From the January 1954 issue of Horrific #9
Thursday, February 19, 2009
A Glimpse of the Pit
We’ll be looking at some select tales from Comic Media’s Horrific series for the rest of the week and weekend... Saturday and Sunday will spotlight Don Heck, but today and tomorrow we’ll be looking at Pete Morisi, a guy that most comic fans know as the creator of Peter Canon…Thunderbolt. I’ve never read the Canon series but I’m a huge fan of Morisi’s ultra violent pre-code Johnny Dynamite detective stuff (click HERE for a classic example from the THOIA Archives.) But today we find Pete tackling the horror tale with his unique and bare essentials visual style and deceptively, non-innocent brand of story-telling.
From the January 1954 issue of Horrific #9
From the January 1954 issue of Horrific #9
Funny thing, I was talking about Pete Morisi, with my girlfriend just this morning.
ReplyDeleteBTW, his drawing style seems to me to have been influenced by the work of George Tuska.
In the other direction, it seems very likely that his drawing style went on to influence Jaime Hernandez (and a slew of other clean, high-contrast, and pictographic draftsmen). Or maybe Tuska's did.
ReplyDeleteThis type of very formal and design-oriented art really suffers from the shoddy printing. The difference between pages three and four are a revelation.
While I love the hand-on-boob panel at the bottom of page three, the relatively sedate dramatic motion of page four--over and down as the scene picks up speed--makes for what may be the best comics page I've seen around here in a while. Though I'm certain I can only say that because the printing press inexplicably shaped up for a page or two.
Who would have thought sleeping under a spiky torture canopy with a big fat Will and hungry relatives in the house would be so gosh-darn dangerous?
ReplyDeleteI'm not too fond of the style personally. The dames' glassy-eyed rigid expressions remind me too much of homicidal shop-window dummies from old Dr Who shows.
CHECK OUT THE ENTIRE ISSUE AT: http://goldenagecomics.co.uk/index.php?dlid=7844
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with Tim - the style didn't do much for me and the story was rather weak, but nevertheless an interesting contrast to the far grimmer ones we had all week and much appreciated of course.
ReplyDeleteWell, love him or hate him, you're getting another Morisi story tomorrow too. And I'd like to thank the anonymous guy who enjoys steering my readers away from THOIA. You're the best, keep it up! haha
ReplyDeleteHola, pre-coders! Look for the story to be posted on KKFBTG this evening!
ReplyDeleteI THINK PETE DRAWS BEAUTIFUL WOMEN. THIS WAS A GOOD STORY AND I THINK MY OWN SISTER WOULD PROBABLY DO THE SAME TO ME SINCE WE BARELY GET ALONG.
ReplyDeleteIT WAS COOL SEEING THE JOHNNY DYNAMITE STORY AGAIN TOO, THAT WAS ONE OF MY FAVORITES WHEN YOU ORIGINALLY POSTED IT. THANKS!
What a stinker. It's a meandering, pointless mess of a story. A rare miss for Karswell.
ReplyDeleteVictor Vampire? Lol, that must be the lamest bunch of evil characters sind a long time. And shouldn´t it be Dan Demon or Dexter Demon instead of Freddy. Okay, The Teller also is not the scariest host there ever was :-)
ReplyDeleteSo, she was more or less an accomplice in two murders, killed in fact her own sister, and nobody cared? This story sure wasn´t very good. But the clean art had few nice panels.
'What a stinker. It's a meandering, pointless mess of a story. A rare miss for Karswell.'
ReplyDeleteCan't say I liked this story much either, but that sure isn't Karswell's fault. Tastes are different – one man's stinker is another man's classic, or so they say.
Anyhow. Sleeping beneath a canopy of spikes isn't eccentric – it's retarded! Uncle Jacob deserves a Darwin award.
Yeah, I never said they'd all be winners. Whatever...
ReplyDelete"...one man's stinker is another man's classic..."
ReplyDeleteOr, if you're like me, you can be both men all at once. I'm not sure I buy Anonymous' supposition that "a meandering, pointless mess of a story" is all that "rare" around here any more than I choose to think this constitutes some kind of a "miss" on Karswell's part.
Actually, I feel the exact opposite on all counts--except that maybe his description of this story was pretty fair.
If Claws of Horror is what I think it is, this beautiful love story is long overdue for a sequel.
ReplyDeleteyes, indeed! how could ANYONE forget a glimpse of the pit? could YOU?...
ReplyDeletenothing like checking up on old flames!
by the way, don't kick the Kars, he's in there every damn day bringing you the best he can! as i find out the hard way how hard it is to maintain a blog, i'm even more impressed by his DEADication!
Btw, Morisi did share a studio with Tsuake for some time in the late forties and if I remember well Tuska said he learned more from Morisi than the other way around. Their similarities are superficial. Tuska had his own way of cgaracter design and you can always pick out his heroes and heavies. Both draw pretty women, though.
ReplyDeleteOHMYGOD. That was the most deranged dialogue i've ever read in my life. And i've read the whole FOURTH WORLD saga, too. Really liked the art, clean in a Toth/Beck/Tuska kinda way, modern artists could learn a thing or two from this; particularly ones from the "if 'ya can't draw it, cross-hatch the hell outta it" school.
ReplyDeleteTuska may well have learned more from Morisi than the other way around, but what here triggered the Tuska bell in my head are aspects of the drawing than can be found in Tuska's work before the late '40s.
ReplyDeleteBut, in any case, I'm glad to be informed that Tuska and Morisi shared a studio. TNX!
Hey don't get me wrong.. i love this blog to pieces . I wasn't blaming Karswell for anything really..maybe that he chose to post this story instead of something more deserving is all. Just like you can bust on your friend for choosing to serve haggis and wheatgrass juice at his superbowl party instead of grilling some steaks and chilling some beers.
ReplyDelete