Gredown's Bite of the Vampire

The cover of Gredown's Bite of the Vampire is recycled from a previous issue, in this case Planet of Vampires #2:

The cover is likely painted by Phil Belbin, and is based on a variety of panels from the first story in Planet of Vampires #2, The Night of the Capture:

The contents are as follows:

Macabre Joke [aka A Macabre Joke]

The Vampire Hunter, originally published in Mad House #97, January 1975

An Unfinished Tale, originally published in The Many Ghosts of Dr. Graves #42, October 1973

The Hungry Vampire, originally published in Weird v6#3, April 1972

Who Prowls The Night, originally published in Monster Hunters #6, July 1976

The Bloody House originally published in Weird v5#5, October 1971

Return to Die!, originally published in Ghostly Tales #86, June 1971 

Enter Freely And Of Your Own Free Will!, originally published in Haunted #21, April 1975

The Happy Dead, originally published in Mad House #95, September 1974

This issue includes a 1-page feature, Facts for Ghouls:

Facts for Ghouls was a filler feature used in a number of Eerie Publications. I have identified another Facts for Ghouls filler used in over half a dozen Eerie Publications, but as yet have not identified the first instance this one was published. 

Most, if not all of the stories in Bite of the Vampire were published in earlier Gredown issues, and at least one - An Unfinished Tale - was published by Murray in Planet Series 2 #7 The Many Ghosts of Doctor Graves.

Gigantic Annual #5 revisited

Many years ago I posted an entry on my copy of Gigantic Annual #5. I now have another copy:

This copy contains the following rebound issues:

Century Comic #88, c.October 1963

Superman Supacomic #50, c.October 1963

Superman Supacomic #51, c.November 1963

These three issues were published just a few months later than the rebound issues in my first copy which are dated c.June-September 1963. AusReprints dates Gigantic Annual #5 to May 1964, which is a reasonable guesstimate. 

I purchased the new copy as my previous copy is incomplete - it is missing the rear cover - and some of the pages were coloured in by the original owner.

However my two copies also differ in an unexpected way.

This is the advertisement on the inner front cover of my first copy:

This is what appears on the inner front cover of my new copy:

This is a surprise. It suggests to me that these two issues were published some months apart.

This is the ad on the rear cover of my new copy:

The ad on the inner rear cover is identical to the Seven Seas Stamp ad on the inner front cover of my first copy.

It occurred to me that one of these copies may have been published in New Zealand. I have New Zealand editions of Murray comics of this vintage which differ in this regard. However, given the Seven Seas Stamps ad has a Sydney address, I doubt this is the reason for the difference.

There is a numeric code on the bottom right hand corner of the Air/fix ad: 557P. This is unhelpful in dating this issue as it is clearly not published in May 1957. 

I also note that the Man Without Fingerprints feature appeared as early as 1952 in an issue of Gang Busters. I suspect this was deployed as a filler in more than one Murray comic.

So, I have something of a mystery, with something of an answer, but not anything conclusive.

But I do have a reason to keep both copies.

Wild Cat Western: Gredown erratum

There are two stories in Gredown's Wild Cat Western: 

 Journey of Hate splash page

The Peddler's Revenge splash page

The 20-page Peddler's Revenge opens the magazine, and Journey of Hate fills the next 47 pages. 

And each splash page includes the indicia. Someone stuffed up.

Maybe one of these was reprinted from a previous issue and the indicia was carried over. Possible - but I haven't seen a previous Gredown printing of either story.

Maybe Journey of Hate, being the feature-length story, was intended as the opening story but was mistakenly printed second. Possible.

Maybe the cover provides a clue. Journey of Revenge does sound like Journey of Hate - and to be honest, my initial theory was this may be an alternate translation of the title.

Then again, Journey of Revenge is not so far removed from The Peddler's Revenge...

Ah, but what if Gredown cottoned onto their error in time to adjust the cover but not the contents...? And voila, a compromise redolent of double A-sided singles - think We Can Work It Out/Day Tripper and Penny Lane/Strawberry Fields Forever - and Journey of Revenge it is!

Well, that's my working theory until other copies of these stories surface. (And I got to sneak in Beatles references...)

