Reviewed by by Susan Vosburgh (a girl's perspective or "Oh yeah, now I remember why I hardly every liked comic books.") and Tad Davis (some guy)

SV: I was excited to have the chance to look at the first issue of "House of Mystery" (1951) because I remembered similar comics from my childhood in the 60s - I don't remember the titles, but they had similar horror stories with lots of detailed drawings of rotting, grinning corpses, etc. Now I realize they must have been EC Comics (TALES FROM THE CRYPT? HAUNT OF FEAR?)

I think the ones I had didn't even have covers, so I don't know what they were. They had been accidentally mixed in with the "girl comics" like SUGAR & SPIKE and LITTLE LULU that I bought at garage sales. The horror ones were really scary and I believe I kept one hidden when my mother took them away.

But this HOUSE OF MYSTERY isn't scary at all! Not one story has any real supernatural content or even gore! Stories with names like "I Fell In Love with A Witch!" and "Wanda Was a Werewolf!" that have (eeeeek!) a logical explanation!!!! Cop-out endings at every turn.

TD: Ok. So the stories are corny and hastily written. But the art reminds me of paintings by Lichtenstein. I found the experience of reading these like wearing an old smoking jacket. Yes, it's fading and falling apart. And no, there's no good reason to wear a smoking jacket. But it's somehow quite comfortable and also very comforting.

SV: The two stories I mentioned ("Witch" and "Werewolf") are my favorites because they have in common the fear and hatred by men of the women they supposedly love. In both cases the male protagonist falls helplessly in love with some woman he meets, because she's beautiful, not getting to know her or even anything about her. Then he's just as quickly and easily convinced she's evil and out to kill him.

It seems to me the men are more scared to have sex with these women than to be tossed off a cliff or ripped apart by them. Or god forbid, that they would get to know the women as people. That would be really scary.

TD: Maybe that's why I find them so comforting. And might I remind you of the men's attempts to get to know their fiancées: Carter Blake (doesn't the name just ring out with comfortable masculinity) flew to Boston to research Jean's past at the newspaper archives and Doug Martin (engaged to the werewolf) learns that Wanda despises silver bullets. They clearly took more than a passing interest.

SV: The stock storyline has the men as non-threatening boyfriends who are called "darling" by the women they secretly fear. Planning marriage as some vague, future happening, often preceded by a long period of separation: "I've got my engineering degree and that job in South America. Wanda and I can start living at last!" They can't even have an honest conversation until "after the honeymoon …." My favorite line is when Doug (darling) sees a diaphanously-clad, barefoot woman from a distance, literally running with the wolves and running away from circumstantial evidence pointing to wolfish shredding of friends and neighbors, and Doug says, "W-why, she looks like … Wanda w-when she let her hair down at the beach last year!"

I found the obvious and oblivious sexual symbolism quaint and funny, but where did it come from? Was it the beginning of the asexual 50s? The result of complacent virility of the USA after World War II?

TD: That's a good point. There's obviously a lot of complacent virility underlying Dr. Hunt's Jeckyl-like murders of his best friends in "Man or Monster." As well as Dan Perry's macho dare-taking in "The Curse of Seabury Manor."

SV: How do these stories even fit into the monster movie, apocalyptic, nuclear-armed atmosphere that created the comics and movies that were actually scary and not just weirdly Freudian?

TD: The same way that "Leave It To Beaver" fits into the culture of "South Park."

SV: The only really interesting thing about this reissue of "House of Mystery" is its introductory notes. Evidently, in the mid-50s there was a "congressional investigation of the influence of horror comics and the creation of the Comics Code Authority." And apparently, comics became less scary later in response, steering away from the "macabre" by the early 60s. Less macabre than this book? How is that possible? "House of Mystery" seems way too censored to begin with! I'd like to know more about the Comics Code. It sounds fascinating in relation to all the other, more well-known, forms of repression in its time. But I'll assume the censorship was meant for those other, better, scarier comics!

TD: Darling, I'll explain it all to you when I return from safari and we can be married then!

Kind of Not Recommended

Susan Vosburgh and Tad Davis are new contributors to PopImage. Like we had to tell you that?