Haunt of Fear #26 (July-August 1954) featured “Comes the Dawn”, written by Otto Binder and drawn by Jack Davis. This Northern is part of the third wave of exploitation in the Arctic. First there was whaling and furs, then the Gold Rush, and later oil, uranium and diamonds.
Jack Bolton and his two partners, Olaf and Sam, are searching the Arctic near the Chanuk Hills for uranium. They find a large deposit from the air but need to land and find the location exactly to stake their claim.
They hire a young Eskimo man named Kalak to take them to Three Peaks. The spot proves to be rich in uranium. It is also where there is a frozen coffin. Inside is a vampire that will be released in the Spring thaw. The miners offer to get rid of the vampire with a stake but Kalak sleds off. The men will have to walk back to the village in the dark.
They happen upon a trapper’s cabin and decide to stay the night. There is no food but in the morning they will fly to Nome at stake their claim to riches. Jack gets the idea of keeping all the money for himself (The Arctic just makes people greedy!) He lights a fire under the coffin, freeing the monster. Running back to the cabin, he calls to his partners. They rush outside to see. Jack slams and locks the door.
The vampire kills Olaf and Sam. Jack will be rich. He will tell the authorities just enough to hide his crimes. Kalak can testify to the existence of a vampire. In the morning, when the sun comes up the vampire must return to its coffin…
A terrible idea comes to Jack. He looks at the calendar. Since it is winter, the sunrise won’t come for at least a week!
“Comes the Dawn” is classic EC. The Jack Davis artwork (with Marie Severin colors) is so iconic. It isn’t hard to see why EC is the gold standard in horror comics. Otto Binder wrote hundreds of comics through the 1940s- 60s. Famous as a Science Fiction Pulp writer, he did more for comics like Captain Marvel, Supergirl and Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen. Jack Davis moved from comics to advertising. Some of the most famous movie posters of the 1970s were drawn by Jack.
This Arctic long-night idea will be the core of the 2002 comic 30 Days of Night. (It was made into a film in 2007. And a sequel in 2010.) Written by Steve Niles and drawn by Ben Templesmith, it has the town of Barrow, Alaska attacked by vampires for the longest period of darkness of the year. I don’t know if Niles read “Comes the Dawn” or just came up with the idea on his own.
