The Horror of Wally Wood in Avon’s Eerie #2, Up for Auction

Posted in: Comics, Heritage Sponsored, Vintage Paper | Tagged: Eerie, wally wood

Avon’s Eerie #2 is a fascinating Pre-Code comic book from a historic publisher that features cover and artwork by the legendary Wally Wood.

The Pre-Code Horror period of 1950s comics is full of weird and underappreciated gems. While we’ve recently discussed how the ACG series Adventures into the Unknown is considered the first ongoing horror title, the first issue of that series is not considered the first horror comic book.  That distinction belongs to Eerie #1 from publisher Avon in 1947.  Like many Avon titles of the period, Eerie (not to be confused with the Eerie of Warren Publishing magazine fame) did not initially make it past issue #1, but Avon resurrected the title in 1952 with the comic book horror market booming.  Eerie #2 has a stand-out cover and content from the legendary Wally Wood, and there’s an Eerie #2 (Avon, 1951) CGC GD+ 2.5 Off-white pages up for auction in the 2023 July 13 – 14 Pre-Code Horror & Crime Comics Showcase Auction #40227 at Heritage Auctions.

Eerie’s publisher Avon has a strange history of its own.  The publisher began life in 1878 as J.S. Ogilvie Publishing Company, a publisher of dime novel material in various formats including paperback-like Thick Books.  Distributor American News Co. bought the publisher, by then partly owned by Joseph Meyers and Edna Meyers Williams, and renamed it Avon Publications.  Avon published over 100 comic titles (in comic book format) from 1945 to  1956, most extremely short-lived.  Avon Books also sporadically published paperback format collections of newspaper comics and similar material throughout that period and continued to do so through the mid-1990s.  The company was acquired by Hearst in 1959 and is currently a romance imprint of HarperCollins, where it has been active through at least 2019.

The 1952 relaunch of Eerie lasted for 17 issues, and Eerie #2 is one of the best of the bunch.  The lead story The Thing from the Sea! by Wood, Joe Orlando, and Sid Check, has subsequently appeared in a number of Pre-Code Horror comic collections.  As for Wood’s cover, the “story behind the cover” text story in this issue explains that the woman shown here is the soul of an executed murderer being ushered down to Hell for eternal damnation. A Pre-Code Horror classic with a cover by the legendary Wally Wood, there’s an Eerie #2 (Avon, 1951) CGC GD+ 2.5 Off-white pages up for auction in the 2023 July 13 – 14 Pre-Code Horror & Crime Comics Showcase Auction #40227 at Heritage Auctions.

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