A Feature Presentation #5

(April 1950)

The Black Tarantula (Table of Contents: 1)

comic story / 29 pages (report information)

Script

?

Pencils

Ken Battefield

Inks

Ken Battefield

Colors

?

Letters

?

Genre

horror-suspense

Characters

Count Zoroaster Rorret [The Black Tarantula]

Reprints

• in Startling Terror Tales (Star Publications, 1952 series) #11 (July 1952)

Indexer Notes

Art identification based on Battefield’s signed stories from Super-Mystery Comics #v6#6 (July, 1947), Western Crime Busters #8 (December, 1951), and Crime Mysteries #1 (May, 1952). Similarities include the light shining from light sources being drawn as spiky circles, onomatopoeia drawn as bold black letters with exclamation points, and faces drawn with simplistic details, unless it’s a close-up. Battefield is also particularly keen on shading scenes, with him not only shading characters’ backs in a distinct way, but also their faces, occasionally to the point of obscuring them with shadow for dramatic effect. He also tends to draw the antihelix of the ear either with what resembles a regular “S” or a backwards “S“, and shade hair with squared blotches resembling stacked lines.

The Ghost Who Cried (Table of Contents: 2)

text story / 2 pages (report information)

Script

?

Letters

typeset

Reprints

• in Judy Canova (Fox, 1950 series) #3 (September 1950)
• in Blue Bolt (Star Publications, 1949 series) #114 (August 1952)
which is reprinted
• in Spook (Star Publications, 1953 series) #30 (October 1954)