Frank Belknap Long had something his more famous friends never did: a long and varied career. Most famous today as HP Lovecraft’s closest friend, Long was a writer of weird stories and science fiction in his own right and not just a footnote to the Cthulhu Mythos. Along with writing pulp science fiction and horror, Long also was one of the first to write horror comics and set in motion the 1950s craze that would include the famous EC brand of the genre.
In 1940, Long followed several other pulpsters such as Otto Binder and Manly Wade Wellman into the comics field. (Later Edmond Hamilton would contribute to the world of Superman, and in a weird reversal, comic artist Harry Harrison would become the science fiction writer of Stainless Steel Rat fame.) After a few superhero scripts Long joined ACG in creating the first, continuous, all-horror comic, Adventures into the Unknown. (There was Avon’s Eerie in 1947, but it did not publish another issue for four years!) Frank would write the entire contents of the first two issues before moving onto other projects. His run was short, but in those two issues he set up what would become the standard style for horror comics, based on the feel and topics found in Weird Tales magazine, while also paying homage to the great-grand-daddy of them all, the first Gothic writer, Horace Walpole.
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