Over 40 years ago I picked up a coverless copy of Airboy Volume 9 #5 from 1952 for 5 cents and found the Heap story in the middle of the book as evocative as I do today. The art is spare and haunting and there’s at least one “grabber” panel on each page. I’m pretty sure the artist was Fred Kida, any thoughts? The Heap was the first swamp monster in comics, way before the great Swamp Thing, and was a precursor of the Hulk, too, another non-jolly green giant. Click to enlarge the pages. BTW, I’m looking for a collector or two of golden age comic books, horror to hero to humor, the would like to become a member of the International Team of Comics Historians and stat posting scans on The ITCH Blog. Please contact me at yoecomix(at)hotmail(dot)com!

— C. Yoe (in the funny papers)