Review: 'It Rose from the Tomb'

It's kind of funny that, in his new book It Rose from the Tomb, Peter Normanton expresses surprise that TwoMorrows was interested in publishing a book on the history of horror comics, considering that this would not be the first horror-centric book that comics-centric publisher has published (if you have not checked out Mark Voger's Monster Mash, you need to get it together, Daddy-O!) and that horror is so integral to comics history. It's the main reason why kids devoured funny books in the fifties and why the comics code shut them down. Marvel and DC were known to dabble in horror, and it was the life's blood of E.C. and Warren. And because even the chintziest horror comics were outlandishly visual and vivid, horror comics is the perfect theme for one of TwoMorrows' visual and vivid volumes.

So, TwoMorrows was very open to It Rose from the Tomb, and Normanton's book is what you might expect if you've read any of TwoMorrow's myriad other comics histories. Its format is half book telling a fairly chronological history and half mag, with its stand-alone articles on specific artists, such as the utterly fab Bernie Wrightson, or cultural strains, such s Brazil's horror comics. 

The overarching story is one that has been told before, and since Normanton is more concerned with describing artwork in purple prose than delving deeply into biographical or historical details, It Rose from the Tomb probably shouldn't be the first book about horror comics you should read (if you asked me, I'd steer you toward David Hadju's The Ten-Cent Plague, but you didn't, so I won't). As an example of TwoMorrows' visual-feastliness, It Rose from the Tomb can't be beat. Sure, the absence of any E.C. art is glaring but hardly surprising since copyright issues might be a factor. Otherwise, we get some spectacular images from Wrightson, Ditko, Woromay, and The Gurch, among many others. A gas!