Midnight Tales

First of all, shout out to my main man Marcus Roberts of Second Sight Publishing who’s always putting me on to books like this.  Midnight Tales is an anthology style horror series created by African American comic book illustrator Wayne Howard (1949-2007) for Charlton Comics. I was so happy to find a copy of issue 3 that I didn’t mind that it was in horrible condition (low grade).  I’m currently on the hunt for other issues. Namely #1.

What’s historically significant about the book is that it’s the first comic to give “created by” credits to it’s artist. According to Wikipedia:

Charlton took the unusual step of giving Howard a “created by” credit on each issue’s cover, providing a precedent for such credits eventually becoming common years later beginning with DC’s Vertigo imprint.  Charlton writer/editor Nick Cuti described Howard’s credit being granted because the book, “… was his idea, his concept, his everything.”   In addition, each issue shared a theme: “One time it would be blob monsters, and I wrote three stories about blob monsters, and another time it was vampires … and that sort of thing”.  Howard penciled and inked every cover and virtually every story, and occasionally scripted stories as well. [via Wikipedia]

Another interesting observation: Although this book was created by a Black artist the stories inside, at least at first glance, predominantly showcase white characters.  I don’t find this unusual at all since I believe this is common for the time period (early 70s).  I plan on looking into this further as my collection gains traction.