Note: Ed Hulse pointed out that these stories were probably written by James B. Hendryx’s son, Jim Hendryx Jr. I think he is right. The only problem is I can’t find any evidence either way on line. Information if you have it, please.
The Horror Stories of James B. Hendryx! That’s like saying “The Love Poems of Edgar Rice Burroughs”. (Anybody remember that old Warren comic story?) James B. Hendryx is one of my favorite adventure writers. As a regular in Short Stories, he wrote Northerns about Black John and the rest of the miners at Halfaday Creek. What he didn’t do was write horror stories for Weird Tales or the Shudder Pulps. So where did the horror stories from this successful writer come from? The comics. From 1952 to 1954, Hendryx provided filler text stories for the Nedor Comics line, owned by Pulp magnate, Ned Pines. Like other adventure writers such as Charles S. Strong and Donald Bayne Hobart, Hendryx filled those comics with stories. (Some house names also did, like Jackson Cole and Sam Brant.)
Hendryx wrote for all the genres of comics including Romance, Police Detective and War stories. He rarely used his own name but variations such as Susan Hendryx for Romance, Terry or Jim Hendryx for adventure, as well as Harrison Hendryx. Ironically, he did not pen any Northerns for these short tales. In five cases, he wrote for the Horror comics.
“Walking Dead” (Adventures Into Darkness #10, June 1953) is set in the jungles of Brazil. Hendryx does a lot of scene setting before subjecting the narrator and Sandra to a bevy of walking dead. The man telling story shoots at the legs of one but the two escape on their seaplane. The encounter only takes about a quarter of the tale.
“Call of the Werewolf” (Adventures Into Darkness #11, September 1953) has Jody Gehrmer off to the dentist on the morrow. His eye teeth are too long and unsightly. That night a pack of wolves comes for the livestock. Jody is chased by them but escapes, getting shot in the arm. Later when his father tells the story, there was a wolf in the front, not a man. Jody is only too happy to go to the dentist to get his teeth filed. It will help hide the fact that he is werewolf.
“Two Shrunken Heads” (Out of the Shadows #12, 1954) has Alice Doerr, a redhead, recently married to Otto, a trader among the natives. A medicine man, who saved her from fever, is trying to save her again. He tells her to run, for her husband has sold her head. He has done this three times before, married redheads and brought them to the jungle. Alice is no wallflower. She finds Otto and shoots him several times. Unfortunately, Alice gets poison darts in the back and ends up a shrunken head as well.
“The Living Brain” (Adventures Into Darkness #14, June 1954) has Bill visiting his Cousin Elbert. He wants to see Harry Sibberling. Elbert and Sibberling have been working on an experiment. Elbert lies and says Harry left. A cry from the house sends Bill inside to find Harry is now a cyborg, a robot with a human brain. Elbert plans to kill his cousin but the robot kills him instead. Harry asks Bill to leave so he can blow up the house and all evidence of the experiment. This is a pretty standard Weird Tales robot story retold twenty years later.
“The Dead Can’t Talk” (Out of the Shadows #14, August 1954) is not a supernatural tale but one about a man in need of money who unwittingly discovers he has been abetting a grave robber.
All these comics are available for free at DCM.
Many big writers wrote the text stories for comics including Otto Binder, Manly Wade Wellman, Gardner F. Fox, and Mickey Spillane. These short fillers get no love from fans usually but I find them fun, especially when they are done by a writer I admire or enjoy. James B. Hendryx is certainly one of these.
The five stories here are certainly not his best work. Most of the plots are recycled from old Pulp stories. (I suspect he was a Weird Tales reader.) That being said, not all the stories are dull. The idea of a man luring redheads into the jungle to sell their craniums to headhunters is brilliant. It might not be very original either but I haven’t come across it before.
My only wish is that the horror stories of James B. Hendryx had contained some strange Northerns among them. The man who gave us Corporal Downie, Connie Morgan, Black John of Halfaday Creek and The Stampeders certainly could have come up with a great creepy tale of the Arctic. “Call of the Werewolf” comes closest but shies away.
I remember a story about a thief or criminal who could travel to alternate dimensions but if he was in the wrong dimension the authorities could track him.
He thinks he has arrived in his own dimension because everything looks normal and throws away his device. But he sees on a bookshelf the Love Stories of Edgar Rice Burroughs and knows he is doomed to get caught.
But I’m not sure how I could have seen the story in a Warren mag. I think I might have seen it in a marvel comic probably a reprint.
I thought it was in The Rook. Drawn by Lee Elias.
“Harrison Hendryx” is a pseudonym used only by James Hendryx Jr. I collect the stories by both the father and son. Some dealers neglect to mention the “Jr.” and one western pulp tale does not have “Jr.” on the author’s name, but it is clearly “Jr.”s work.
These two authors have distinct writing styles.
Thanks.
Here is another James Hendryx Jr. text filler:
Crime Files: #6 Standard Comics, November 1952