The Horror Holiday of Al Avison was a break from other kinds of comics. Al Avison is known in comics for his work on superhero and romance books. As an artist for Timely he drew Captain America after Jack Kirby left (talk about filling big shoes!) He was the co-creator of the Whizzer. He also worked on Captain Marvel, Casper the Friendly Ghost, Joe Palooka, The Green Hornet and First Romance, Hi-School Romance, True Bride To-Be Romance, you get the idea. Al Avison was a pro that did plenty of comics in different genres. Al’s influences were largely his father, George Avison, a mural painter and Albert Dorne who illustrated the Slicks like Collier’s and The Saturday Evening Post.
And Al Avison did Horror comics, not many, only seven stories, which is a shame because his style is unusual and striking. His cover work reminds me strongly of the Pulps, the Shudder Pulps in particular. Only the Golden Age of comics could have seen work like this!
All these comics were written by unknown writers. They are available for free at DCM.
“The Monster of Mad Mountain” (Witches Tales #1, January 1951) is a pretty standard Frankenstein tale. A mad scientist (and murderer) creates a being filled with electric energy. You can see the superhero influence in the drawing of this story. In later comics, Al would focus more on creepy than muscles.
“The Ice Horror” (Chamber of Chills #9, June 1952) is a strange Northern with a frozen caveman. You can track stories of this type back to the first issue of Weird Tales. For more on this story and other frozen cavemen, go here.
“Cave of Doom” (Chamber of Chills #10, July 1952) is another strange Northern. I don’t know why anybody goes north. This time is a living cave. For more on this story, go here.
“Return From Bedlam” (Chamber of Chills #11, August 1952) has two men drive a woman insane to steal the inn she owns. Ghosts and potions are involved in her getting her revenge. This is a nice period piece for Al to draw.
“Nightmare of Doom” (Chamber of Chills #15, January 1953) is a typical slime story with a scientist creating an ooze that devours people. For more on slime monster comics, go here.
“Backwash” (Tomb of Terror #9, May 1953) has a man who wants his privacy so bad he will kill for it. Too bad the sea keeps washing the zombie bodies back up.
“I. O. U. One Body” (Black Cat Mystery #45, August 1953) has a man hire a dim assassin to kill his wife. Later when Willie thinks he has to bring a dead body back, he kills the man who hired him. This one reminds me of Fredric Brown’s “Night of the Psycho” (1949) expanded into Knock Three, Two, One (1960).
Covers
Conclusion
Al’s work here reminds me of Jay Disbrow, not in style, for they are quite different, but in sheer energy. Both Jay and Al have a kind of frantic joy in their work that is perfect for Golden Age Horror. It is this quality that is so lacking in the latter Comics’ Code approved stories from the Silver Age. There are no cavemen throttling scientists, no viscous slime devour scientists nor living caves consuming scientists. I think you get the idea. Scientists had it pretty bad in the early 1950s. Comic fans had it pretty good.
