Saturday, July 11, 2009

Neal Adams and The House of Mystery

1968 to 1971 was a good time to be buying DC's House of Mystery comic. Neal Adams, Bernie Wrightson, Michael Kaluta, Al Williamson, Gil Kane, and Wally Wood. All the issues pictured below had art by at least one of these artists. I picked all these issues because of their Neal Adams covers. Adams turned in his usual professional jobs here. They aren't as graphically exciting as some of his Batman covers, but if I was a kid these would have made me want to pick the comic up off the newsstand.

Speaking of kids. Kids in Peril are a likely editorial-induced theme on all these covers. The funny thing is, the covers often reflect a story in that issue sans the kids. #181 does have a story about a mummy in it, but no little kids. There is a big green lizard monster in #180, but it doesn't threaten any kids. I'm guessing that someone at DC thought this would make them more appealing to youngsters.


House of Mystery #176
House of Mystery #176, October 1968.


House of Mystery #177
House of Mystery #177, December 1968.


House of Mystery #179
House of Mystery #179, April 1969.


House of Mystery #180
House of Mystery #180, June 1969.


House of Mystery #181
House of Mystery #181, August 1969.


House of Mystery #184
House of Mystery #184, February 1970.


House of Mystery #185
House of Mystery #185, April 1970.


House of Mystery #187
House of Mystery #187, August 1970.


House of Mystery #191
House of Mystery #191, April 1971.

2 comments:

Joe Jusko said...

I've always liked Neal's non superhero DC covers more. These are just AWESOME! Why DC doesn't publish a collection of Neal's covers is beyond me!

Robert McKinney said...

I believe I read somewhere online that those kids were based on Neal Adams' own kids.