Cool Rock 'n Roll Comics #1

MADHOUSE no. 95

Red Circle Comics (June 1974)

Cover by Gray Morrow. New logo for the change to a horror anthology format, but that's probably not Morrow. I love how the vamp is jauntily dangling his leg over the edge of the coffin! (It looks a little added on due to an editorial note.

Per my post earlier this week, I'm going to start posting little blog highlights of records that come with cool cartoon/comic art and cool rock 'n roll comics* from my collection.** This is the first of the latter and features a comic that I got from my friend Jack. (He of Kafe Keroauc books fame.) He figured that I would love the story titled "The Happy Dead." Indeed I do! It's a story that could easily have appeared in either of the Undead Ballads volumes.

What Rocks About This Comic?

Madhouse no. 95 is actually a pretty good horror anthology book, at least as good as the DC stuff of the era like the Houses of Secrets & Mystery (respectively) and Ghosts. That only would be a decent rock 'n roll connection given the the strong connection between them types of comics and music. The kicker, though is the story "The Happy Dead," in which features a British band that may or may not be vampires. (No spoilers on 52 year old comics? I guess so.)

She seems nice...

You can see that equipment authenticity doesn't play a part in my definition of "Rock 'n Roll Comics." Just lookit all them F-Holes! Also, consistency isn't super important either: here they're called the "Happy Dead" and literally next panel they are "Happy Dead and the Vampires."

The title of the story reminds me a story told to me by my step-mom, Karen from when she was living in Italy in the 60s. Karen was in a café, enjoying a yummy espresso I imagine, when I bunch of guys with the faces painted as skulls burst in and chant "We Are The Grateful Dead! We Are the Grateful Dead!" and then take off, leaving the café clientele perplexed. By far my favorite story about the Dead.

About the Comic and the Artists

I don't want to make any assumptions about your savvy on such things, so for the uninitiated, "Madhouse" started life in 1959 as Archie's Madhouse. (Yep, thee ARCHIE.) For the first few years of the 1970s, the book was dedicated to a mod band named "The Glads" with more than a faint whiff of the Monkees. Number 95 marked a more significant change, as "Madhouse" changed into a horror anthology under the newly minted aegis of the Red Circle Comics sub-imprint. The horror thing didn't really take off, and eventually the book reverted to being more of a collection of generic Archie shorts.

I had to check the Grand Comic Book Database for the credits on these stories. Some stories had the artist credits right on the opening splash. "The Happy Dead" didn't. I needed to know who did this wonderful piece! I particularly love the fluid figures that have a Gene Colan feel, though I knew it probably wasn't Colan.

The writer of "The Happy Dead" was Marv Channing, who was apparently the head writer for all of the Red Circle books. That's about all I know about Marv.

The credited artist (pencil and ink) turned out to be Doug Wildey, who I know a little bit more about and have a decent amount of appreciation for! Wildey worked with Alex Toth in developing the look of the Space Ghost cartoon and was the primary artistic director for Johnny Quest. I say credited because the art in this story does feel a inconsistent, and not even on a panel by panel basis. Scroll back up to the main image in this post. The John Lennon-esque foreground character is brilliant and highly detailed. The band behind him and their instruments are significantly more blocky. I love it, but I wonder what studio dude got gipped outta credit.

Kudos to the person who made the choice to change Linda's word balloons to pink as she vamps out!

Oops. Did I say no spoilers? Oh well.

Footnotes:

*By "Rock 'n Roll" comics, I mean comics that have some sort of rock music theme or are created by people with some sort of rock 'n roll community connection. As little as one sub-reference or dialog exchange in a larger book counts. Yep that could be millions of comics. Don't like my definition? Write yer on blog, ya begrudger.

**By collection I mean the comics, books, and zines that I have decided are "Rock 'n Roll Comics" and tossed in random order on a bookshelf in my office. They are often beaters. They are not valuable.