Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Inside is Ty!

Here's one of the more bizarre stories I’ve posted in awhile, and the artwork by Seymour Moskowitz is just as outstanding as it is original. And I suppose if the word “challenge” in “Lyrics Challenge” actually means anything then today is the day for everyone to prove what they got. (I’m officially making a new rule today too: Using an awesome Marc Bolan lyric is just too easy, and if you do you will thusly be disqualified.)

From the June 1954 issue of Adventures into Weird Worlds #30






+++++++++++++++++++++++++

Giant rampaging skeletal monsters got you down? What about wanton werewolf destruction in your Spanish villa? Possessed nuns and horny hunchbacks won’t leave you alone? Chupercabras steal your chimichanga? It’s time you called on the one expert who knows how to handle all things monstrously MAD. And that’s The Vicar! Yes, you no longer have to fear the unknown cuz brotha he’s already tackled it, Figure Four Leg Locked it, pulled a couple Sleeper Holds on it and even pinned its evil ass flat to the mat. Check him out here in his new THOIA fight frock, just seconds after stomping something that was once thought “unstompable.”



And now, head your own ass over to MAD MAD MAD MAD MOVIES, before a horde of hopping Chinese vampires sink their fangs into you!

24 comments:

Patrick said...

Anthrax is blaring in the dark corners of my mind...

"Any skeletons, and all your other sins
Any skeletons, in the closet
Any skeletons, any misfortunes
Any skeletons, hiding in the closet
Any skeletons, Any skeletons
In the Closet!"

Talk about details, the art in this one has to be some of my favorite- The story was insanely weird, but I didn't figure it out until the end. For some reason all i could think about was Ty Tabor from King's X, stuck inside that huge wooden tower jamming away on a guitar solo...

Unknown said...

Take us apart
And put us back together right
So we can leave
On our feet in the night


By Headlights.

Unknown said...

After that buildup, by the way, I was disappointed nobody banged a gong. Although Alex sort of simulated it with his shovel.

AndyDecker said...

now that must have been a graveyard where you find such bones :-)

But the lonley tear from the skull was moving.

Mr. Cavin said...

Man, I love the art in today’s story even more than yesterday’s. That well-worked and slightly exaggerated kind of thing--sort of Robert Crumb-ish, I guess, minus the sixties--is really catnip to me. I’m not sure I would have made all the same coloring choices, but mostly that was pretty cool too. I loved the wonky and weirdo story. I love that that Seymore obviously had no friggin’ idea what a tyrannosaurus rex skeleton looked like, drawing instead something more along the lines of an insane, carnivorous iguanodon.

Too many miles from the ocean shore
Too many little signs you must ignore
You think you see me in a magazine
Oh yeah I know exactly what you mean

You come around and ask me every day
You make your point in many special ways
You think maybe you’ve seen me on TV
Your lightning’s struck and now you think you see

(chorus)
You think you got my number now
You think you know the score
You’ve cornered me fruity drinks
And chocolates from the store
You say you think I’m in a closet, but
I’m a closet dinosaur!
That’s right a closet dinosaur!


Born Blind’s Eat The Stalker


(Okay, so I totally made that shit up. That’s not cheating is it?)

silvano said...

As you said , this story is OUTSTANDING , beats even yesterday's which was my fave in the last month or so ; Thanks for sharing
PS - soundtack courtesy of ROB ZOMBIE'S "SUPERBEAST"

Emby Quinn said...

Now this is what I call a challenge!

Long ago and far away in a different age
when i was a dumb young guy
fossilized photos of my life then
illustrate what an easy prey i must have been

Standing in the sun, idiot savant
something like a monument

I'm a dinosaur, somebody is digging my bones
I'm a dinosaur, somebody is digging my bones

Ignorance has alway been something i excel in
followed by naivete and pride
doesn't take a scientist to see how
any clever predator could have a piece of me

Standing in the sun, idiot savant
something like a monument

I'm a dinosaur, somebody is digging my bones
I'm a dinosaur

Oh, when i look back on the past
some wonder i'm not yet extinct
all the mistakes and bad judgements i made
nearly pushed me to the brink
it doesn't pay to be too nice
it's the one thing i have learned
still, i made my fossil bed
and now i toss and turn

I'm a dinosaur, somebody is digging my bones
I'm a dinosaur


--King Crimson, "Dinosaur"

PHEAR.

Anonymous said...

I thought "TY" was short for TYRONE POWER, who was alive at the time. I was expecting this big, gigantic leading man to come out of the house.

Unknown said...

(Okay, so I totally made that shit up. That’s not cheating is it?)

Not if you record and release it by the deadline.

Tenebrous Kate said...

How about Kate Nash's "Skeleton Song" for the lyrics challenge:

Skeleton you are my friend
But you are made of bone
And you have got no flesh and blood
Running through you to help protect the bone

Skeleton we have been friends for years
And you have seen me through some trials
And tribulations and some tears
But everybody thinks I'm weird


It's suspiciously silent on all matters revengey, but--it'll have to do ;)

The Vicar's looking ecclesiTASTICal, I must say, what with all that fabulous finger-tentin', eyebrow-archin' action. APPROVED!

The Vicar of VHS said...

I agree with Mr. Cavin--I was thinking that splash page especially, with Alex balanced on one foot after taking the Bonehead Penalty Shot ("He shoots! He scores!"), was a total Crumb ripoff! Does this pre-date Crumb's ascendancy? It would have to, wouldn't it? Plus, no big-assed women with huge calves and no soul-destroying self-loathing. Still, maybe an influence...

