What I’ve Been Reading: Tom Sutton’s Creepy Things

I know basically nothing about Charlton comics. I have a few vague memories of the Charlton logo on the cover of tattered comics scattered around the barbershops of my 1980s youth, but if you’d asked me a month ago if I’d ever read a Charlton comic, I’d probably have said no. And too bad for me, it turns out.

This collection of short horror comics is part of Craig Yoe’s ongoing reissue project for classic pre-code comics, especially horror, The Chilling Archives of Horror Comics. This was the first book I read in the series, but after I did, I stocked up on 6 more and am looking forward to digging into them. While not every book in the series take this approach, Creepy Things is much like Fantagraphics’ current EC reissues that focus on work by a single artist, rather than from a single comic title.

That’s a terrific approach for the EC titles and it works equally well here. I’d never heard of Tom Sutton, but I came away from the book both a fan of his and a fan of Charlton’s horror comics. They make for an interesting comparison to EC and Warren and neatly sidestep the worst impulses of those publishers to glib humor, twist endings, and stupid cop-outs.

A great volume for those interested in classic horror beyond the biggest names.