House of Hammer
The House of Hammer was a British black-and-white magazine featuring articles and comics related to the Hammer Film Productions series of horror and science fiction films. The brainchild of Dez Skinn, almost every issue of the magazine featured a comics adaptations of a Hammer film, as well as an original comics backup story, such as the long-running feature Van Helsing's Terror Tales.
Contributors to the magazine included some of the UK's top comics talents, such as Steve Moore, Brian Bolland, John Bolton, Trevor Goring, David Lloyd, John Stokes, and Brian Lewis. Lewis painted most of the covers, usually featuring the Hammer film being adapted in comics form in the interior pages. Regular columns by Denis Gifford and Ramsey Campbell were also part of the mix.
Known colloquially as "HoH", the magazine endured a few name changes, becoming Hammer's House of Horror, then Hammer's Halls of Horror, and then simply Halls of Horror. HoH was published from 1976 to 1978, went on hiatus for more than three years, and then returned from 1982 to 1984. Originally published by Williams Publishing, the British publishing arm of Warner Communications, the magazine was later produced by Skinn's own company, Quality Communications. It published 30 issues in all.
In assessing HoH, media historian David J. Howe notes that:
Publication history
Origins
Before coming to Williams Publishing, Skinn had been an editor at IPC Magazines, where in 1975 he created and edited a horror/science fiction-themed magazine called The Buster Book of Spooky Stories.Warner/Williams
When Skinn moved to Williams in 1976, one of the other publications Skinn oversaw was the fold-out poster magazine Monster Mag. Frustrated by the lack of editorial pages in that publication, Skinn revived his Chiller idea with the new company. Realizing, however, that the Columbia-Warner House building where he worked was down the street from the Hammer Film Productions offices, he decided to make his new magazine tie in with Hammer films. Hammer's script editor, Christopher Wicking, was a comics fan familiar with Skinn's work, and through Wicking and other connections, a licensing deal was made and The House of Hammer was born.The House of Hammer debuted as a monthly in October 1976, published by Top Sellers Ltd, a Thorpe & Porter imprint. The magazine was distributed nationally in the United Kingdom through newsagent's shops.
The House of Hammer was given the 1977 Eagle Award for "Favourite Professional British Comic Publication."
The House of Hammer was again nominated for "Favourite Professional British Comic Publication" at the 1978 Eagle Awards, losing out to Starburst.
Attempt to reach North American market
Following its success in the United Kingdom, editor Dez Skinn sought to expand The House of Hammer into the North American market. In early 1978, the magazine secured U.S. distribution through publisher/distributor Curtis Circulation, which – because Hammer Films were not as culturally recognised in the US as they were in the UK – asked that the magazine be retitled House of Horror for American readers. Around 200,000 copies of the debut U.S. issue were printed, with a second already at press, when American James Warren's Warren Publishing — publisher of Creepy, Eerie, and Vampirella — objected that the title infringed one of its trademarks. According to editor Skinn, Warren subsequently claimed prior ownership of the House of Horror name and produced a 500-copy "ashcan" edition to secure the trademark. Skinn alleged that this ashcan was merely a mock-up or dummy publication, containing no new comics material and created solely as a legal manoeuvre to block the British magazine’s U.S. entry.Skinn’s longterm solution to the issue was to permanently retitle the magazine Halls of Horror. In the short term, in order to avoid pulping the already printed stock, Skinn initially considered printing over the “House of” section of the masthead with “Halls of”, which would have cost around £1,000. However, a similar amount was then offered to Warren to licence the disputed House of Horror title for two months. Only the first U.S. issue is known to have been distributed before the rebranding. The British edition adopted the transitional title Hammer’s House of Horror with issue #19, and beginning with issue #20, both the British and U.S. editions appeared under the unified title Hammer’s Halls of Horror.
First cancellation
The magazine lasted till issue #23 before it was abruptly cancelled when Warner Communications sold its publishing division to W. H. Allen & Co., which decided to close the whole operation down.Skinn bought the rights to HoH magazine from his former employer, along with around 10,000 unsold copies of various editions. However, this required him to spend the entire production and editorial budget allocated to the fourth edition of Starburst. Consequently, Skinn found himself the owner of the UK’s only two professionally published genre magazines, but without the financial resources to publish either.
