Number 47


The Tomb Of Terror




This is an enjoyable but hokey story from Forbidden Worlds #5, March-April, 1952. It's drawn by Lou Cameron, about whom I know very little. About all the biographical information gives is that he was born in San Francisco in 1924. He was a good artist and his work is collectible. He drew one of the best-loved issues of Classics Illustrated, The War Of The Worlds. He left comics some years ago to pursue a successful career as a writer of paperback novels.

I said this story is hokey, and it is. The plot is straight out of a pulp magazine. A doctor and his fiancée visit a town with a sinister castle, "Stormway Hall." The ghost of a girl leads the doctor into a supernatural situation involving a green sorcerer, some "fiends," and a ghost, all in a place the sorcerer refers to as The Tomb Of Terror. It was most likely written by the editor, Richard E. Hughes, who seemingly and single-handedly, wrote and edited the American Comics Group line until his death some years ago.Forbidden Worlds, and its big brother, Adventures Into The Unknown, were successful comics that ran for many years.

This is the cover for the issue Tomb Of Terror appeared in.

Hughes wasn't real big on story structure in the early years, and sometimes logic got lost. He got better as he got older, and some of his later stories, from his code-approved books, are very good.