I couldn't help thinking that the wooden skyscraper in the desert was not an altogether sound idea. And the ONE thunderstorm that hits the arid waste every 3 years just happens to do the prof in! I guess a higher power was at work.

Money line: "You must have a direct line to the DEVIL, Alex!" So true, esp. since the devil placed all those fake dinosaur bones in the strata to test the faith of the redeemed. He's a crafty one, is old Scratch--but he also has a great sense of timing.

Anyone else wondering where all those HUMAN bones came from, though? And why the scientists are so blase about having discovered an ancient Native American Burial ground? Hey, waitaminnit...it all makes sense now! GET OUT...OF MY WOODEN SKYSCRAPER!

And CRYING DINOSAUR FTW. I love that he's going to take care of the prof "the way the professor took care of him"--it's going to be hard for Ty to build a man-sized wooden outbuilding in which to assemble his bones. Still, he'll manage somehow.

As for lyrics, I'm going for the obscure and childlike here--kid's folk artists Trout Fishing in America, with "When I Was a Dinosaur":

Oh, I used to be a dinosaur
I thought I was so cool.
Future fossil fuel,
That's all I ever was.

When I was a dinosaur
Everybody knew my name
(Hey aren't you T-Rex?)
Everyone respected me (Wow!)
I had a mighty roar

CHORUS:
When I was a dinosaur
I almost weighed a ton,
I had a lot of fun
Put cavemen on the run!

When I was a dinosaur
I stepped in lots of mud.
I walked around and snapped my teeth
And ate a lot of crud.

When I was a dinosaur
I had a little bitty brain.
I never thought of anything
I never knew before.
When I was a dinosaur.

REPEAT CHORUS, BUY COTTON CANDY FOR THE KIDS


And in closing, I'd like to thank Karswell for frocking me up good. But before anyone asks, I'd like to make one thing clear: No I will NOT take off my top! FORGET IT! ;)

Frederick said...

That's what he gets for kicking poor innocent helpless skulls around!

If I can accept not only fossil bones coming back to life, and tender emotion in a dinosaur, then a tear from non-existent ducts is noooo problem.

In the inescapeable logic of Crsiwell: "Can you prove that it didn't happen?"

Anonymous said...

TOO FUNNY........SO DID TY REMOVE ALL THE FLESH FROM THE PROFESSOR AND ASSEMBLE HIS BONES SOME PLACE ELSE?
THE ART DOES HAVE A CRUMB VIBE, I CAN PICTURE AN 11 YEAR OLD VERSION OF HIM READING THIS STORY AND FREAKING OUT.

Tim Tylor said...

This is one of those rare stories you wish were true. It would be so good to know that the silence of the Arizona night is broken by the rattlee-clatter of two disparately-sized skeletons walking the hills together. :)

When you can't take any more
when you feel your life is over
put down your tablets and
pick up your pen and
I'll put you together again.

Of your faith withers away
if God can't bring you your answer
write me a letter I'll read it and then
I'll put you together again.

Put us together
together again

put us together again
when things look hopeless
just write me and then
I'll put you together again.

If there's no light anywhwew
and you've got no one to turn to
I'll lead you out of the darkness and then
I'll put you together again.

Put us together
together again

Hot Chocolate

Anonymous said...

This week on "Extreme Makeover: Lab Edition" -- we make Ty Pennington build a giant wooden tower in the desert, then we wall him up inside with a reanimated dinosaur!

Anonymous said...

Gotta say I loved the crying dinosaur, too. I think that was the best part of the whole story.

A weepy, murderous, potentially lovestruck and anatomically-confused T-Rex?

This is where they got the idea for The Crying Game.

Anonymous said...

I think i'll play it old school today REAL old school,from 1912: See that moon,hear that tune,moaning,groaning oh!so scary,through the lonely cemetery. shapes of white,fill the night,swinging,swaying,playing,prancing ghostly goblins gaily dancing. skip and hop,never stop,from the place they've been hiding,slipping sliding they come gliding,short and tall,see them all!shake like gel-a-tine,at that skeleton rag.-Skeleton Rag,unknown singer,but there's a video on youtube of it being performed by the Hoosier hot shots.

Anonymous said...

Crap,that video has no lyrics,which i found on a discussion on the Classic horror film board.

Mr. Karswell said...

Interesting spectrum of song choices today, hell this entire week so far has been especially inspired. Our judges are probably biting their nails right now.

Step up your game tomorrow peeps, two days to go... who's gonna take home the goods?

Unknown said...

Gotta say I loved the crying dinosaur, too. I think that was the best part of the whole story.

The only way it could have been even better is if the dinosaur had cried when someone threw garbage out the window of a car.

Anonymous said...

The only way it could have been even better is if the dinosaur had cried when someone threw garbage out the window of a car.

LOL! Now that's old school awesome funny.

Now I'm thinking of the story with the vultures from the Indian death temple, but recast as angry Woodsy Owls. This time, the guy drops trash in the temple and the big-eyed furies chase him down and drive him mad with their hooting.

Mr. Karswell said...

>if the dinosaur had cried when someone threw garbage out the window of a car.

>but recast as angry Woodsy Owls.

Ha ha, brilliant. Man, I have the best commentors around here.

Kitty LeClaw said...

The arched brows... The pointed beard... Methinks The Vicar is truly an implement of Satan, in disguise!!!

Unknown said...

I'm holding out for Woodsy the Williwaw.