Golden Age Gallery: Horrific Heck Thursday

Don Heck drew horror comics. Take a look.

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I think that’s very good, and it looks like nothing else I’ve seen. Before he drew volumes of mediocre Avengers and Iron Man, before savvy fans said he could actually do a nice line in Milton Caniff-style adventure stories, Don Heck drew pre-Code horror covers that are quite horrifying. Comics: Between the Panels says he did a couple dozen covers like the ones here, all for the same publisher. Panels gives one name for the publisher, Heritage Galleries another, and since I don’t have Panels on hand I’ll go with the Heritage version: Harwell Publishing. You’ll notice that the cover logo says Comic Media, which makes for a third name. These outfits were always flitting from one identity to another. 
The three covers shown here were all done in 1953. I love them. They’re scary, they’re charming, they’re repulsive. I have no idea who did the colors, but I think those are wonderful too. Dig the aquamarine cheekbones and violet upper eye rims in our leadoff cover.
And there’s more! Oh boy …
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