Gone but not Forgotten: Hell-Rider - Skywald Publishing

As we enter the Halloween season, I thought it would be a good time to look at one of the 1970's most underrated (and almost forgotten) publishers of horror and violent comics, Skywald. The brainchild of Israel Waldman and Sol Brodsky, Skywald (the name being a blend of their surnames) was primarily known as the publisher of contemporary gothic black and white comics referred to as "Horror Mood" . The core of the companies’ output were the titles Psycho, Nightmare and Scream however, they also published the short lived costumed " Hell-Rider" magazine (above: cover to issue 1 -August 1971) - by Harry Rosenbaum).

Hell-Rider(created by Mile Friedrich) was Vietnam war veteran and lawyer Brick Reeves who rode a flame-thrower equipped bike and with his temporary super strength ( obtained through the experimental drug Q-47) he would violently dish out his own form of justice (as can be seen from the above splash-page and the page below by Ross Andru and Mike Esposito).

Hell-Rider also featured 2 other strips “Butterfly" (by Gary Friedrich and Rich Buckler) who was the first ever African American super-heroine in comics and the "Wild Bunch" (by Friedrich and Esposito) - splash pages to both stories below.

Sadly, Hell-Rider would only last for one more issue before ceasing publication. Not long afterwards Mike Friedrich would be working for Marvel where he would co-create a similar bike riding hero that used fire...Ghost Rider.

Above: The seconds and final issues of Hell- Rider (cover from "Cover Browser").