Number 1580: Powell surprinted

Artist Bob Powell took some chances with the crummy reproduction of most comic books by including things like the surprints in both these stories from Weird Thrillers #3 (1952). A surprint is created by inking a drawing on a separate sheet of clear acetate, then using it as an overlay on the primary artwork, where it is photographed separately. It was then engraved onto the blue plate, and printed without the usual black lines around it. Sometimes in the printing process if the pressmen weren’t paying attention or didn’t care, the surprint got the bad end of bad printing. But here the surprints show up well.

The other thing I’ll mention is that with some editing (like changing a panel of a man run over by a car), either of these stories would have fit comfortably into a post-Code comic book. They aren’t horror stories as we usually think of them.