Heading:
Author:
Title: WEIRD TALES OF THE FUTURE No. 7
Place Published:
Publisher:Stanley Morse [Indicia: SPM Publications, Inc.]
Date Published: May, 1953
Description:

CGC certified: VG (4.0). Purple Label [B-1]. White pages. Restoration includes: Small amount of color touch on cover. Cover: Bernard Baily. Art: Basil Wolverton, uncredited others. GPAnalysis: A Purple Label 4.0 ["SA"] sold for $203 in 2016. More recently, a Purple Label 3.5 ["C-1"] sold for $2550 in January 2022. For comparison purposes, a Blue Label 3.5 sold for $2100 in November 2020.

Let There Be Fright: Bernard Baily's cover features a malevolent Satan with an army of ghouls, mummies, monsters, and creeps pouring from his mouth like a river of corruption. If you flip through the copy of EC's Picture Stories from the Bible that you surely keep by your bedside, you'll see that Baily's vision of Hell almost seems like an abstraction of Christ's remark to the Pharisees that "man is not defiled by what enters his mouth, but by what comes out of it." — M.C. Gaines, ed., Picture Stories from the Bible: The New Testament. Bible Pictures Inc. Ltd.: 1943, p. 38 (paraphrased).

Exaggerated concerns about defilement were central to Dr. Wertham's anti-comics crusade, making the good doctor a handy stand-in for those uptight Pharisees. Likewise, Bill Gaines's proud claim to the U.S. Senate that he fathered the horror comics craze ("I was the first publisher in these United States to publish horror comics. I am responsible, I started them") echoes Jesus's assertion that a man is defined by the words he speaks — almost alone among pre-Code publishers, Gaines stood behind the words and pictures that his company put forth. Viewed in this light, the conflict between Wertham and Gaines takes on an allegorical dimension, with Dr. Wertham cast in the pharisaical role and the publicly-pilloried Gaines offered up as sacrificial lamb — verily, it can be said that pre-Code horror died for our sins.

Consignments welcome for PBA's Fall 2022 Comic Book sale. Pre-Code Horror, Golden Age and Silver Age comics, original art, vintage comic-related photos and ephemera sought. Send inquiries to ivan@pbagalleries.com.