Monday, September 15, 2008

The Taxi Driver!

Got another wild and wooly weirdie for you today from the Jan/Feb 1953 issue of Mister Mystery #9. Is it just me or does anyone else think that Daniel Clowes must have read this one as a kid? The title lettering, the sweaty close-ups, some of this just has that great Eightball vibe to me. Maybe he was a fan of Tony Mortellaro?





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12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Robert Crumb has a dark side i've always seen!

Unknown said...

Oh, that's hilarious. I didn't realize I was going to get the Photoshop treatment. I particularly like how you made me look presentable in the first picture.

Weird Mysteries stole this hook, line, and sinker in August 1953, changing the title from "The Taxi Driver" to "Full Moon." It was a treat to read the original.

AndyDecker said...

You could do an anthology with this plot. How many stories are there where the victim is a bigger monster than the predator?

Still, it was nicely done. Very suggestive for its time.

"and what a girl, just the type you´d pick for yourself" :-)

Mr. Cavin said...

I love a good post-apocalypse, especially when it's presented as offhandedly as this one was. Why have mushroom clouds and road warriors and vine-covered skyscrapers and punk cannibals? So overt. All you really need to do is show a black-rainy and heavily bilious nuclear winter for two pages and two panels before finally dropping the hint in dialog that the sun is finally setting.

Oh, and hairy green and blue fanged mutants, of course.

And speaking of that: nice photo Todd. I see you have been bitten by the Photoshop. Beware of the copyright circle on your palm, it is the harbinger of doom.

Unknown said...

Thanks, Cavin. Either that is some funky lighting, or I am the first werewolf with jaundice.

Emby Quinn said...

While I did in fact see the ending coming from the bottom of the second page, it was still well delivered.

Actually, I thought the guy was a vampire, too, till he started getting hairy.

silvano said...

Yeah , you're right , looks like Clowes has been heavily influenced by Mortellaro ; it's always interesting to me trying to understand where an artists' influences come from ...
Thanks for sharing

Anonymous said...

For some sick reason I am reminded of the horrid episode of Scooby Doo where the werewolves and vampires square off against each other and fight but since they keep biting the other ones they just keep changing back and forth from vampire to werewolf and back again. And of course now I can't remember how the damn thing ends!

Anonymous said...

I NEVER GET TIRED OF THE OLD MONSTER SWITCHEROO LIKE THIS. ATLAS DID IT ALL THE TIME. AND THIS STORY DOES FEEL MORE MODERN THAN MOST 50'S TALES AND YOU NAILED IT WITH CLOWES ESPECIALLY THAT SPLASH AND TITLE AND PANELS 2 AND 3 ON THE SECONDPAGE.

GREAT PIC OF TODD HA! THE LIGHTING REMINDS ME OF CREEPSHOW WHEN THE CRATE MONSETR WOULD ATTACK SOMEONE

The Vicar of VHS said...

I find myself wondering what kinds of Easter Eggs we're missing in that detailed front page on the splash. The fact that rain is forecast for the ENTIRE COUNTRY? The byline for "H. Kantor"? The 4-cent price? Volume 15, #71? It MEANS something, dammit!

The sweatiness of the main character does indeed invite the Crumb comparisons, though to me he looks more like Groucho-with-a-Fro. But both would have a weakness for a side-braid, a Daisy-Mae blouse, and some striped frill-hemmed bloomer skorts, that much is obvious.

And on pg 3--holy crap! That taxi-coach is HUGE! Daisy and the Werewolf are absolutely DWARFED by its massiveness!

Great art in this one--I particularly like the shading at the bottom of the last page, leading up to the reveal. The vampire/werewolf war rages on...

Patrick said...

So much irony in this story- he goes to all that trouble to take a train to some sparrow fart town in the middle of nowhere, gets off the train to find an ancient taxi service, transforms into a werewolf, gets ready to devour the hot babe, only to have it all shot to hell when he discovers she is a damn vampire! Things just never work out right in the horror comics. That's why I love them!!!

Bill the Butcher said...

The Eerie comics repeatedly played variations of this "werewolf" (more like werechimpanzee if you ask me,) versus vampire trope. But in those the werewolf usually won. And that's logical because a large strong carnivore which exists to rip your throat out will usually prevail over a sanguinivore that daintily nips said throat with tender little fangs. I don't in any case understand any reason for a vampire versus werewolf conflict. After all they aren't hunting the same prey: the vampire can just drink the blood and leave the corpse for the werewolf to eat, right?