FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION: DC’S showcase PRESENTS: THE WITCHING hour VOL. 1

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Showcase Presents: The Witching Hour

by Robert Greenberger

When Dick Giordano was hired away from Charlton Comics by DC Comics in 1968, he brought along not only an armload of exciting talent, but he also brought with him years of experience producing books in every genre imaginable. taking a look at his output during his two year editorial tenure, you can see him trying some of this and some of that.

As a result, you can look at Dick’s output as a veritable cornucopia of fun books. mark Evanier noted, “Dick did at least edit Deadman for a short time. He was handed a feature on the road to cancellation and could do nothing to change that. The same was true of many of his assignments then: secret Six, beware the Creeper, Bomba the Jungle Boy, The Spectre, Blackhawk, etc. His revamps of teen Titans and Aquaman were much-admired around the office and by the much more vocal fans but the former only lasted two years after Dick left the editorial division and the latter ended when he departed. A revival of All-Star Western also did not endure long after Dick left. only one book he launched — The Witching hour — did. hot Wheels was not a success, nor was The Hawk and the Dove.”

Of all the books he launched, though, only The Witching hour endured long past his departure from staff. In the capable hands of Murray Boltinoff, the title lasted though issue #85 at which time it was a casualty of the DC Implosion and was folded into The Unexpected.

In his tribute, KC Carlson noted this spring, “The Witching hour was filled with creative surprises throughout the first lucky 13 Giordano-edited issues. consider this creative line-up: Toth, Adams, Bernie Wrightson, Denny O’Neil, Gil Kane, Wein, Sergio Aragones, Conway, Murphy Anderson, gray Morrow, Don Heck, Steve Skeates, Wolfman, George Tuska, Nick Cardy, Mike Sekowsky, Pat Boyette, Sid Greene, Jack Sparling, Bob Brown, bill Draut, Win Mortimer, and Jerry Grandenetti. pretty scary, eh, kids?”

Now, the first 21 issues of this oft-forgotten title are being collected in showcase Presents: The Witching Hour, Vol. 1. In the wake of Giordano’s successful relaunch of house of Secrets, this title followed the new model of having horror hosts. because Cain and Abel headlined house of mystery and house of secrets respectively, Giordano turned to the three witches, mostly inspired by Macbeth with each fulfilling the requisite roles of archetypal Maiden/Mother/Crone. The first cover blared, It’s 12 O’Clock…The Witching hour which lasted until the thirteenth issue when 12 O’Clock was replaced with Midnight, a catch phrase that remained with the series.

The Witching hour #1

Giordano’s Charlton cronies can be seen in the 13 issues he edited, he gave veterans like Pat Boyette plenty of work but he also was using young men like Steve Skeates who rarely missed an issue. Sergio Aragones, then a frequent contributor to the books coming from Joe Orlando, wrote various tales for this title as well.  Under the covers, from either Nick Cardy or Neal Adams, we had Mordred, Mildred, and Cynthia cackle and take us from tale to tale.

In this volume you can see some of the earliest works from newcomers like Gerry Conway, Bernie Wrightson, Michael William Kaluta, and Jeff Jones. Marv Wolfman wrote some of his first stories for Dick’s books and is here along with Len Wein. Future DC editor, and Marv’s neighbor, Alan Gold even shares one writing credit report with Marv, introducing the aliens Marv would later reuse and dub the Psions. direct sales founder Phil Seuling even makes a surprise appearance, writing one story while future playwright Ron Whyte and science fiction novelist Alan Riefe also contributed. veterans were not excluded as George Tuska branched out from his marvel assignments to draw quite a few stories here, reminding us of his crime Does Not Pay days. gray Morrow, already a vet by then, makes his DC Comics story debut with this series. and there’s plenty of Alex Toth goodness with the bridging sequences, although Adams drew the frame for Dick’s final issue.

There are some unexpected choices found here such as the team of Bob brown and Murphy Anderson, Jose Delbo and Gil Kane.  Story credit reports were mostly lacking so fans have been playing detective with ace researcher John Wells cleaning up much of the first 32 issues over at the Grand Comics Database.

He notes that Sergio Aragones plotted all the stories in TWH #8 while the artists (Neal Adams, Nick Cardy, Alex Toth) scripted them. Skeates scripted “Double Edge” (w/Toth), “Double Take” (w/Tuska), and “Double Cross” (w/Gil Kane) in #12. Toth, typically, chose to rewrite portions of Steve’s story much to Skeates’ chagrin.

Boltinoff took over the book burning off Dick’s inventory fairly rapidly but you already see his hand as George Kashdan, Bob Haney, LeeElias, and Art Saaf begin to fill the pages. Boltinoff himself penned several tales under the pseudonyms Al case and bill Dennehy. and as DC began using Philippine talent, one of the last stories in this collection is by the remarkable Nestor Redondo.

In some ways, this is one of the better collections of mystery anthologies from the showcase line given the strength of the talent between the covers.

The cover for The Witching hour #1 comes from the Grand Comics Database.