Censoring Curse of the Vampire in Gredown's Vampire Mania

Curse of the Vampire was originally published in Eerie's Horror Tales v3#4, July 1971, and reprinted a number of times in other Eerie magazines. I've managed to check scans of two of these reprints and they appear to be as per the reprint in the in Horror Tales v8#2, May 1977, which is one of a handful of original Eerie mags I have to hand. 

Here's a scan of the splash page to Curse of the Vampire from Horror Tales:

Compare this to the reprint in Gredown's Vampire Mania:

Yes, the blood has been wiped clean, but what I especially appreciate is the attention to detail required to erase the worm from the skull's eye socket in the second panel.

This is the third page of the story: 

Gredown erased the blood in the sixth panel too:

Here's the fourth page of the story:

Blood is one thing, and most of it was camouflaged in the third panel, and it was ok by the fifth panel - probably because they were distracted by the nipples in the fourth panel:

This is the final page of the original story:

Yeah, the nudity in the first panel is not going to cut it, and the top is back in the third panel:

And of course, stabbing is ok in the fifth panel as long as the jam doesn't spurt out.

I expect there is an unadulterated printing of Curse of the Vampire in an earlier Gredown edition or two.

Gredown's Bite of the Scorpion

Gredown's Bite of the Scorpion was published in 1982:

The cover is a modified version of the cover to Panico #44, 1972 series:

Panico covers were often recycled by Vilmar so it is possible this cover appeared on previous or subsequent issues, or other titles such as Escorpion.

The male figure on Bite of the Scorpion interests me. Firstly, it appears to have been intentionally modified to reflect the opening story - the longhaired bearded male bears a strong resemblance to the narrator of Lonely Like a Scorpion (see scan of sample page below).

Further, the male figure looks to me like it may be the work of Phil Belbin. Something about the lighting and the whites of the eyes reminds me of other cover art attributed to Belbin. Now, my understanding is Belbin wasn't actively involved with Gredown in the early 1980's, but it is possible this figure was transplanted from a previously published cover and repurposed for this issue - but I have not identified such an earlier piece.

The script on the cover is from the opening lines of the story Lonely Like A Scorpion (see scan below).

The contents are as follows:

Lonely Like a Scorpion

The Avenger!, originally published in Forbidden Worlds #19, July 1953 

Shipwrecked

Satan's Man, originally published in Terror Tales #v4#3, April 1972 

The Haunt of Evil, originally published in Adventures into the Unknown #32, June 1952 

Temple of Fire, originally published in Haunted #25, January 1976

Demons and Skeletons, originally published in Horror Tales #v6#2, April 1974 

The Devil's a Businessman!, originally published in Gasp #1, March 1967, ACG 

The Chains of Repentance 

Some, if not all of these stories appeared in other Australian comics published by Gredown and/or K.G. Murray. For example, Temple of Fire appeared in Gredown's Blade of Fear #1 and Tales of the Mystic, and in Planet Comics' Monster Hunters #3. Temple of Fire is a 6-page story. I note the GCD entry for Haunted #25 designates this as a 7-page story, but I can confirm it is a 6-page story as per the reprint in Haunted #57  and the Australian reprints.

The three unidentified stories are of Spanish origin. Here's scans of the first page to each of these stories:

I'll update this post once these are identified.

Century Comic #80

Colour Comics' Century Comic #80 was published c.January 1963

The cover is modified from the original on DC's Adventure Comics #291:

The story contents are as follows:

Superboy's Romance with Cleopatra!,  originally published in Adventure Comics #291, December 1961

African Man Hunt!, originally published in The Adventures of Rex the Wonder Dog #13, January-February 1954

The King of the Thieves!, originally published in Tomahawk #30, February 1955

Aquaman's Super Sea Circus, originally published in World's Finest Comics #126, June 1962

The Madam Jekyll of Metropolis!, originally published in Superman's Girl Friend, Lois Lane #36, October 1962

The Deadly Faces of Dawn, originally published in House of Mystery #128, November 1962

Buzzard of the Badlands!, originally published in All-American Western #123, December 1951-January 1952

Frame-Up at Planeteer Academy Chapter 1, originally published in Showcase #41, November-December 1962

The Criminal Who Couldn't Die Chapter 2, originally published in Showcase #41, November-December 1962

The Cosmic Game of Doom, originally published in House of Mystery #127, October 1962

Plus a single-page Lem 'n' Lime filler which begins "Look at you, Lem! You have on one brown shoe...", originally published in Blackhawk 116, September 1957

Some of these stories may be related to later DC reprintings - for example, the Lem 'n' Lime filler is most likely related to the reprint in Superboy #102, January 1963 - but I have only listed the original printings of the stories as per GCD listings.

