#295 - Nights of Horror 15 Joe Shuster

Nights of Horror, Issue No. 15
Malcla [MALetta+CLAncy]Publishing
1954
reprint by Festival Publishers Ltd.
Los Angeles, California
1971

digital replica




Our intention and history have been to offer esoteric materials that appeal to eclectic interests. Nights of Horror, Issue No. 15, certainly meets those criteria. This vintage publication fills nearly 80 pages with a long short story in a gritty urban setting.

Although the ebook is based on a 1971 reprint that shows an odd star logo on the cover, Nights of Horror, was launched by Malcla Publishing in 1953. The 16-volume series was the subject of legal action involving a Manhattan bookstore the following year. The mayor’s office prosecuted Kingsley Books for allegedly selling literature that violated decency law. They lost at the trial level and on appeal. A small fine was levied. Only the retailer was pursued. No action was taken against the printer, publisher, writer or artist.

In many volumes, prose and pictures tell stories about women who are captured, placed in bondage and whipped. Men dominate, but women also abuse. Some of the stories in the Nights of Horror, series may have been loosely based on sensational fiction found in detective magazines in the 1930s and 1940s.

“Dreams for Sale” by Gar (rag spelled backward) King fills issue 15 with a noir-style, post WWII story involving a wealthy Long Island family whose youngest members have become the prey of a cruel dope pusher named Squint. Mrs. Van Zorn hires a lusty detective, tough Brad Stone, to disentangle son Buddy and lovely daughter Jill (sometimes called Jean) from the “white stuff” and its malicious purveyors.

Stone kisses and fondles every female character in the story. Bodies, make-up and clothing are described in some detail. His feelings and fantasies about these women are also disclosed, as in fiction written for adult magazines of the 1970s. One scene with his secretary inches toward explicitness, but is abruptly interrupted by a bullet entering the room.

The “dreams” of the title are similar to the dreams of the painfully intimate 2000 film Requiem for a Dream, in that women in both pay for narcotics with degrading sexual performances. Ten Joe Shuster illustrations depict some scenes from the text. Unlike volume 1, no nudity is shown in evocative tableaux that show curvaceous cuties in compromised circumstances.

With stony echoes of Raymond Chandler and Mickey Spillane, the story delivers an unexpectedly good read, with plot turns typical of detective fiction and mystery films. As a work of 1950s erotica, Nights of Horror, 15 achieves its objectives.

For more information about Nights of Horror (the Superman Connection),
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