Monster of the Day #701

Dell Comics back in the ’60s had an interesting strategy. They turned out not very good comics, but hired really good artists to paint their covers, guys like George Wilson and Morris Gollub. The interior art, meanwhile, generally was bad to decent at best, but by the time you saw that you’d already been hooked by those fab covers. This is rather similar to AIP in the ’50s, when Sam Arkoff and James Nicholson would first whip up cool posters for films, and then make the cheapie movies to go with the posters.

Once I started looking for these Dell covers I kept finding more and more of them. Kona alone deserves more a single week, and Dell was rife with “primitive hero fighting dinosaurs / monsters” titles, including an actual Tarzan book, not to mention the long running Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery series. (Already featured once as a previous MotD.) I could easily just run these things for the next two months, but I’ll break things up a bit. But expect to see a lot more of these things in the upcoming months.

Eventually, either because they were cheaper or quicker, Dell went to line drawn covers by their sub-Marvel and DC stable of artists. These look even more inferior in contrast to these painted beauties.

There are a LOT more often deluxe hardcover reprints of old comics these days. Dell’s books don’t, in my opinion, warrant such things. However, I would gladly part with $30 or $40 for a glossy, oversized reprint book collecting these covers.

  • Scopi314

    Where Dell made up for the expense of the painted covers was by reusing them. For example, issues #25 and #54 had the same painting. I’m pretty sure some of the covers were used at least three times.

  • Ken_Begg

    Well, assuming the book was monthly, that’s well over two years between usages. I’m sure they thought their audience had turned over by then. If the book was bi-monthly, that’s quite a bit longer. And contrast to Marvel (and maybe DC?) who would sometimes do unannounced reprint issues with new covers, surely more of a bait and switch. Again like drive-in movies, where distributors would re-release films under new titles to snare ticket buyers a second or even third time.

    Damn, that’s pretty, though.

  • Scopi314

    As someone who, as a small child, spent his allowance to pick up back issues of Turok at the local book store, I can assure you Dell ALSO reprinted previous stories with new covers. Not that I’m bitter. And I’m pretty sure I had an issue that was both a reprint and a reused cover. (But a different cover than the original issue had.)

  • Eric Hinkle

    Ah, how I remember those Karloff stories. And am I wrong or did Dell also do some sort of Ripley’s ‘Believe it or Not’ title about weird ghost stories? I could swear that they were my introduction to the whole ‘Croglin Grange Vampire’ legend.

  • Eric Hinkle

    One more question: am I mistaken, or was it Dell that released the ‘Turok, Son of Stone’ series?

  • Ken_Begg

    Yep!

  • Ken_Begg

    I believe that is correct. They did a lot of licensed books, like Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and Twilight Zone and Tarzan.

  • Rock Baker

    I wouldn’t say the Dell/Gold Key titles were lacking in good interior stories. I’d count TUROK, SON OF STONE as among the best titles any company EVER put out. Granted, I’m not much of a comics reader beyond reprints of ME, Fiction House, and EC materials (yeah, I know, a strange thing for a comic book pencil jockey to admit to).

  • Rock Baker

    In fact, the Dell/Gold Key line has a pretty large fan base. One of Jim Main’s new titles, in fact, is The Dell/Gold Key Collector, or something like that.

  • Rock Baker

    Those re-prints are good for collectors who just want to read Turok, though, since the first runs sell for a lot more money. Pop had a good-sized Turok collection for a while, and they were almost all re-prints like that.

  • bgbear_rogerh

    The lady seems a little overdressed to be rescued by a brute.

  • Ken_Begg

    Several of the covers for this series (as we’ll probably see this week) feature folks in modern dress huddling in the background as the Tarzan-like Kona fights some giant beastie. So I’m assuming it’s a Land of the Lost type deal.

  • bgbear_rogerh

    I was thinking more of the “sex sells” type of covers (IYKWIMAITYD). Clothes not shredded, full length slacks, blouse nicely buttoned. She might as well be wearing a burka by most cover standards.

  • Ken_Begg

    I think Dell generally targeted more of a kiddie market.

  • bgbear_rogerh

    Well, I never had a latency period. I can’t help it

  • Eric Hinkle

    Ah! Man but I loved that as a kid. It reminded me so much of ‘Valley of Gwangi’ (still one of my favorite Harryhausen films). American Indians with (poisoned) bow and arrow taking down monsters from out of time’s dawn!