It's the time of the year for excess pumpkin spice, bad costumes and scary movies. However, comics shouldn't be left out of the scary Halloween season. Yoe Books and IDW Publishing have teamed up to reprint a number of classic cook books of the horror genre. Their new collaboration is titled Haunted Horror Vol. 1: Banned Comics from the 1950s. The two companies are also teaming up for a Halloween contest that will give away not just Haunted Horror Vol. 1 but four other volumes of classic horror comics. The Yoe Books/IDW "Chilling Archives of Horror Comics Halloween Give-away" runs until midnight on October 29th.
In order to enter the contest, you simply have to enter your name into one of the five sites listed below. You are also allowed to enter your name in all five places to increase your odds of winning. In addition to Haunted Horror Vol. 1, the contest prize also includes the following collections: Dick Briefer's Frankenstein, Bob Powell's Terror, Zombies and Jack Cole's Deadly Horror. All five of these volumes reprint horror comic books that were so intense that they were banned during the 1950s. Yoe Books and IDW have brushed the cobwebs off the comics, though, and republished the volumes.
If you're a comics fan looking for a good scare (and also a slice of history), enter your name at one/all of the following websites for a chance to win the complete Chilling Archives of Horror Comics.
1. http://thehorrorsofitall.blogspot.com
2. http://fourcolorshadows.blogspot.com/
3. http://allthingsger.blogspot.com/
4. https://www.facebook.com/pages/Yoe-Books/157174217659112
5. https://www.facebook.com/idwpublishing/
The winner will be announced on Halloween on all of the sites. If you perhaps have a Ron Swanson-like aversion to social media, though, you can also own the books the old-fashioned way, by buying them. They are available at Yoe Books (and your other comic book sources).
The Haunted Horror Vol. 1 collection will not be released until November 12th but you can pre-order now. Jack Cole's Deadly Horror is also a new book, just released on October 15th. Many comics fan may be unfamiliar with Cole, but they have probably heard of his most famous creation – the fun-loving Plastic Man. However, Cole was also an accomplished master of the horror genre, which was much more popular than superheroes in the U.S. following World War II. That was until the infamous Fredric Wertham campaigned against comics. Cole was one of the artists targeted, and the backlash against horror comics led to many tales being banned. Thanks to Yoe Books and IDW, they are banned no longer!
Yoe Books was founded by Craig Yoe, the comic book historian who published Secret Identity: The Fetish Art of Superman Co-Creator, Joe Shuster.
