Number 2251: Not-so-alarming Alarming Tales

I bought a copy of Alarming Tales #1 from a drugstore comic book rack in 1957. I tried to keep it away from my mother, who was a born censor. Printed material she didn’t approve of would be tossed into the incinerator.

I loved the comic, which came from the Simon and Kirby studio. The stories, six decades later, still carry a punch. I especially liked “The Fourth Dimension is a Very Splattered Thing.” Grand Comics Database gives Kirby credit for both pencils and inks and the script. Jack got a chance to draw some surrealism and have a boy-meets-girl romance, all in five pages!

Mom did find it, and disposed of it. [Sound effect of my gnashing teeth.]

Alarming Tales is not a horror comic. To Mom it was. (The title, Alarming Tales, and the dark cover probably pushed her inner Dr Wertham button.) Publisher Harvey Comics decided not to confuse their usual young readers and not chase away older readers; they put a different colophon in the upper left corner of the cover, calling it a Thrill Adventure. It gave me a thrill...especially when Mom reminded me of her parental disapproval with her comic book burnings.

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