Strange Stories from Another World
Entry updated 7 July 2025. Tagged: Comics, Publication.
US Comic (1952-1953). Fawcett. 5 issues. Artists include Bob McCarthy, Sheldon Moldoff and Norman Saunders. Scriptwriters include Bill Woolfolk. 36 pages with four long strips (except #1 with three) and a short text story each issue. Initially titled Unknown World (#1, 1952), from #2 it was renamed Strange Stories from Another World.
Despite its titles, Unknown World/Strange Stories from Another World was a Horror comic, with some sf or borderline-sf content: occasionally the horror was fairly graphic. There are a handful of good stories, with some nice covers by Saunders (particularly #2 and #4).
#1 includes "The Serpent Queen": here, near a mountain's peak, explorer John Barton enters the maw of a rock shaped like a snake's head: within lies the kingdom of Shanri, the Serpent Queen (see Lost Races), who has ruled for 2,000 years. After being shown the corpses of previous visitors, skeletons save for their heads, he fights and defeats a giant snake, winning the embrace of Shanri; but snakes come from her eyes to bite him and he flees. A colleague ignores his warnings, and departs for the mountain; shortly afterwards the bedridden Barton also becomes a head atop a skeleton. In "Footprints on the Ceiling" a man rescues a badly burnt Dog and uses a salve, "My own concoction for nourishing the tissues" (see Medicine): though the dog's heart stops beating, it still lives. A friend sees the opportunity to make money; but that night Zombies break into their house and demand the dog, as it "is now in the province of the dead". The men escape and start exhibiting the dog, only for the zombies to attack the theatre.
"The Horror-Go-Round" in #2 is a merry-go-round with gargoyles instead of horses for the children to ride on; two brothers notice one has a face resembling someone who recently died. Shortly after, one brother is brutally murdered; investigating, the other sees a new Monster on the carousel that reminds him of his sibling. The kindly oldster who runs the ride explains that the gargoyles are a type of Vampire that cannot assume proper human form once they are turned (as the brother had been): the man suffers the same fate as his brother. The ride is a means of hiding the vampires during the day, rather than the traditional option of staying in their graves. "Death's Beggar" is set in 1600 Salem: a witch (see Supernatural Creatures) kidnaps a young woman, planning to take her place (see Shapeshifters); her fiancee has no problem with this providing the witch grants him Immortality. He is granted youth and life, but only whilst the witch remains alive (she sensibly distrusts him). Once settled in her new life, she frames him for her father's death: the resulting hanging leaves his head at 180 degrees, whilst a subsequent fire exposes his bones. Suffering tremendous pain, he kills the witch so he may die. #3's "The Unseen" has a pair of glasses which shows the wearer "What causes the door to close when there's no draft? The stairs to creak at night? The windows to rattle?" – the answer being Invisible "distorted, sub-human bloodless creatures" (see Monsters) – "the unseen horrors of the world beyond human vision" (see Perception). The issue also has a zombie tale.
In #4's "Monsters of the Mind", the world's politicians give diplomat John Restin briefcase containing "documents ... that state the condition of the Earth's defences", only for him to lose his memory in an accident. Realizing the importance of the papers, he tries to escape the green-scaled monsters (who can assume human form) that try to take the briefcase. Then another accident restores his memory: he too is one of the green-scaled creatures, a spy placed by an Alien force preparing for Invasion of Earth. He hands over the documents. In #5's "Dance of the Doomed" an authority on the occult and supernatural lore seeks proof the "evil ones" exist, eventually stealing the "book of the evil dead" from a Salem bookstore. He reads aloud a spell (written by "Mephisto Satan, Lieutenant of Death"), whereupon a "weird whining wind" flings him into "the maelstrom of time and space" and he seems to land on another world (we have seen planets pass by) referred to as The Beyond. Here demon-like creatures circle a bonfire chanting "Flesh! Flesh! That is what we want!" and "O bubbling joy! Death to all". Despite escaping back to Earth, this does not end well for him. "The Flaming Witness" has a businessman pushed into a cauldron by a greedy partner and returning as a Human Torch-like flaming ghost; another story features a vampire. [SP]
further reading
- Unknown World / Another World – Volume 1 (Hornsea, East Yorkshire: PS Publishing, 2017) [graph: collects issues #1 of Unknown World plus #2-#5 of Strange Stories from Another World: illus/various: in the publisher's Pre-Code Classics series: hb/Norman Saunders]
links
- Comic Book Plus – Unknown World
- Comic Book Plus – Strange Stories from Another World
- Grand Comics Database – Unknown World
- Grand Comics Database – Strange Stories from Another World
- Picture Gallery
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