Number 2058: In the jungle, the frighty jungle

In both of today’s horror tales from pre-Comics Code Atlas, white people go into the jungle and something terrible happens to one or more of them. In “The Lizard,” from Adventures Into Terror #8 (1952), search for a devil lizard ends in a transformation. (Bad juju, bwana.)

Artwork is credited by Atlastales.com to Harry Lazarus, with Dick Beck a guess as inker. The Grand Comics Database agrees that Lazarus penciled it, but guesses that either Beck or Christopher Rule inked it.

Cal Massey (not to be confused with Cal Massey, jazz trumpeter and composer) drew “Look Out For Lakoonda.” In the case of this story, greed is the motivator. That and the jungle are usually disastrous for the characters in a horror comic.

Massey, an African-American, was a very talented artist who worked in comics for a time, then went into other art fields in the fifties. He became a very important fine artist. But at one point after comic books, he was contributing to Jim Warren’s nascent publishing empire, and Warren’s short-lived Playboy imitator, After Hours. Here is a full-page cartoon Massey did for After Hours #1 (1957):

From Adventures Into Terror #20 (1953):

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