Number 1806: Hurray for Halloween Horror: Dying for love, and a head for murder

Here is the second of our Halloween Week offerings, two tales from consecutive issues of Forbidden Worlds. “Love Me Forever” is from issue #24 (1953), and “Hannahan’s Head” is from #25 (1954).

The look on the face of the guy from the splash panel of the first story is familiar to me.

It is the look I present when puzzling over what to say about stories like these.

Here goes. What I can say about “Love Me Forever” is found in the old adage: “Be careful what you wish for. You just might get it.” The second story is about greed, and revenge from beyond death. Oh, and a head swimming in the ocean, no less. In their pre-Comics Code days, ACG published horror comics that were a bit lighter in tone than most horror comics. In a good percentage of them the main characters would be a young couple in love who are threatened by some supernatural menace. The guy fights it off, and the couple walks off arm-in-arm in a Hollywood ending. At a later point, as other comic book companies started going more for gore and visceral thrills, ACG tried for an edgier approach. I believe that was the intent here with both of these offerings. Did they succeed? At best I give them credit for effort.

Both stories were drawn by Kenneth Landau. I have shown some ACG stories from Landau before. Just check out the link below for an example. Covers are credited by the Grand Comics Database to Ken Bald.

One topsy-turvy story by Landau, published pre-Code, then Comics Code approved a few years later. Just click on the thumbnail:

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