Saturday, August 4, 2007

They Dive By Night

The second entry in my tribute to artist Al Luster finds a group of pearl hunters diving deep and finding more terror than treasure! The tropical night setting of this story is excellently handled with the ominous full moon always looming in the background altering all the colors (and silhouettes) of the dark, and I love Luster's big floppy bats fluttering everywhere overhead. The chilling underwater scenes will leave you gasping for air until the very last suffocating panel!

From the April 1953 issue of Mystic #19





7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I like Luster alot too. Iron Lady is a cool story but this one is a much better example of his pre code.

Mr. Karswell said...

It's hard to say what's a "better" Luster story than others for me, this one is more straight forward horror while Iron Lady is lighter yet still spooky and fun. Al had the uncanny ability to show stark raving fear in his characters faces though as displayed in this story.

Mr. Karswell said...

A good double ending for our story here would find that this particular breed of man eating clam produces a larger than normal sized pearl which, (oddly enough) is uniquely shaped like a human skull!

Anonymous said...

THAT'S PRETTY GOOD. DO YOU WRITE FOR COMICS?

Unknown said...

The scariest part for me is their teeth.

NANHOAP said...

I am looking for more information on Al Luster.
I have a piece of original art done by him in 1975.
Thanks in advance.
Nic

Bill the Butcher said...

Hey, Kahola, maybe you could have just told the idiots about the clams at the start instead of, you know, implying that there were superstitions about night divers not coming up?