Showcase Presents The Witching Hour 1

reprinting Witching Hour 1-19 (1969-72).

Who writes the blurbs for these things? This features art “from a host of comics legends including Alex Toth, Bernie Wrightson, Jack Sparling, Pat Boyette and George Tuska,” a selection that slips steeply away from the legendary. In case you think that really is the best list they could pull, here are a few more artists featured inside: Kirby, Adams, Infantino, Gil Kane, Cardy, Morrow, Williamson, Sekowsky, Wood, Grandenetti, Aparo. I think I’d have mentioned one or two of those ahead of, for instance, George Tuska.

The key name remains the first: Alex Toth is my favourite comics artist ever, and a quick count has 82 pages by him in this 551-page collection. Admittedly much of this is in the cutesy framing sequences featuring three witches (two trad, one mod chick) who supposedly tell the stories, a device DC could happily have forgotten in all their horror books, but even so, it’s beautiful work – take a look at pages 162 and 276, for instance, in case you imagine Toth was phoning these pages in. There are proper Toth stories too, and one, ‘Computerr’ is very silly (written by Sergio Aragones) but is up there with his best work.

There are other great moments too, including some of the best Gray Morrow I’ve ever seen on a couple of stories, genuinely breathtaking and original works, plus a lovely ’50s Kirby reprint and a terrific Al Williamson. There is of course plenty of less good work too – not all the stars are on top form here, and there are many lesser talents, though actually few really poor art jobs, even Jose Delbo doing surprisingly okay.

It has to be said that the stories are generally of much lower quality – lots are stupid, most are dull and/or predictable. I can’t say any excited or scared me in the slightest, despite being helped more than they deserve by some genuinely great artwork. It’s very low on original ideas, and kind of timid – this is all Comic Code Authority approved material, with none of the gore or violence or extreme nastiness of a previous era’s EC titles, for instance, and none of the twisted imagination that might have been applied just a few years later (I’m speculating about say Steve Gerber writing horror shorts, rather than the superhero-style horror Marvel went for soon after this).

To be fair, horror really isn’t my genre – well, I often find horror movies very watchable, but they don’t do a lot for me, and I almost never read horror books. This isn’t a total disinterest, or a complete resistance to the genre’s intended effects: the manga of Junji Ito scare the shit out of me, to the point that it occasionally takes a real mental push to make me turn a page, or I am caught by surprise and recoil with an “Oh fuck!” exclamation. I wish there were a few stories a tenth that strong in this. Nonetheless, it’s well worth buying for all of the wonderful artwork – I would hope that 82 pages of Toth would be all most comic fans need to know to sell this.