The joey Zone
ROGER HILL, The Chillingly Weird Art of Matt Fox. Raleigh, North Carolina: TwoMorrows Publishing, 2023. 127 pp. $29.95 hc. ISBN: 9781605491202.
This volume not only is a worthy tribute to one of the most idiosyncratic of Weird Tales illustrators, but to its compiler, Roger Hill, who passed away at the end of 2023 at the age of 75. Hill was one of those responsible in firing off the rockets of early comics fandom, specifically giving Credit Where Due to the EC (Entertaining Comics) artists of the 1950s. This reviewer adds this capstone to the career of Roger Hill to the packed shelf next to other works by that scholar highlighting the works of Frank R. Paul and Wally Wood. Unsurprisingly, next to that shelf are teetering rows of the obligatory archival collector boxes, one containing copies of that initial EC fanzine, Squa Tront, which Hill also had a hand in editing with fellow enthusiast Jerry Weist.
“Squa Tront!” “Spa Fon!” were two alien exclamations of alarum first coined in Weird Fantasy #17, in one of the many meta graphic narratives (some comical and not as apocalyptic) presented by EC. Their more infamous horror titles had a trio of hosts, The GhouLunatics, made up of The Crypt Keeper, The Vault Keeper and The Old Witch. Their sardonic commentary on EC’s exaggerated morality plays shined a light on the suburban dark as it really was.
But about Matt Fox: Possibly the most representative of his works is a two-page spread reproduced as this collection’s title page. Originally published with Famous Fantastic Mysteries June 1944 reprint of Algernon Blackwood’s “The Wendigo”, this illustration has the Herne-horned elemental snatching the guide Défago away into the higher spaces…Cartoony some might classify its style, but like the art of Fox’s WT contemporary Lee Brown Coye, perhaps also just true. Matt Fox’s possible influence can be felt in the work of Kim Deitch or more recently the artist Skinner, who contributed original art by Fox that he owns for reproduction here.
Some of Fox’s most notable pieces in Weird Tales were for Mythos tales such as August Derleth’s “The Dweller in Darkness” (November 1944). His cover painting probably was meant to depict Nyarlathotep in the story, albeit with some blind idiot god’s daemon flautists working a side gig. Boris Dolgov’s interior title page piece hewed closer to the story’s mood. The opening illustration for Robert Bloch’s “Notebook Found in a Deserted House” (May 1951) depicts a many hooved horror that is comically far over the top of any shoggoth hinted at in the telling. Far superior to these were headers used with some of the occasional verse that ran in that publication. Matt Fox’s design for “The City” by H. P. Lovecraft in the July 1950 number, for example, is one of the finest illuminations ever affixed to Theoboldian poesy, let alone eerily showing Providence(?) architecturally as it is now, a Dream of Future Past…
Fox went from doing artwork for the pulps to horror comics when the former went out of vogue. While one of these tales, “The Hand of Glory” (Chilling Tales #13, December 1952) is reprinted here in color, one longs to see the denouements of other stories teased with reproductions of their splash pages, especially “Witch-Hunt!” (Strange Tales #18, May 1953).
I first came across Fox’s art in 1966 by way of ads in the magazine Castle of Frankenstein for glow in the dark posters. This book reveals that not one order for these was ever received! (I missed my chance…) No matter his limited success, several photos of Fox in this book show a bemused creator of grim wit, a GhouLunatic in his own write. Still working three years before he passed, Matt Fox had completed 40 illustrations for a special portfolio Beelzebub’s Book. Good news: At the time of this TwoMorrows publication there are plans to publish this.
In pace requiescat then to Matt Fox and Roger Hill. EC or Fox’s art can be rarified flavors of grue, but if you have read this far you are probably anxious to order something from the menu. Thanks to both of them, there is no end to this story within a story, to which we can only say in amazement—SQUA TRONT! SPA FON!