Saturday, August 23, 2008

Death Flower

The Purple Claw heads into the swamp for more thrills, chills, and tenta-kills, and into what might amount to his weirdest case yet! Only one more Purple C Saturday story still to go this month too!

From the May 1953 issue of The Purple Claw #3











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And the THOIA Lyric Challenge Contest Winners are:

1st Place: Emby Quinn (Uncle Lancifer’s pick)
Emby gets the Afterschool Special (’76-’77) DVD set, a Kindertrauma shirt, a THOIA shirt, and choice of any photo* from Dania Hurley’s All Eyes And Ears blog.

2nd Place: Tim Tylor (Aunt John’s pick)Tim gets a THOIA shirt and choice of any photo from Dania Hurley’s All Eyes And Ears blog.

3rd Place: Todd (Karswell’s Pick)Surprise! I really thought Todd put in a kick ass run of lyrics too so I’m adding one more "honorable mention" THOIA shirt prize to the list.

(*Photo Winners: please contact Dania HERE for your prize details, and everyone visit her blog to check out her truly fantastic photos! And thanks again Dania for donating the great snaps!)



Congratulations again to the winners and another super big set of devil horns to our great guest judges this week, Kindertrauma’s Uncle Lancifer and Aunt John! Be sure to visit Kindertrauma for a repeat scarring of all those lil traumatizing childhood fears you always knew you could never forget.



Winner’s, please email me your mailing address and tee-shirt sizes so I can get your prizes to you pronto: karswell@hotmail.com

Thanks again to everyone that participated, and to those who have already won in the past and keep playing anyway... and of course to anyone who just stopped by anyway as usual and still commented.
There will be another contest next month, (maybe two!) so next time join in the fun!

14 comments:

silvano said...

As promised , the weirdest case of the Purple Claw ; I wonder if the guys who did this story thought of how the scene of the evil beachcomber picking up the sailor in the bar could be interpretated ...
Thanks for sharing
PS-Great Splash page !

Mr. Cavin said...

And what really is supposed to be up with the beachcomber and sailor scene, anyway? Let's see: he's trapped the Purple Claw with vines, and he's gone out drinking with a new victim. But he's planning on feeding the Dr. and the woman to the plant the next night, and suddenly it's dawn and the Dr. and woman are free. And he's taking the sailor to the shack. Did I make sense out of that?

And holy deus ex machina--surprise quicksand! What a lucky break. After the surprise rain, well, I didn't know how the Claw was going to get out of this one unless maybe he punched something again.

Keep 'em coming Karswell. I'm looking forward to discovering how I, too, can become "very well-known in the Lower Regions!"

Dane said...

Let me tell you, "Hello sailor ... I see you're all alone" is a pickup line that never fails.

And congrats to the winners! As karswell says, let me know at dania.hurley@gmail.com which photos you'd like prints of.

Anonymous said...

The guy's a flower ... who eats people ... but the flower also exists separately from the guy ... who lures them to the flower ... which is him ... so he/it can eat them ... and he has power to control other plants. Fire and sunlight destroy the flower but not him ... but rain turns him back into the flower. And apparently he's vulnerable to purple claws ... which move from one hand to the other at will.

The Purple Claw makes my brain hurt.

And why did the drunken sailor turn into Humphrey Bogart from The African Queen?

Understatement of the year: "No one can explain what happened today!"


PS - Congrats to all the winners. Good job, everyone.

Anonymous said...

theres so much homophobia in the comments on this blog lately

makes me glad to be gay

Dane said...

Oh, please. Erotic subtext in unlikely places is pretty much always funny, no matter what kind it is.

Mr. Cavin said...

It's May! It's May!
That gorgeous holiday
When ev'ry maiden prays that her lad
Will be a cad!
It's mad! It's gay!
A libelous display!
Those dreary vows that ev'ryone takes,
Ev'ryone breaks.
Ev'ryone makes divine mistakes
The lusty month of May!

Whence this fragrance wafting through the air?
What sweet feelings does its scent transmute?
Whence this perfume floating ev'rywhere?
Don't you know it's that dear forbidden fruit!
Tra la la la la! That dear forbidden fruit!
Tra la la la la!


Whattaya mean, that was last week?

Mr. Karswell said...

>theres so much homophobia in the comments on this blog lately

Interesting anon... I almost said the same-ish thing myself yesterday. But it's all just comments and opinions, I don't feel like anyone is being super phobic or hurtful about anything really. The comments around here tend to focus on the lesser, usually ignored, sometimes hinted at reality themes of the era, gay subtext being one of the big ones. If anyone starts getting out of hand those comments will be deleted. Though I am not gay, I have no patience for it either as many of my closest friends are.

Enrico Teodorani said...

I saw you added me to your links, so I did the same, thanks!

Tenebrous Kate said...

I will never get tired of the Purple Claw's totally fabulous white hair-streak. I keep getting thwarted while trying to bleach one into the Tenebrous Boyfriend's hair while he sleeps. DRAT!

Unknown said...

The Purple Claw makes my brain hurt.

Jeffos and all his ellipses sum up my thoughts. Is there some rule The Purple Claw cannot hold up his eponymous claw until the last page? They could use the remaining pages to go to the malt shop or something. With that grip, The Purple Claw could turn out to be the best soda jerk ever!

Big congrats to Emby and Tim.

Mr. Karswell said...

> Is there some rule The Purple Claw cannot hold up his eponymous claw until the last page?

But by this rationale then you should equally be questioning why Ultraman doesn't just use his blast beam on some kaiju right from the start of a fight, or hell, why Superman doesn't just round up all the bad guys on the planet in one day and just get it over with.

Marc Burkhardt said...

That was the best Purple Claw story yet ... and there's still one to go!

I'm afraid I missed out on all the gay subtext stuff ... I was too busy pondering the great lost catchphrase of 1953: "No One Escapes The Purple Claw!"

Anonymous said...

... why Superman doesn't just round up all the bad guys on the planet in one day and just get it over with.

Because Superman is a d**k.