As you can see this issue ranges widely across the DC genre line-up, from Superman Family and superhero stories to westerns, mystery comics and sci-fi adventures.

There are two advertisements in this issue with a January 1963 date code.

I purchased this copy in 2005 from a Sydney dealer in a batch of half a dozen Century comics and each of them are what I deem mylar-worthy, such is their condition. The only thing that mars this copy is the off-centre cropping, visible in the scan above. These copies were not cheap at the time, but I now wish I had purchased all the KG Murray comics this guy had because of their condition. A friend of mine also purchased books from this dealer and any time he showed me a pristine pre-decimal Murray, I didn't have to ask - I knew immediately where he got it from and how much he paid for it.

The Phantom in The Australian Woman's Mirror 17 February 1942

This is The Phantom page from The Australian Woman's Mirror 17 February 1942.

The sum of my knowledge about The Phantom in The Australian Woman's Mirror is on www.deepwoods.org.

I have a dozen or so of these magazines with The Phantom. If there is interest I'll post scans of the rest for your edification - just don't expect any personal insights as I don't really know anything about The Phantom or Phantom comics. 

Tracking The Million-Dollar Mistakes on Earth-Menzies

This is the splash page to The Million-Dollar Mistake, first published in Superman #102, January 1956. This story was published in Australia (aka Earth-Menzies) as The Million-Pound Mistake in Century The 100-Page Comic Monthly #1 c.July 1956:

K.G. Murray reprinted this story as The Million-Dollar Mistake in Wonder Comic Monthly #36 c.April 1968:

The similarly titled The Million-Dollar Mistakes! was originally published in Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen #39, September 1959:

This story was published as The Million-Pound Mistakes! on Earth-Menzies in Super Adventure Comic #1, c.July 1960:

I am not aware of an Australian printing of The Million-Dollar Mistakes!, and given the GCD does not list a reprinting of the story before Showcase Presents: Superman Family #3 in 2009, I'm going to assume there isn't one. 

Having said that, there is no GCD listing for The Million-Dollar Mistake c.1968 and yet there is a reprinting in Wonder Comic Monthly #36. This may have been a case of the Murray editors amending inventory rather than publishing new material from DC, and if so, this would constitute precedent for a similarly reconsidered printing of The Million-Dollar Mistakes!. TBA.

Song at Twilight: The Yaffa editions

Song at Twilight was originally published in MV Features' Dream A Romantic Picture Story #5. It was reprinted a couple of times in in the UK, in Sabre's Romantic Stories in Pictures #5 and #47.

The first printing in Australia was probably in Page Publications' Romance and Confession Library #79 in 1970 under a Keith Chatto cover:

This story was recycled over the next few years under new Chatto covers:

Love Experiences Library #5 

Beautiful Love Stories #4

I'm sure there are more reprintings than these two issues. TBA.

Savage Tales #6: The Federal Comics edition

Federal Comics' Savage Tales #6 was published c.July 1984:

The cover previously appeared on Cimoc #1: 

The story contents are as follows:

The Iron Devil, originally published in The Warlord #7, June-July 1977 

Apes or Men!, originally published in Anthro #2, September-October 1968 

Finale, originally published in Hercules Unbound #9, February-March 1977

The Phantom City of Death! [Part 1], originally published in Bomba the Jungle Boy #2, November-December 1967

The Phantom City of Death! Part 2, originally published in Bomba the Jungle Boy #2, November-December 1967

The Phantom City of Death! Part 3, originally published in Bomba the Jungle Boy #2, November-December 1967

There is also a Cap's Hobby Hints filler on the last page which begins "My dad told me how to make my own carpenter's level.", also from Bomba the Jungle Boy #2, November-December 1967

This issue includes in-house advertisements, some of which can be found on AusReprints.