Monday, March 23, 2009

A Pact With the Devil

Web of Evil Week begins with four days of Jack Cole posts... our pedal fully to the metal with this satanic beauty from the December 1953 issue of Web of Evil #9. Some of you may have seen this tale posted elsewhere last year, but for those that missed it, here it is scanned from my own collection and now forever archived at THOIA.











TOMORROW: More Jack Cole!

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Also, if you haven’t already--- DO NOT miss all the fantastic monster kid fun over at Magic Carpet Burn this month: Munsters, Astro Boy, Mexican Masked Wrestlers, Little Monsters, Mr. and Mrs. J. Evil Scientist, etc… MCB is a blast!

Click HERE!

13 comments:

Unknown said...

I can still hear you saying
You would never break the pact

Anonymous said...

FANTASTIC STORY AND ART...........NOBODY CAN TOUCH COLE. NOBODY!!! REALLY LOOKING FORWARD TO THE REST OF THE WEEK!!

blackwalnut2001 said...

Jack Cole + Web of Evil, a terrific combination. Standard tale turned into an event -- that splash, those nasty little demons, that RAIN... just great.

sfdoomed said...

That splash page was so awesome that I saved it as my desktop picture.

I don't know about how bad things were for this dude; he ended up jumping off the bridge anyway, but at least he got ten years of money and debauchery first. Yeah, he is now going to hell, but don't Christians say that suicide makes you go to hell anyway? So why not get tens years of party time first?

Anonymous said...

I think he wasn't going to jump initially, so he got 10 years of party+eternal damnation instead of being heartbroken for a couple of weeks.

Liked the artwork too, but the story was weak IMO - no twists, overlong opening, and no likable protagonist.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, the story was weak (or "standard," as blackwalnut put it) but it's the telling here that I think has us all so excited. I know I've never seen any other creator in any medium use a simple signature to haunt a protagonist (or in this case, anti-hero) in so effective a way. I really loved that. It's the inventiveness of Cole that makes so many of us admire him and just about everything he does.

The other thing is how much info he could get into a panel. Very few other artists in comics could do it. Few even tried. That one panel where we first see Masters has four layers of focus. Masters and the phone pole, then the churchgoers, then the house, then the bridge, and it's all very clear -- and all in a smaller than average sized panel. Amazing.

Mike H said...

I worship Jack Cole. His horror is superb and his pin-up stuff is sexy. The guy could do no wrong.

Anonymous said...

Cole has a touch of Ghastly Graham Ingels in him.

Anonymous said...

You ever get the feeling that Satan isn't really a nice fella?

Love the art, and even though the story WAS a bit standard; Cole saves it through little touches like the signature remaining even after the paper is burned. Badass.

Kitty LeClaw said...

OMG, I NEED Lily Munster's wolf shawl!!

Birthday's coming up...

Mr. Karswell said...

>OMG, I NEED Lily Munster's wolf shawl!!

I thought you'd like that...

Prof. Grewbeard said...

thanx again for the p-p-p-plug, Kars!

Emby Quinn said...

Is it just my depraved brain, or did this whole story read like one of those manic, over-the-top Jack Chick religious cartoon tracts?

...Anyone?