If you missed the last one…
I wrote about the Tomes of Evil in Pulps but I also wrote about “The Black Arts” (Weird Fantasy #14, July-August 1950), an EC story written by Harry Harrison and drawn by Wally Wood that featured H. P. Lovecraft’s The Necronomicon. There were plenty of other comics with evil tomes in them in the Golden Age before the Comics’ Code prevented mention of witchcraft.
Most of these stories were written by an unknown author. If the author is known, it is indicated.
“Theft of the Book of Thoth” (More Fun Comics #58, August 1940) was written by Gardner F. Fox. Doctor Fate goes in search of the book of ancient Atlantean sorcery to prevent it from destroying the modern world. He has to punch out an inhuman mage to keep it. Gardner F. Fox wrote actual Cthulhu Mythos stories for Weird Tales in the 1940s.
“The Spawn of the Witch Queen” (Captain America Comics #20, November 1942) features The Book of Thoth as well. Cap and Bucky take on Mr. Weird Puss and his Egyptian-headed cronies to get the book back.
“The Book of Evil” (Ibis the Invincible #6, Spring 1948) was written by Bill Woolfolk. Ibis finds a book in an old curio shop. (The volume is bound in human skin. Sound familiar?) The monster in the book gets out and goes on a rampage. Ibis defeats it on the very pages of the book.
“The Dread Book of Betarin” (Dark Mysteries #3, October-November 1951) has a man buy an ancient sorcery manuscript and begins practicing magic. Things go awry when the demon whose skin the book is bound in shows up.
“Prisoner on Charon’s Ferry” (Whiz Comics #143, March 1952) was written by Bill Woolfolk. Ibis was featured in every issue Whiz Comics #2-155. (More on these stories in a future set of posts.) In this story, Ibis has a copy of The Necronomicon. The book is stolen and Ibis has to cross over to the land of dead to get it back.
“The Corpse That Wouldn’t Die!” (Web of Evil #2, January 1953) was written by Jack Cole. A man uses a book of sorcery to raise the dead. Unlike W. W. Jacobs’ “The Monkey’s Paw” (Harper’s Monthly Magazine, September 1902), we get to see what is on the other side of the door.
“The Most Miserable Man in the World!” (Mystic #16, January 1953) has a man with no luck use a book of magic to summon the devil only to find out he has been in Hell all along.
“Devil’s Sketch Book” (Fantastic Fears #4, November 1953) has something a little different: The Magic Blow Book. When you blow across the cover, the pages become blank. When you draw someone on those pages, they die! Unfortunately, the sketches are used by the cops as evidence of murder.
“Beyond the Past” (The Thing #11, November-December 1953) features The Necronomicon as well. The professor translates a page then calls on the Great Old One, Xnapantha, with the usual results.
“Terror in Chinatown” (Web of Evil #17, August 1954) begins with August Lamont (Not Derleth!), book collector, wanting a copy of The Book of the Dead. He steals and murders to get it. Once he has it, he finds the pictures in the book come alive with ghostly figures. In the end, the cops find him dead, strangled by his own hands.
“Magic” (Mysterious Stories #5, September 1955) has a stage magician buy a real magical spell book. He experiments with other realms and ends up with the girl. One of the few happy endings here.
“The Black Book” (Journey Into Mystery #29, December 1955) has a mariner buy a spell book to control the weather at sea. His plans don’t go the way he thinks, ending up with a berth on a ship-in-a-bottle.
Conclusion
It’s interesting how many of these use the actual Necronomicon or “The Book of the Dead”, which is what that title means in Greek. With one exception, the writers use the name but not anything particularly Lovecraftian. “Beyond the Past” is that exception. The introduction of a magic book into a story is a sure sign that the protagonist is in trouble. Most of these stories feature people trying to take control of their lives through sorcery. The results are often not what they hoped.
