My Rating
In the competitive world of 1970’s horror comics and magazines, Atlas/Seaboard introduced “Weird Tales of the Macabre” to an oversaturated market. Offering the best advertising rates for time, the main goal was to pull artists and advertisers from Marvel Comics, hurting Marvel’s market share. It worked briefly, but the end product was not the quality Marvel and DC readers were accustomed to. “Weird Tales of the Macabre” only lasted for two issues (starting in 1975 and ending in the same year).
So what did “Weird Tales of the Macabre” offer that was different to competing books on the newsstand? Not much, unfortunately. Unlike Atlas/Seaboard’s other horror comic series, “Devilina”, which included a continuing mini-story of the Devilina character between issues, “Weird Tales of the Macabre“ used the exact same format common to horror comic books at the time. This format being multiple, unjoined, horror stories written and illustrated by different artists. This format was an industry norm in 1975 so Atlas/Seaboard offered nothing new.
Being an upstart comic book publisher, in my opinion, Atlas/Seaboard should have saved their money and focused directly on the “Devilina” series. “Devilina” had everything that “Weird Tales of the Macabre” offered, but was a better product I’m my opinion. Atlas/Seaboard was competing with itself as well as Marvel Comics. If I remember correctly, Atlas Comics signed more artists to contracts than they
The artwork and writing is very solid for the 1970s era, but unfortunately there is only so much a horror artist can do in the confines of black and white (thanks to U.S. government regulations of the time). Also, the varying art styles in the two issues of “Weird Tales of the Macabre” does not help pull the reader into a coherent universe. It would have been a better series, in my honest opinion, if they would have used the same artist in each story.
On a positive note “Weird Tales of the Macabre” does include an article section dedicated to horror in movies and television. In issue number one Gary Gerani covers horror director Dan Curtis. The article was very informative and covers his work through the “Dark Shadows” soap opera to “Kolchak the Night Stalker” (one of my favorite tv shows as a kid).
I’m glad to have this book in my collection, for the nostalgia alone, but I can see why “Weird Tales of the Macabre” had a very limited run. I give issue number one it a solid three stars.
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