Out of the Night
Entry updated 28 July 2025. Tagged: Comics, Publication.
US Comic (1952-1954). American Comics Group (ACG). 17 issues. Artists include Ken Bald and Art Gates. Script writers include Richard Hughes. 36 pages, usually with 4 long strips and a short text story, plus occasional short strips as filler.
Out of the Night was a solid Horror comic, regularly including sf or sf-adjacent stories, but mainly featuring Vampires, Zombies, Witches (see Supernatural Creatures), Werewolves and demons – including Satan (see Gods and Demons); there were also Mythology-based appearances of Medusa and a "Minotaur", the latter depicted as a giant, horned lizard. "Adventure Into Witchcraft!" (#5) has a writer for Adventures into the Unknown, Forbidden Worlds and Out of the Night procure a "fabulously rare and Ancient Egyptian volume called 'The 13th Book of Necromancy'", hoping it will generate story ideas, only to discover that writers delving into supernatural history are turned into vampires and suchlike by the biblical Witch of Endor (1 Samuel 28:3-25).
"The Return of the Werewolf" (#1) has the werewolf killed by the injection of a sedative, reducing his pulse rate: his wolf pack takes this to be a sign of dying, and they fall upon him. In "The Heart of Horror" (#2), a man with a fatal heart condition persuades a surgeon (who has previously transplanted animal hearts) to replace his heart; once completed (see Medicine), there's a shift into supernatural horror as the donor heart proves to be that of a ghoul; "Monsters from the Ages" in (#3) also turns supernatural after some ice-bound Vikings are unfrozen (see Suspended Animation); "Terror in the Swamp!" (#3), has fanged ape-like Monsters inhabiting a Philippine swamp. "The Zombie's Revenge" (#5) features an acid "whose basic ingredient is salt extracted from Caribbean kelp", that can destroy zombies. "The Avenging Soul" (#7) features a Scientist reviving his executed gangster brother, hoping "death will have purified his soul"; it has not. "In the Wake of the Bomb" (#9) a Russian nuclear test exposes the ruins of a 20,000 year old civilization. The translator of a document preserved at the site reports it was destroyed by Aliens arriving in a World Ship, offended by its Decadence and wickedness; they will return should evil arise again. The translator is executed and the story suppressed, though not successfully; so when the world ship returns and heads towards the Kremlin, a Soviet journalist wonders: if they have come to punish the wicked, why choose "great Mother Russia"? (see Cold War). "The Electric Spirit!" (#11) has a criminal executed by electric chair as lightning strikes the building, so becoming a "living thunderbolt" (see Supervillains) seeking revenge on those responsible for his death; eventually he is trapped in an electrical beam and broadcast into space. "Beware the Bejango!" involves giant humanoid reptiles inhabiting a South American jungle. In "Weird Winger" (#11) a boy can see into the fourth dimension, from which a beast comes to kill him; a doctor, using "part of the brain controlled by the optic nerve" builds a lens enabling him to see and thus kill the creature.
"I Am a Thing" (#12) is told from the perspective of an apparently marauding monster, whose attempts to make peace with humanity fail. In "Out of the Past!" a Mad Scientist reverses evolution (see Devolution) to create a Pterodactyl and a caveman (see Apes as Human). "Out of the Screen" (#14) features a new 3D format for movies which somehow causes the small lizard used in the special effects to become a real monster, walk out of the screen and cause mayhem in New York. "Sahara Madness!" (#14) has a lost Roman City, where a pool gives eternal life, but anyone wandering away becomes a zombie. Tom Standish is the "Space Scientist" (#15) building a Spaceship to help the USA reach Uranus (see Outer Planets) first; as to why – "the planet's name should be the tipoff! Uranium – huge quantities of it!". A Russian sabotage attempt causes the ship to depart early, with Tom and girlfriend aboard; after landing on a moon of Uranus inhabited by Dinosaurs (brontosaurs are friendly, others not), they reach the planet itself, to discover the Russians have made a pact with the inhabitants: Earth's Western Hemisphere in exchange for uranium. But our heroes win out. In "The Little Furry Things!" we learn that marmosets ruled the Earth two million years ago. "Nightmare from the Past!" (#16) has a giant man found frozen in ice: the body shatters in transit, and a scientist attaches the detached head to a machine; revived, he discovers it had been the last of an arrogant but civilized race wiped out by early man. [SP]
further reading
- Out of the Night, Volume 1 (Hornsea, East Yorkshire: PS Publishing, 2014) [graph: collects issues #1-#6 of the comic: illus/various: in the publisher's ACG Collected Works series: hb/Ken Bald]
- Out of the Night, Volume 2 (Hornsea, East Yorkshire: PS Publishing, 2014) [graph: collects issues #7-#12 of the comic: illus/various: in the publisher's ACG Collected Works series: hb/Ken Bald]
- Out of the Night, Volume 3 (Hornsea, East Yorkshire: PS Publishing, 2014) [graph: collects issues #13-#17 of the comic: illus/various: in the publisher's ACG Collected Works series: hb/Ken Bald]
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