Quality Communications
The title returned in late 1982/early 1983 on a bimonthly schedule. Simply titled Halls of Horror, it was published by Skinn's own Quality Communications and edited by Dave Reeder. The first issue was a new #24, an all-comics special mostly filled with reprints from earlier issues. As Hammer Films had gone out of business in 1979, this second iteration of the magazine moved away from Hammer specifically, covering horror films more generally.Quality's Halls of Horror lasted seven issues through issue #30, plus a Dracula comics special.
Publication details
The magazine's volume numbers changed every 12 issues; volume 2 started with issue #13, and volume 3 started with issue #25.- The House of Hammer, Top Sellers Ltd.
- Hammer's House of Horror, Top Sellers Ltd.
- Hammer's Halls of Horror, Top Sellers Ltd.
- Halls of Horror, Quality Communications
Columns
- Golden Age of Horror by Denis Gifford
- History of Hammer by Denis Gifford and then Bob Sheridan
- Campbell's Comments by Ramsey Campbell — in the Quality Communications era
- Effectively Speaking by John Brosnan
- Horror Around the World by Barry Pattison
- Post Mortem
- Answer Desk — answers to readers' questions
- Media Macabre — news section
Features
Van Helsing's Terror Tales was also a regular backup comics feature, featuring stories by Steve Moore, Steve Parkhouse, Bernie Wrightson, and others; and art by such creators as Angus McKie, Trevor Goring, Brian Lewis, John Bolton, Martin Asbury, Dave Gibbons, Joe Colquhoun, Steve Parkhouse, and Bernie Wrightson. Van Helsing's Terror Tales appeared in issues #1-6, 9, 11-13, 15-24, and 29; a Van Helsing's History of Horror story appeared in issue #7.
The first three issues of House of Hammer featured a serialized comics "sequel" to the 1974 Hammer film Captain Kronos – Vampire Hunter, written by Steve Moore and illustrated by Ian Gibson.
Issue #6 featured the adaptation of Dracula: Prince of Darkness, by Donne Avenell and John Bolton, which included the character of Father Shandor. Father Shandor, Demon Stalker, written by Steve Moore, then became a recurring feature in House of Hammer, appearing in issues #8, 16, 21, and 24. That feature moved over to the Quality Communications anthology comics title Warrior in 1982–1984.
In 1977–1978, in between Judge Dredd assignments for IPC Magazines, Brian Bolland contributed to House of Hammer, having been introduced to the magazine through Trevor Goring, who had adapted The Plague of the Zombies and asked Bolland to ink it. Soon, Bolland was asked to draw Vampire Circus, and he "pile on the gore" for his first Hammer horror adaptation – although he found much of the "blood painted out" in the printed version.
Issue #18 featured a 13-page reprint story, "Frankenstein, The Werewolf, Dracula", by American comics superstar Neal Adams. The story had been originally produced in 1975 for a Power Records book and record set, and was later expanded, translated, and published in the French magazine L'Écho des Savanes Spécial U.S.A. #5. Adams reprinted the expanded story in his own series, Echo of Futurepast; the collected 42-page story was reprinted in Vanguard Publishing's Monsters in 2003.
David Lloyd's adaptation of Quatermass 2, titled "Enemy from Space ", in issue #23, was Lloyd's first major work in comics.
In late 1978, Skinn moved to Marvel UK. Many of the British creators he brought to Marvel UK to create original material were people he had already worked with on The House of Hammer.
When the magazine returned in 1982, issue #24 was a 48-page all-comics issue, featuring reprints from issues #2, 4, 6, 8, 9, 11, and 13. A number of Van Helsing's Terror Tales were reprinted, as were the adaptations of The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires and The Quatermass Xperiment.
Issues #25 and 26 featured the magazine's first adaptation of a non-Hammer Productions Film: Roy Ward Baker's The Monster Club. Adapted by Skinn, the 25-page story was mostly illustrated by John Bolton, with four pages by David Lloyd. The strip was originally produced in 1980 as a promotional tool for the film, and had been published in a publication called The Monster Club magazine.
Quality's final publication related to Halls of Horror was a 48-page Dracula Comics Special, published in April 1984. It reprinted the 21-page adaptation of Hammer's 1958 Dracula film, by Dez Skinn and Paul Neary; and the 15-page adaptation of Dracula: Prince of Darkness, by Donne Avenell and John Bolton; it also included a 6-page John Bolton "Dracula Sketchbook."