By Amanda Sheriff and J.C. Vaughn

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One of the things many horror fans enjoy in fright flicks is the spooky atmosphere bolstered by the uncanny, often jarring music composed for the films. Chilling writing, expert direction, and gruesome special effects are all incredibly important pieces to the puzzle of creating an effective horror film, but without the right score, an otherwise great movie can fall flat.

How many of us get chills when we hear John Carpenter’s iconic theme from Halloween, imagining the black, lifeless eyes of a maniac fixed on us from across the street? How about John Williams’ simple yet effective work in Jaws? Does it conjure mental images of a toothy leviathan lurking in the deep, scary enough to have us exercise caution even in swimming pools, when our rational brain obviously knows better? Whether it’s an attempt to recreate the atmosphere of a film, enhance the experience of a house we’re haunting around Halloween, or just to enjoy the creepy cover art, we have been voraciously collecting those beloved soundtracks for decades.

The Halloween soundtrack on vinyl featuring the score created and performed by John Carpenter.

Beginning with Franz Waxman’s score for 1935’s The Bride of Frankenstein, film scores became much more prominent. Often, Universal scores were a mixture of dark romanticism and then-cutting-edge concepts like atonality. Hammer’s gothic horror scores were largely influenced by earlier Universal music, though they had a distinct feel due to the talents of composers James Bernard, Benjamin Frankel, and Malcolm Williamson.

In 1960, Bernard Hermann’s screeching Psycho theme changed the game of horror film music,
virtually birthing the iconic horror score as we know it. Horror soundtrack albums began to take off in the 1970s, with scores from The Exorcist, Phantasm, Jaws, The Omen, and Halloween becoming permanently ingrained in the fabric of pop culture. By the mid-1980s, the eerie themes from Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street had joined those from the aforementioned films atop the heap of contemporary horror music.

No history of horror film music is complete without the mention of two trailblazing artists: John Carpenter and Goblin. Carpenter, known equally for his unsettling synthesizer scores as he is for his directing prowess, crafted chilling music for most of his feature films, including the previously mentioned Halloween, The Fog, Christine, Escape from New York, They Live, and In the Mouth of Madness. Goblin, an Italian progressive rock act, is known to horror fans for providing the music for a multitude of classic giallo and horror films, including Deep Red, Suspiria, Dawn of the Dead, and Beyond the Darkness.

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Understanding Dell’s Four Color Comics
Four Color Comics was an anthology series published by Dell Comics from the late 1930s through the early 1960s. The title was named after the four main colors used in comic book printing, which are black, cyan (blue/green), yellow, and magenta (red/purple).

Four Color differed from most of its contemporaries in two major ways. First, it did not follow a specific character or intellectual property. Rather, each issue featured different sets of characters in one-shot stories. One issue might involve a cartoon character, and the next might use characters from a movie or TV show.

Cover for Four Color #9 (October 1942), featuring Carl Barks’ first comic, Donald Duck Finds Pirate Gold

Second, nearly all of the characters in Four Color Comics were licensed properties, rather than creations owned by Dell.

The comic began with Dick Tracy, Don Winslow, Myra North, and Donald Duck reprints of comic strips. This format continued with more reprints from Gang Busters, Terry and the Pirates, Little Orphan Annie, Tillie Toiler, Mickey Mouse, and stories from Disney movies like Dumbo. The first 25 issues, published from 1939 to early ’42, are considered the first series of the title.

The second series picked up with reprints of Little Joe, Harold Teen, Alley Oop, and Smilin’ Jack. Early issues also included the series’ first original tales with Raggedy Ann and Andy and Donald Duck Finds Pirate Gold.

Dell would then change its focus from nearly all reprints to more original stories. Those tales were then used to determine if the character(s) could sustain their own series. Little Lulu was one of the first characters to break out into their own series in 1948, Donald Duck soon followed with a successful solo series that began in 1952, and Porky Pig also got a solo series in 1952.

Throughout its run, Four Color told a wide variety of stories, starring characters from animation, comic strips, radio programs, TV, movies, even musicians and Westerns. The book featured fairy tales, Roy Rogers and Lone Ranger stories, Christmas and other holiday issues, action stars like Steve Canyon, TV issues with I Love Lucy, Captain Kangaroo, and Leave it to Beaver, adventures with The Hardy Boys, Yogi Bear, Rocky and Bullwinkle, and much more.
The series ended in 1962 with Four Color #1354. It is, however, a little-known fact that internally, Dell continued the Four Color numbering for projects for some time after that.

In Memoriam: Mort Todd
Mort Todd, the writer-editor-artist-publisher, is perhaps best known for his tenure as Editor-in-Chief of Cracked magazine and for his work at Marvel Music. Most recently, he had been working on a number of projects with the Steve Ditko estate—including the recently crowdfunded Mr. A #1—and on a collection with the late Don Martin’s widow.
He was 63.

Born Michael Delle Femine on November 9, 1961, Todd’s tenure at Marvel included working with artists such as Kiss, Rob Zombie, The Rolling Stones, and KRS-One, as well as the estates of Elvis Presley and Bob Marley in the mid-‘90s. He also edited the pre-Code horror and monster reprint collections Curse of the Weird and Monster Menace.

“It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our beloved brother, Mort Todd. He passed unexpectedly at his home in Portland, Maine. He will be missed for his vast knowledge of the arts, gregarious personality, sharp wit, dedication to his craft, and fellow artists. A small private family remembrance will be held. Mort will be greatly missed by his family, friends, and fans,” his sister, Nancy Delle Femine, posted on Facebook.

Amanda Sheriff is the Editor-Digital for Gemstone Publishing. J.C. Vaughn is Gemstone’s President. Writer Jon Steffens also contributed to this column.