Saturday, October 20, 2007

The Fanged Freak

This is the 70’s re-make of The Greatest Horror of Them All with a new title and pretty much new everything except of course for all of the obvious similarities. Thanks again to “Anti-Atlas Guy" for sharing!

From the February 1975 Eerie Publications issue of Tales From the Tomb Vol. 7 #1






13 comments:

Anonymous said...

DID THEY DO THESE REMAKES LEGALLY OR DID THEY JUST FLAT OUT STEAL EVERYTHING? I'M SURE THIS LOOKED MORE CURRENT AND UP TO DATE IN THE 70'S THAN KIRBYS VERSION BUT IT SEEMS KIND OF NEEDLESS TO REMAKE A STORY LIKE THIS WHEN THE ORIGINAL IS SO PERFECT.

Mr. Karswell said...

>SEEMS KIND OF NEEDLESS TO REMAKE A STORY LIKE THIS WHEN THE ORIGINAL IS SO PERFECT.

Well that's the argument for film remakes too isn't it? Funny how black and white movies got remade into color, while comics did it vice versa.

I must say, as much as I love the Kirby story I do prefer the 70's Elena flesh suit a little better than the 50's version. Especially, the, uh... chest... accessories...

Mr. Karswell said...

Here's some interesting info from "Anti-Atlas Guy" himself about the remakes:

"The remake is from Tales From the Tomb v7n1 (Feb 1975) by Eerie Publications. Artist is unknown. The artist actually signed at the bottom of the 2nd page, but I can't make out who it is (looks like Samode or Shamode etc - Eerie used a lot of South American artists (Argentinian I think)).
You probably know this already, but Robert Farrell (of Ajax/Farrell fame) was one of the co-founders of Eerie (as was Myron Fass). In early years (up to about 1969), Eerie Pubs stuff consisted entirely of Ajax/Farrrell reprints. These were actual reprints of the originals, though they often added a little gore (the extent to which they did this has been greatly exaggerated - it often consisted of nothing more than adding a drop or two of blood to one panel). Occasionally, they changed the title (odd, since they owned rights to the originals). In later years, Eerie did some original stuff but also redid tons of pre-code stories with new art. They usually changed the title and made minor changes to the script (I'm guessing they did this because they thought they could avoid getting sued - though it was obvious they were using the same script since 90% was word-for-word the same). They ripped off just about every precode publisher out there (other than Atlas, EC, ACG, or Fiction House) but seemed especially fond of Ace and Harvey. It is maddening to try to identify the source of the originals since they changed titles..."

Anonymous said...

Quite inferior to the original, I think - the layout feels much more "designed," but is less effective storytelling. Like a lot of film remakes...

Max the drunken severed head said...

What Joe said, but I agree with Karswell about the the 70s rubber suit being nicer to behold!

Thank you, Anti-Atlas Guy, for sharing the story.

Anonymous said...

Gotta agree with Joe & Max,nice suit for Elena(i'd wear it as a joke)and better design,but still leaves somenthing to be desired.

Mr. Karswell said...

>nicer to behold!

You mean nicer to be holding.

Anonymous said...

having just read this twice now I seem to recall an EC story that was similar to this as well

anyone know what it was called?

Anonymous said...

The only EC story I can think of off the top of my head that's like this is Only Skin Deep ("I (gurgle) never wore a mask, Herbie!!"), but that is only vaguely similar.

Unknown said...

The primary difference here is that my horror is at the protagonist.

Anonymous said...

Is it just me or did the remake accidentally switch the dialogue of the two characters when they kiss on page 3 (page 2 in the original)?
And has no-one ever told them that it's rude to talk with your mouth full?!

Anonymous said...

It's not just you, looks like they goofed.

Eyeball said...

yeah the rubbersuit fun-bags on the hottie in this version are the winners.

these stories (greatest horror/fanged freak) are perpetuating the "myth" that men are superficial pigs!

myth?...myth?..
hansel?