954, following the moral panic over crime and horror comics and the retrenchment to squeaky clean, heavily censored material. On the one hand, he seems angry at what happened; on the other, it seems to have left him with deep doubts, as he reiterates to Fuccio that he can't quite understand why anyone should care about his life and work.

What's certainly true is that things got tougher for Powell and his peers after 1954. He kept on working in the reduced comics industry, and also in magazine illustration, till his early death, aged just 51, in 1967, but the work was harder to come by. His tale isn't tragic, as he appeared to maintain a comfortable lifestyle and steady income throughout his later years, but it's further evidence, like the work so respectfully and handsomely presented here, that Powell's talent far outstripped the needs of the industry he worked in.

Postscript: a four-star, rather than five-star review, because this is very much a book for people already immersed in comics history. If that's you, you'll love it, but if you're only just moving into the field, you might find overviews of pre-code horror such as those from Jim Trombetta or Benson and Sadowski more helpful.

This is an excellent introductory anthology of the horror comic work of Bob Powell (1916-1967), reprinting 120 pages of comic stories, and including a lavishly-illustrated biographical Introduction by the editor, Craig Yoe.

The Contents are
P003: "One, Two, Three, Powell!" by Craig Yoe
P025: "The Wall of Flesh", This Magazine is Haunted #12, August 1953
P033: "Jack of Horror", Black Cat #34, April 1952
P040: "The Rat Man", the original (uncoloured) art for Tomb of Terror #5, October 1952
P047: "The Last Man on Earth", Black Cat #35, May 1952
P054: "The Last Man Returns", Black Cat #36, June 1952
P058: "Rotting Demons", Black Cat #36, June 1952
P065: "The Old Mill Stream", Black Cat #51, August 1954
P070: "Jelly Death", Chamber of Chills Magazine #6, March 1952
P078: Pit of the Damned", the original (uncoloured) art for Chamber of Chills Magazine #7 April 1952
P085: "Happy Anniversary", Chamber of Chills Magazine #19, September 1953
P090: "The Blind, the Doomed, and the Dead!", This Magazine is Haunted #4, April 1952
P099: "Cavern of the Doomed", Tomb of Terror #3, August 1952
P103: "Sewer Monsters", Witches Tales #4, July 1951
P111: "It!", Witches Tales #10, May 1952
P118: "So What Next", Witches Tales #23, February 1953
P123; "Green Horror", Witches Tales #6, November 1951
P127: "The Devil's Prize", Worlds of Fear #2, January 1952
P136: "Twice Alive", Worlds Beyond #1, November 1951
P145: Index

Craig Yoe writes in his Introduction -
"Bob Powell struck a hit in three creative aspects that devoted comics fans respond to with terrific enthusiasm. One, Powell was an innovative cinematic storyteller like Harvey Kurtzman or Will Eisner. Two, the artist could draw beautiful, easy-on-the-ahhh's, sensuously shaped strong female characters. Three, in contrast to the lovely ladies, the monsters he drew in his horror comics are ugly and frightening. These beasts and ghoulies came from graves, swamps, and even the pits of Hell - they came from a rich and very dark side of Powell's imagination."

"The trifecta: comics craft, the luscious ladies, and the devilish demons are all represented in the pages of Bob Powell's Terror ahead."

Now, admittedly, it is his job to praise his subject, but he is not exaggerating, and if you are a fan of pre-code horror comics, you will find a treasure trove here. The introduction also illustrates examples of Bob Powell's work in other genres, adventure, superhero, mystery - and Topps' Mars Attacks and Batman trading cards.