THE THING!
Vol. 1 No. 1
February 1952
Song Hits, Inc. (Charlton Publications)
Editor: Alfred V. Fago
Cover: Albert Tyler; Bob Forgione
Scripts: ?
Pencils: Albert Tyler
Inks: Bob Forgione
Pages: 36
Cover price: 10 cents
Besides the EC Comics line, Charlton's THE THING! was one of the most notorious horror comics to come out of the "Pre-Code" era before they were shut down by the Comics Code Authority in 1954. It wasn't until a decade later that the vibe would be resurrected, when James Warren broke the peace with his magazine-sized CREEPY. Ever the rogue, Warren deliberately side-stepped the Code and used some of the original EC artists to recreate the shocking (albeit without the generous application of gore) stories that had been silenced.
As shown in this evening's post, THE THING! started off a little tame. It was not until the later issues that they pulled out all the stops, enough for issue #16 to garner mention from Dr. Wertham's "Seduction of the the Innocent" with its "injury to the eye" motif demonized by the good doctor.
Beginning with the excellent shrunken head cover by Albert Tyler and Bob Forgione with an imaginatively designed title, this first issue portends the ghastly horror to come.
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